Da Lat's Bushels of Blossoms

Nestled 1,500 meters above sea level on the Langbiang Plateau in the southern area of Vietnam's Central Highlands, the picturesque landscapes of Lam Dong Province's Da Lat Town attract large numbers of tourists annually.

Fruit and floating markets: Life in Vietnam's Mekong Delta

Vietnam's Mekong Delta is a vibrant, lush landscape of increasingly modern cities amid sprawling rice fields and jungle. The Mekong River and its branches shape life in the region. People live, shop, sell and eat from and in their vessels and homes on the water. Here, the sun rises on the Hau River. Like much of the rest of Vietnam, the day here begins at the crack of dawn when the weather is still cool. ( Jason La / Los Angeles Times )

Cu Chi Tunnel

Cu Chi Tunnel is 70 km from Ho Chi Minh City in the Northwest. It is miniature battle versatile of Cu Chi’s military and people during the 30-year struggle longtime and fierce to fight invading enemy to receive independence, freedom for motherland. It also is the special architecture lying deeply underground with many stratums, nooks and crannies as complex as a cobweb, having spares for living, meeting and fighting with total lengths over 200 km. Real legends coming from the Tunnel are over human imaginativeness. Creeping down into the tunnel, only some yards, you can find out why Vietnam? A tiny country could defeat its enemy, the large and richest country in the world. Why Cu Chi, a barren and poor land could face strongly for 21 years to the army crowded many times compared with its force, warlike and equipped modern war weapons and means. In the fight, Cu Chi people won illustriously. Thanks to systems of tunnel ways, fortifications, combat trenches, soldiers and people of Cu Chi fought very bravely creating glorious feat of arms. The American invaders at first time stepped into Cu Chi land, they had to face so fierce resistances from tunnels from important and very difficult bases that they cried out, “Underground villages”, “Dangerous secret zone”, “cannot see any VC but they appear everywhere”… With its war pasture, Cu Chi Tunnels become a historical war hero of Vietnamese People like a 20th century legend and famous land in the world.

Phu Quy Island

120 kilometers southeast of the Phan Thiet Sea, lies ten beautiful islands which comprises the known Phu Quy District. From the range of islets, Phu Quy Island is deemed the largest with 16.5 km2 in area and a population of about 25,000. With its long stretch of white sandy beaches and dense coral reefs, only the rocky, northern half of the island is inhabited. Endowed with beautiful landscapes which include vast rows or casuarinas trees, the entirety of the island is very pristine.

Con Dao Islands

The Con Dao Islands are an emerald archipelago situated in the South China Sea about 50 kilometers off the south-eastern coast of Vietnam, including 16 islands and islets. Con Dao is around 185 kilometers away from the town Vung Tau. The largest island is Con Son Island, famous for its prison built by the French colonial government and giving Con Dao the name Devil’s Island, for nobody was supposed to ever return after embarking a boat heading for the island. The remains of these buildings can be visited today.

Phu Quoc Island

The tear-shaped Phu Quoc (Vietnamese Phú Quốc) is part of the Kiên Giang province. The distance from Phú Quốc to mainland Viet Nam is 45 km to Hà Tiên and 120 km to Rạch Giá. The island is 50 km long (from north to south) and 25 km wide (from east to west at its widest part).

Surrounded by more than 40 km of white beaches decorated with coconut palms, Phú Quốc, situated in the Gulf of Thailand near the Cambodian border, is Vietnam’s largest island. Its western coastline is sparsely populated while the interior is largely covered with jungle and mainly deserted.

An ethnic Khmer celebration

Ethnic Khmer’s welcomed summer during a traditional celebration in Soc Trang Province.

The festivities are held every year on the 15th day of the 6th month according to the lunar calendar.

Participants bring with them offerings to pagodas in order to pray for a good year for their families and for the country.

Vietnam to woo UAE tourists

Vietnam Embassy in Abu Dhabi is launching intense efforts to enhance the flow of tourists from the 
UAE to Vietnam.

Hoi An, Vietnam

“Even though the number of UAE tourists visiting Vietnam is low now, about 300 or so per month, we want to push this to very significant levels in the very near future,’’ Nguyen Quang Khai, Ambassador of Vietnam to the UAE said here on Thursday.

Banh mi Doner Kebabs, Hanoi

Over the last year or so, the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich has taken New York by storm, elevating the once humble pork and pickled vegetable sandwich to heights of gastronomic chic. In Hanoi, however, the typical banh mi (which translates simply as “bread” in Vietnamese and is written in English as banh my in Hanoi) is a pedestrian fried egg or pâté sandwich with a few slices of cucumber or a light smearing of chili sauce.

Banh My Van's baguette is filled with an array of fresh and pickled vegetables and tender pork flavored with Vietnamese spices, generously doused with both a chili and a creamy white sauce.

An unlikely variation on the sandwich is thriving in the Vietnamese capital: the banh mi doner kebab, which incorporates elements of a doner kebab, the Turkish staple, tucking shaved pork, pickled vegetables and chili sauce inside a warm baguette. Turkish doner kebabs are usually halal, meaning pork-free. Is this version culinary sacrilege? Perhaps, but a tasty one.

Saigon's Banh Mi

Booming Saigon, a city on the move, lays claim to a specialty that Vietnamese-American writer Monique Truong, author of "The Book of Salt" and the coming "Bitter in the Mouth," calls "the ultimate on-the-go fare": the extravagantly stuffed banh mi sandwich.

Saigon signature sandwich David Hagerman for The Wall Street Journal

The most popular form is banh mi thit ("thit" means "meat"), a warmed baguette spread with mayonnaise and pâté and filled with ham, headcheese and sausage. Cucumber, tomato, cilantro, chilies, and do chua, a bracing radish-and-carrot relish, add characteristic Vietnamese freshness. Optional condiments include chili sauce, Maggi (a bottled sauce of Swiss origin) and soy sauce.

Ordered to go, banh mi comes wrapped in scrap paper secured with a rubber band, a portable meal epitomizing Saigon's "insatiable appetite and deep desires, for better or worse, to keep moving," says Ms. Truong, who was born in Saigon, now officially called Ho Chi Minh City.