Vietnam's beach capital — seafood by the South China Sea, night market street food, and the longest white-sand bay in the country
Nha Trang (population 500,000, Khánh Hòa Province) is Vietnam's primary beach city — a long bay curving around an island-studded coast with 19 offshore islands accessible by boat, where the fishing industry and a beach resort scene coexist in the same bay. The seafood is outstanding: the South China Sea produces some of the freshest lobster, crab, and shellfish in Southeast Asia, and the night market on Trần Phú Boulevard runs until midnight with vendors grilling whole squid, snails with lemongrass, and bánh căn (mini rice-flour pancakes cooked in clay moulds, served with fish sauce). Nha Tra…
Nha Trang was the capital of the Cham Kingdom of Kauthara from the 7th to the 13th century — the Po Nagar Cham Towers on a granite outcrop above the Cái River are one of the finest surviving examples of Cham temple architecture in Vietnam, built between the 7th and 12th centuries and still in active use as a Hindu-Buddhist place of worship by the Cham community and Vietnamese Buddhists alike. French colonists arrived in the 19th century and established Nha Trang as a seaside resort and research station; Alexandre Yersin settled here in 1893 and spent 50 years conducting agricultural and medic…