Destinations
Stories grouped by where you are, or where you are going.
Hanoi
In 1010, Emperor Lý Thái Tổ moved his capital here and named it Thăng Long, Rising Dragon. Hanoi's stories run from the lake where, legend says, a golden turtle took back a sword, through Old Quarter streets named for the goods they sold, to the 82 doctoral steles of the Temple of Literature and the steel spans of Long Biên Bridge. Its food has stories too: phở with no birth certificate, rice rolls thin enough to see through, and tea scented with a thousand lotus flowers for every kilogram.
14 storiesHa Long Bay
In Ha Long Bay, 1,969 islands rise from the water, most of them limestone laid down on a shallow seabed 340 million years ago. The bay's stories step into Sửng Sốt Cave, whose name means astonished, and reach Vân Đồn, a trading port founded in 1149. Just northeast, Bái Tử Long Bay keeps closed sea lakes inside its islands and wild deer on Ba Mùn island. Legend says a Mother Dragon and her children spat out jewels that became these islands, and both bays are named for them.
8 storiesNinh Binh
In Ninh Binh, limestone peaks rise straight out of the rice fields, and people have lived among them for more than 30,000 years. Its stories glide by boat through the caves of Tràng An and Tam Cốc, visit Hoa Lư, the capital Đinh Bộ Lĩnh chose in 968, and climb more than 300 stone steps to the old Bái Đính Pagoda.
22 storiesSa Pa
In the hamlet of Bản Dền, water flows from the ground already warm, and villagers paid for the pipes and pools themselves. Sa Pa's stories walk down to the terraced fields of Lao Chải and watch a Red Dao silversmith in Nậm Cang engrave suns and ears of rice on silver. They climb into the clouds on Ô Quy Hồ Pass and stand beneath Thác Bạc, the Silver Waterfall, which drops more than 200 meters. In the middle of town, about 500 climbing roses line a lakeside path.
105 storiesHue
For 143 years, from 1802 to 1945, Hue was the center of power of the Nguyễn emperors, Vietnam's last royal dynasty. Its stories follow the Perfume River past the Imperial City, Thiên Mụ Pagoda and the six steel spans of Trường Tiền Bridge, out to royal tombs that look nothing alike. Along the way, an old Hue folk verse keeps coming back: the bell of Thiên Mụ, the rooster's crow at Thọ Cương.
18 storiesHoi An
In the 17th century, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch traders lived side by side on this riverbank, and their town still stands, with more than 1,000 old houses. Hoi An's stories cross its covered bridge, sail out to the island of Cù Lao Chàm and reach the Cham towers of Mỹ Sơn, about 40 kilometers west. Then they come home to its kitchens, where noodles turn gold in ash water and Tết cakes drop from carved wooden molds.
82 storiesDa Nang
A French officer once climbed Bà Nà and found the air 5 to 10 degrees cooler than in sweltering Da Nang below. The city's stories climb that mountain, circle the green Sơn Trà Peninsula, where a white Quan Âm 67 meters tall faces the sea, and end on the Hải Vân Pass, whose name means sea and clouds.
10 storiesNha Trang
In Nha Trang, the sea has a street address: the city's central beach takes its name from Trần Phú Street. Its stories climb a hill to the Cham towers of Tháp Bà Ponagar and visit a museum that keeps a humpback whale skeleton 18 meters long. They cross the bay to Hòn Tằm, where a mud bath steps down the eastern slope like terraced rice fields. In island caves, swiftlets press strands of saliva into tiny cup-shaped nests, and nest gatherers still honor the founding ancestor of their trade.
17 storiesDa Lat
In 1893, the Swiss-born doctor Alexandre Yersin set foot on the Lâm Viên plateau, where Da Lat sits at about 1,500 meters. Da Lat's stories circle Xuân Hương Lake, made in 1919 by damming a stream, and visit a railway station built from 1932 to 1938. Datanla Falls takes its name from K'Ho words for water under the leaves. At Pongour, water spreads more than 100 meters wide over a staircase of rock, and the K'Ho tell a legend of a woman chief, Ka Nai, and four rhinoceroses.
19 storiesHo Chi Minh City
Every alley in Saigon has its broken rice, a dish once called the rice of poor homes and now sold from early morning until late at night. The stories here also follow hủ tiếu Nam Vang, a noodle soup that carries the name of the Cambodian capital, and rise from the Tây Ninh plain to the summit of Bà Đen Mountain, 986 meters up, where a copper Lady Buddha stands above the clouds.
116 storiesMekong Delta
At Ninh Kiều Wharf, boats leave before dawn for a floating market on a river almost 2 kilometers wide. The Mekong Delta's stories visit a Cantonese assembly hall finished in 1896 and a pagoda with Roman arches outside and 18 wooden arhats inside. In Sóc Trăng, bakers make bánh pía, a cake whose crust peels off in thin layers. The stories pass through a wetland reserve where a crocodile has lived since 1985 and end at Cà Mau Cape, where the land keeps growing out into the sea.
5 storiesPhu Quoc
On Phu Quoc, anchovies are mixed with salt right on the boat, the moment the net comes up. The island's stories follow them into the vat houses of Dương Đông and An Thới, where they rest for months in wooden vats with nothing else added, until fish sauce runs out through a broom of rattan. They also ride the cable car out to Hòn Thơm and walk the 7 kilometers of Bãi Sao, Star Beach, where people say starfish once appeared on the sand at sunset.
8 storiesPhong Nha
Late in 1899, the French priest Leopold Cadiere paddled into Phong Nha Cave and found a stele carved with 97 characters, left by the ancient Cham about 1,000 years ago. Its stories ride a boat up the Son River into that cave. They follow Hồ Khanh, an agarwood hunter who sheltered from a storm in 1990 at the mouth of Sơn Đoòng, the largest cave in the world, where a forest grows underground. Then they climb down a 15-meter ladder into the Tú Làn caves near Tân Hóa.