Da Nang, Hoi An & Central Vietnam

This was the land of Champa, a group of Indianised kingdoms of Austronesian-speaking Cham people that flourished from about the 2nd century to the 15th. Their religious centre was the Hindu sanctuary of Mỹ Sơn in Quảng Nam (now part of Da Nang), built over many centuries for kings who worshipped Shiva, and their capitals moved from Indrapura, near Đồng Dương, to Vijaya in the former Bình Định province. The Vietnamese pushed south in stages: Vijaya fell in 1471, and the last Cham principality around Phan Rang was absorbed by the 1830s.

Hội An, known to Europeans as Faifo, became one of Southeast Asia's great ports from the 16th century, where Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch traders met, until the river silted and trade shifted to Da Nang. In the 1770s three brothers from the Tây Sơn district of Bình Định began the uprising that overthrew both the Nguyễn and Trịnh lords. France attacked Da Nang in 1858, starting its conquest, and later ran it as the concession of Tourane.

The Central Highlands were long the realm of Ê Đê, Jarai, Bahnar and other upland peoples, only brought under close Vietnamese control in the 20th century. In the Vietnam War the region was a battlefield: US Marines landed at Da Nang in 1965, the Ia Drang battle was fought in Gia Lai that year, and in 1968 American soldiers killed hundreds of villagers at Sơn Mỹ (Mỹ Lai) in Quảng Ngãi. The fall of Buôn Ma Thuột in March 1975 opened the final offensive. Da Nang has since become the largest city of central Vietnam.

Central Vietnamese are known as plain-spoken and hard-working, and the Quảng Nam accent is recognisable across the country. Hội An keeps a Chinese stamp in its Fujian, Cantonese and Hainanese assembly halls, and a whole calendar of ancestor and guild festivals. Bình Định prides itself on bài chòi, a sung card game held in bamboo huts, now UNESCO intangible heritage.

The Cham remain a living community around Phan Rang and Phan Rí. Some follow a Hindu-derived faith and others Bani Islam, and the Katê festival each autumn draws Cham families to the towers of Po Klong Garai with music and offerings. The Cham village of Bàu Trúc makes pottery by hand, shaped without a wheel and fired in open fires.

The Central Highlands have a different culture again. Ê Đê, Jarai, Bahnar and Xơ Đăng communities have matrilineal traditions in some groups, tall-roofed rông communal houses and longhouses, and a gong music tradition recognised by UNESCO as the Space of Gong Culture. Festivals of gongs and rice wine drunk from jars through long straws are still held. Kon Tum also has a notable Catholic community.

Da Nang, with more than a million people in its urban districts, is central Vietnam's economic capital: an orderly city of wide roads, bridges over the Hàn River, beach hotels and a growing IT and tourism sector. Nha Trang and Quy Nhơn are mid-sized coastal cities, Hội An a small town that lives from visitors and tailoring, and Pleiku, Kon Tum and Buôn Ma Thuột are the highland centres.

Tourism dominates the coast, with Korean, Chinese and Russian visitors prominent in Da Nang and Nha Trang; fishing, shrimp farming, salt and cashews fill the rest. The highlands are the heart of Vietnam's coffee industry, and also grow pepper, rubber and durian. Migration of lowland Vietnamese to the plateau has reshaped the highlands since 1975, and land rights and deforestation are ongoing tensions.

The coast wakes at dawn, when crowds swim and exercise on the beaches before the heat, and fishing boats unload at the harbours. Evenings are for seafood at plastic tables on the sand and, in Hội An, for lanterns along the river.

Quảng Nam's signature is mì Quảng, wide rice noodles with pork, shrimp or chicken, peanuts, herbs and a crisp sesame cracker, served with only a little turmeric-tinted broth. Hội An adds cơm gà, chicken rice cooked in chicken fat and turmeric, and its own bánh mì, while Da Nang is known for bánh tráng cuốn thịt heo, sliced boiled pork rolled in rice paper with herbs and dipped in fermented anchovy sauce.

Along the coast, bún chả cá, rice noodles in a fish broth with fish cakes, is a staple from Da Nang to Nha Trang. Quy Nhơn is known for bánh hỏi, fine woven mats of rice vermicelli, and for Bàu Đá rice spirit; Khánh Hòa, around Nha Trang and Ninh Hòa, for nem nướng, grilled pork sausage rolled in rice paper, and bún sứa, jellyfish noodle soup; and for swiftlet nests, harvested from island cliffs. Phan Rang makes bánh căn, little rice-flour pancakes cooked in clay moulds, and grows the grapes that supply a small local wine industry. Quảng Ngãi's Lý Sơn island is famous for its garlic.

The highlands eat grilled chicken, bamboo-tube rice and smoky pork, and Gia Lai is known for phở khô, a two-bowl phở with the noodles served dry beside the broth. The drink is coffee: robusta from Buôn Ma Thuột, roasted dark and filtered at the table.

Da Nang has long beaches, the Marble Mountains with their cave shrines, the Cham sculpture museum, the forested Sơn Trà peninsula, the Hải Vân Pass on its northern edge, and the Bà Nà Hills resort with the Golden Bridge. Hội An, about 30 kilometres south, has its old town of shophouses, assembly halls and the Japanese Covered Bridge, An Bàng beach and the Chàm Islands offshore, and Mỹ Sơn, whose brick temples were largely destroyed by US bombing during the war, lies in a valley inland.

Further south, Quảng Ngãi has the Sơn Mỹ memorial and Lý Sơn island. Quy Nhơn, now the administrative centre of the enlarged Gia Lai province, is a quieter beach city with the Cham towers of Tháp Đôi. The coast of the former Phú Yên province has the basalt columns of Gành Đá Đĩa. Nha Trang combines a city beach with the Po Nagar towers, island boat trips and diving around Hòn Mun. In Ninh Thuận, the Cham towers of Phan Rang, led by Po Klong Garai, stand on dry hills above vineyards, with Vĩnh Hy bay and Núi Chúa National Park on the coast.

Inland, Kon Tum has its wooden cathedral and rông houses in the surrounding villages, Pleiku the crater lake of Biển Hồ, and Buôn Ma Thuột coffee museums and the forests of Yok Đôn National Park, with the Dray Nur waterfall nearby.