Nha Trang

A grey robe is issued at the entrance and goes on before you enter the main tower. The brick towers went up between the 8th and 11th centuries, and Cham and Vietnamese worshippers still bring incense. The hill looks down on the Cai river mouth and its boats.

The bottom shelves so gently that a hundred paces out the water is still at your waist. Stretches of thatched umbrellas belong to the hotels behind them, and the gaps between are the public sections. Jellyfish drift in during April and May, and they sting.

The line crosses 3,320m of bay on pylons built as small Eiffel towers and lit after dark, and it stops in strong wind, so anyone crossing should check when the last car comes back.

The white seated Buddha on the hill was raised in 1963 for the monks who burned themselves, 152 steps up with one reclining Buddha halfway. People at the gate offer to guide you for money; they have nothing to do with the temple.

You sit about 20 minutes in a tub of warm mineral mud. Out in the sun the coating dries and cracks. Then you rinse it off under the hot spring water. Bring a swimsuit and dry clothes; weekend afternoons fill with families and the tubs run out.

The marine research institute is the museum itself, open since 1922. Downstairs are tanks of living reef fish and upstairs walls of specimens in glass jars, with one room given to a whale skeleton dug out of an inland rice paddy and reassembled whole.

Slabs of granite pile on one another down into the sea. Climbing down between the boulders puts the waves breaking under your feet, and the hollow like a handprint on the top one is explained as a giant steadying himself as he slipped.

Yersin, who found the plague bacillus, lived out his life here. His desk, library and the telescope he used to warn fishermen of weather sit inside the Pasteur Institute, which keeps hours short. His grave is 20km off at Suoi Dau, still under incense.

Resorts have taken the northern stretch, but the south end still has nothing but shacks and awnings. Thirty minutes south of town the sand carries on as far as the airport. Between October and March the swell comes up and surf lessons run.

Three pools sit one above another up the stream; a path reaches the first, but past it the route climbs the boulders along the water, and wet moss gives shoes nothing to hold. It lies 25km north of the city.

Vietnam's first designated marine protected area, with coral reef still ringing the island. Island-hopping boats leave from Cau Da port and lend snorkel gear. Visibility peaks in the morning, before any wind rises.

A grey stone Gothic church on a rocky rise beside the railway station. The wall along the path up is packed with funeral niches, and that wall catches the eye before the church does. The interior is closed to sightseers during Mass.

Nha Trang's big traditional market, built around a round central hall. Dried squid, fish jerky, mango leather and bird's nest drinks are stacked high, so many come to shop for gifts. In the lanes outside, banh can and banh xeo are cooked every morning.

An island in Van Phong Bay to the north, where a sandbar runs underwater like a road linking three islets. When the tide drops, people wade along it to the next island. The drive up from town runs close to two hours, so it takes a whole day.

Villas the French built on the Cau Da headland in the 1920s, later the summer retreat of Bao Dai, the last emperor. They are a hotel now, but a paid ticket lets you walk the gardens and display rooms. From the pavilion at the tip you look across to Hon Tre.

Pale sand some sixty minutes' drive north of the city. Shallows stretch a long way out, with a fraction of the city beach crowd. On the way, stop at the Hon Khoi salt fields at dawn, before the heat, when workers rake the salt into heaps.