Sapa.
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Established by the French in the 1920s as a summer escape from the north’s blistering heat, Sapa’s popularity has ballooned in recent years, but the adventures remain time-honoured. Visitors can hike to the tiered rice terraces in the plunging Muong Hoa valley before spending a night in mist-wrapped hills or ascending Mount Fan Si Pan, the highest peak in Indochina and an unbeatable experience in the smoky light of dawn.
Last year, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has signed a decision recognizing the resort town of Sapa as a national tourism site.
Coming in at 10th place, the charming town of Hoi An in central Quang Nam province feels a world apart. Unlike Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, which have an unholy obsession with motorbikes, Hoi An is lost in a Zen-like communion of days gone by, a legacy of the French, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese who once traded here.
From stopped-clock tea warehouses to traditional tailors, Hoi An Old Town is framed by mustard-yellow shop-fronts and cut through by sinewy canals. Cars and motorbikes are banned from the town centre, so it is a cycling nirvana: following dozens of threadbare routes from rice paddies to temples and magazine-cover beaches.
Rounding out the list of the top ten are Siem Reap and Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Bagan in Myanmar, Chiang Mai in Thailand, Bali in Indonesia, Ko Samui in Thailand, Borneo in Malaysia, Bohol in the Philippines, and Luang Prabang in Laos.
In recent years, Hoi An has been touted as one of the travel destinations most worthy to visit in the country and earned plaudits from popular foreign travel sites and the international community. In addition, Bai choi, a traditional folk singing game in the central coastal region that has recently been recognized by the UNESCO’s as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, was also performed by local residents on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. More than 3.2 million tourists visited the ancient city in 2017, a pickup of 21% against the year earlier, according to a report by Hoi An City.
