Introduction

When the Vietnamese god were handing out the loveliest parts of the country’s 3,200 kilometers (1,900 miles) of coastline, Nha Trang bay must have called “Here!” several times over. The area boasts six kilometers (3,6 miles) of idyllic white beaches fringed with countless coconut palms.

When the sun is already beating down on Nha Trang bay, the hardest part is over for the fishermen – but so is the best art for visitors. Late risers find nothing more then the freshly raked sand of the hotel beach, studded with loungers on which to spend a lazy day.

Most visitors see nothing of the colorful, bustling beach life at sunrise. The beach usually crammed with people welcoming in the day in their own individual style, Forming a cheerful community. Young men playing ball, older people deep in concentration perForming their tai chi exercises, fisher families drawing in their nets. Friendly beach joggers calling “Hey, come on”, inviting you to join them. For many, it’s the perfect way to start the day in a foreign country.

The people of Nha Trang have long-standing experience with foreign visitors, particularly French and Americans. Perhaps that is the reason behind their casual nonchalance; they go about their daily business as they did before, now that the sale of souvenirs, dragon fruit, manicures, and massages on the beach s prohibited by the police as a potential irritation to the tourists. But perhaps, the morning bustle is only a relic of colonial times, when the last emperor, Bao Dai, would mingle with the people here in the “Nice of Vietnam”, taking the sea air. Of course, the last emperor also left behind him elegant holiday villas, now converted into elegant hotels by the new government. 

The coast here is the meeting point of three cultures, whose coexistence has for centuries been intimately intertwined with the development of the region’s population. An enormous statue of Buddha sits at Long Son Pagoda. The bell tower of the Catholic cathedral is impossible to overlook. And the temples of Po Nagar stand on the River Cai, stone witnesses to the ancient Cham culture. This tolerant coexistence, although it has not always functioned smoothly. The Buddhist monks of the 1960s who set fire to themselves in protest at the Siaogn regime of the Catholic dictator Diem were from Central Vietnam, some actually from Nha Trang. In Vietnam, history is omnipresent. Recent history is often the inspiration of reflection, while more ancient history is a feast for the curious, especially jeer on the south coast, which was the domicile of the Cham people until the 14th century.

Even visitors who profess to be unimpressed by old ruins end up at a Cham tower sooner or later. At Phan Rang, for example, only a few kilometers from Nha Trang, this mysterious people established the center of their Kingdom, Panduranga. It is the most important temple from their culture, and the Poklong Garai Complex was the best preserved of all.

Van Phong bay, this bay is far and away the most beautiful in Vietnam, and is regarded as a top-quality ecological paradise for divers. A host of rules and regulations were draw up to preserve the environment; no boat was allowed to moor without permission, and at sunset all boats have to leave the bay. 

Now hesitant attempts are emerging to tolerate: “green tourism” – considered by experts to be the only way to preserve one of the deepest bays in the world, with its turquoise waters and sensitive coral reefs, enabling it to develop into a visitor attraction without compromising the habitats of hundreds of species of flora and fauna.