Salzburg

Buon Ma Thuot can trace its origins back to a simple rural settlement: the Ede name translates as ‘Thuot’s father’s village’. But Buon Ma Thuot (pronounced ‘boon me tote’) has long outgrown its rustic origins and is now a thoroughly modern, affluent city.

Dong Hoi is a pleasantly untouristed port and seaside town. It enjoys an attractive location, clinging to the banks of the Nhat Le River, and has beaches to the north and south. Recently established air links to Haiphong (for Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island) and the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai promise to significantly increase the city's appeal as a destination. Dong Hoi also has excellent transport links to the Phong Nha region.

Steadily being transformed into a vast new city, Tuy Hoa is characterised by its vast plaza and multi-laned boulevards. It’s a possible overnight stop to break up a longer journey, especially for cyclists brave enough to tackle Hwy 1, but most visitors are just passing through.

Designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2003, the remarkable Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park contains the oldest karst mountains in Asia, formed approximately 400 million years ago. Riddled with hundreds of cave systems – many of extraordinary scale and length – and spectacular underground rivers, Phong Nha is a speleologists’ heaven on earth.

Rugged, craggy and jungle-clad Cat Ba, the largest island in Halong Bay, has experienced a tourism surge in recent years. The central hub of Cat Ba Town is now framed by a chain of low-rise concrete hotels along its once-lovely bay, but the rest of the island is largely untouched and as wild as ever. With idyllic Lan Ha Bay just offshore, you'll soon overlook Cat Ba Town's overdevelopment.

Fringed with white-sand beaches and with large tracts still cloaked in dense tropical jungle, Phu Quoc rapidly morphed from a sleepy island backwater to a must-visit beach escape for Western expats and sun-seeking tourists. Beyond the resorts lining Long Beach, rapid development beginning on the east coast and mega resorts in sight of Sao Beach, there's still ample room for exploration and escaping the sometimes littered waters. Dive the reefs, kayak in the bays, eat up the back-road kilometres on a motorbike or just lounge on the beach, followed by a massage and a fresh seafood dinner.

The epicentre of the Mekong Delta, Can Tho is the largest city in the region and feels like a metropolis after a few days exploring the backwaters. As the political, economic, cultural and transportation centre of the Mekong Delta, it’s a buzzing town with a lively waterfront lined with sculpted gardens, an appealing blend of narrow backstreets and wide boulevards, and perhaps the greatest concentration of foreigners in the delta. It is also the perfect base for nearby floating markets, the major draw for tourists who come here to boat along the many canals and rivers leading out of town.

Dalat is an alternative Vietnam: the weather is spring-like instead of tropical hot, the town is dotted with French-colonial villas rather than socialist architecture, and the surrounding farms cultivate strawberries, coffee and flowers instead of rice.

The ‘rice bowl’ of Vietnam, the delta is carpeted in a dizzying variety of greens. It's a water world that moves to the rhythms of the mighty Mekong, where boats, houses and markets float upon the innumerable rivers, canals and streams that criss-cross the landscape like arteries.