Includes FREE planning and background information. Looking for the ‘real’ Vietnam? Try the north-central region on for size. It’s overlooked by most travellers scurrying between Hanoi and Hue, which may be why it’s still so charming and unassuming. The countryside is extraordinarily beautiful yet largely free of tourist traps, the towns are filled with regular folk who won’t try to sell you a conical hat, and there’s still a blissful dearth of people who speak English. The jewel in the crown is Ninh Binh, blessed with a karst-studded landscape set off by lush green rice paddies. People come for a day, then stay for several when they realise that beyond the pleasant-enough Tam Coc is even more beautiful backcountry, the kind that’s best explored on two wheels. There are also a number of churches here, the grande dame being the cathedral at Phat Diem (immortalised in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American).
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