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Beyond the urban buzz and excitement of Ho Chi Minh City, the attractions of the surrounding region include fascinating cultural and historical sights such as the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai Holy See temple at Tay Ninh. Also worth exploring is the Unesco-accredited area around Can Gio, especially the extensive mangrove forests that were an integral part of the Viet Cong resistance effort during the American War.

Established as a hill station by the French colonialists in 1922, Sapa today is the tourism centre of the northwest.

Ha Giang is the final frontier in northern Vietnam, an amazing landscape of limestone pinnacles and granite outcrops. The far north of the province has some of the most spectacular scenery in the country – if not the region – and the trip between Yen Minh and Dong Van, and then across the Mai Pi Leng Pass to Meo Vac, is quite mind-blowing. Ha Giang should be one of the most popular destinations in this region, but its distance from just about everywhere else keeps visitor numbers at a low level.

Northeast Vietnam includes Halong Bay, one of the region's biggest draws. Reasons to linger after your boat trip include the lesser-known but stunning Bai Tu Long Bay, the intersection of nature and culture that is Ba Be National Park, the otherworldly karst landscapes outside of Cao Bang and the urban options in Haiphong.

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is Vietnam at its most dizzying: a high-octane city of commerce and culture that has driven the country forward with its pulsating energy. A chaotic whirl, the city breathes life and vitality into all who settle here, and visitors cannot help but be hauled along for the ride.

Around 40km west of Danang lies lush Ba Na. Originally established in 1919 by the French as a hill resort, the 200-odd old villas are now ruined, but the refreshingly cool weather and gorgeous countryside views make it a worthwhile trip from Danang.

Tra Vinh, one of the prettiest towns in the Mekong Delta, is a peaceful place to explore the region's little-touted Cambodian connection. Around 300,000 ethnic Khmer live in the surrounding province and the area is dotted with more than 140 Khmer pagodas. With wide boulevards shaded by lines of trees, the town itself is more symbolic of the French colonialist era, but get beyond the outskirts and you'll soon discover that Khmer culture is still alive and well in these parts of Vietnam. Tra Vinh also has a small but active Chinese community, one of the few such communities that remain in the Mekong Delta region.

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.

Often referred to as the Ba Be Lakes, Ba Be National Park was established as a national park in 1992. The scenery here swoops from limestone mountains peaking at 1554m down into plunging valleys wrapped in dense evergreen forests, speckled with waterfalls and caves, with the lakes themselves dominating the very heart of the park.