Vietnam TravelTravel Special FeaturesVietnam - A Coastal JourneyNha Trang - Suft City

Nha Trang - Suft City

Come evening, the wide, palm-lined boulevard that runs beside Nha Trang's six km-long municipal beach is full of young people on bicycles and motorbikes, everyone enjoying the balmy sea air and the town's carnival atmosphere. Venders selling snacks and balloons crowd around the small and endearingly rustic beach-front amusement park, where delighted kids ride on bumper boats, colorful merry-go-rounds, and an ancient Ferris wheel. In dozens of beach-front cafes, couples sit looking out to sea, admiring the lights of the town's fishing fleets, sprinkled across the horizon like a sparkling necklace.

The next morning, the town's brightly painted red and blue fishing boats will once again be moored beside the Xom Bong Brigde, their catch already on sale in Nha Trang's sprawling central market. And most visitors to the town will be back on the beach, dozing under the coconut palms, or feasting on fresh pineapples or mangoes, which vendors carry up and down the sand in baskets balanced on bamboo shoulder poles. Drinks, snacks, paperback novels, manicures, massages … with so many goods and services offered right on the beach, there’s little reason to move. The water, of course, might lure you to leave your deck chair - either for a dipor, if you’re feeding ambitious, to snorkel or scuba dive.

Nha Trang's clear turquoise bay is dotted with islands, some a short hop from shore and some hours away. Boats tours take visitors to Monkey Island, home to hundreds of blazen monkeys; Ebony Island, famed for its fine snorkeling and Bamboo Island, a favorite stop thanks to its while sand beach and dramatic limestone cliffs.

Scuba divers may look forward to exploring the bay’s colorful coral reefs, where they'll find sea urchins, sponges and sea anemones, plus scores of gleaming tropical fish, giant stingrays and moray eels.

Even landlubbers, however, will enjoy Nha Trang, for there's plenty to see on solid ground. Built between the seventh and 12th centuries, the Po Nagar Cham Towers stand watch over the town on a hill to the north of town. Their elaborately tiered roofs and carved sides eroded by time, their statues plundered by invading armies, these scarred brick towers seem to be part of the landscape, as if they have fused with the rocky hills from which they rise.

A newer though equally inspiring landmark is a 14 meter-tall statue of the Buddha, which sits on a hillside above Long Son Pagoda, gazing serenely out to sea. Built in 1962 to mark the southern regime's persecution of Buddhists, the dazzling while image seems to float above the treetops. Climb 152 steps to share the Buddha's view of rooftops, red-flowering flame trees, coconut palms, golden sand and blue fishing boats, and the shimmering blue bay.

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