The bay and islands of Nha Trang, the thousand-year-old Cham towers of Po Nagar, a mineral mud bath and the cable car out to Hon Tre.
Photo: Huy / Unsplash
Day 1
Your guide meets you at Cam Ranh International Airport for the 35 km drive up the coast road to your hotel. In the afternoon we climb Cu Lao hill to the Po Nagar Towers, a Cham temple complex begun around the eighth century and dedicated to the goddess Ponagar, where both Cham and Vietnamese worshippers still bring offerings. We continue to Long Son Pagoda, with its white seated Buddha at the top of 193 steps, and the evening is free along the beachfront on Tran Phu street.
Day 2
In the morning you board at Cau Da harbour for the four-island trip around Nha Trang Bay, which is ranked among the most beautiful bays in the world. The main stop is Hon Mun, Vietnam's first marine protected area, where the coral reef sits close enough to the surface to snorkel over comfortably. Lunch is seafood on the boat or on Hon Mot island, and the afternoon is spent swimming at Hon Tam before returning to shore.
Day 3
The morning is spent on the cable car that runs almost 3.3 km across open water from the Phu Quy shore to Hon Tre island, carried on pylons standing directly in the sea with the whole bay in view. You have the day free on the island. Late in the afternoon we return to the mainland for a hot mineral mud bath — long associated with Nha Trang, the mud is mixed from local mineral springs, and you soak for around twenty minutes before rinsing in warm mineral water.
Day 4
The morning is spent at Christ the King Cathedral, universally called the Mountain Church, a Gothic building put up in dressed stone from 1928 on a rock outcrop in the middle of the city. You then have free time at Dam market for bird's nest, dried squid and grilled pork rolls. Your guide transfers you to Cam Ranh International Airport, where the programme ends.
Nha Trang is the easiest beach city in central Vietnam to travel in: the airport is 35 km from the centre, the hotels sit directly on the seafront road, and almost everything worth seeing is either within about 10 km or out in the bay. Four days here means no hotel change at all.
We put the sea and the islands on two consecutive days and leave the land-based sights until afterwards. The reason is practical: boats out to the bay depend on the weather, so if day two is rough there is still day three to swap into without wrecking the programme. The mud bath is scheduled for the end of a day for the same sort of reason — after hours in the sun and wind it is the obvious thing to want.
Po Nagar deserves more time than most visitors give it. It is not a ruin: Cham communities from Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan still travel here to make offerings, and the stone goddess remains in place in the main tower. If the group arrives during a ceremony, your guide will point out which areas call for quiet. Group size and hotel category are agreed before the contract is signed.
Vietnam ToursThree UNESCO World Heritage sites within 150 km of each other, unhurried over four days — Da Nang's coast, Hoi An's lantern-lit old town and the imperial capital of Hue.
Vietnam ToursA day above the clouds — a record-setting cable car to 1,487 metres, the Golden Bridge held up by two giant stone hands, and a French village built in 1919.
Vietnam ToursA morning in a bamboo basket boat among the water palms of Cam Thanh, then an afternoon in Hoi An's old town that lasts until the lanterns come on.