Quy Nhon – Travel guide at Wikivoyage - Kiến Thức Cho Người lao Động Việt Nam

Morning sunrise over Quy Nhơn

Quy Nhơn, the capital of Bình Định province on the coast of central Vietnam, is a city long dismissed by Vietnamese and foreign travellers alike as no more than a convenient overnight stop halfway between the old-world architecture of Hội An and the booming resorts of Nha Trang. But for those in the know, that disregard is precisely what makes Quy Nhơn the rarest of gems: a beach city in Southeast Asia unspoiled by the ravages of mass tourism. With little traffic, no international chains, and a siesta time that sees most businesses close for a few hours every afternoon, this city of 457,000 people (2019) has a sleepy, small-town charm which stands in stark contrast to the commercialism and development of other Vietnamese cities.

Understand

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There are a lot of reasons the city is still far off the radar of international travellers. The sand on the beach in the centre is an unappealing shade of dark yellow. The ocean isn’t much better: it’s a dark hue best classified as murky green. There’s almost no international food. There’s no nightlife. Few people speak English. Hotels are outdated and even the newer ones are of pretty middling quality. Most of the ancient archaeological sites are hard to find, poorly maintained and have no information in English. And the region is hundreds of kilometres from the main hotspots in Vietnam which international tourists usually visit.

Those who make it to the city find that information in English is scarce and what does exist is often incorrect. The few travel writers who describe Quy Nhơn all use the same wrong sources, and inaccurate information—often hilariously inaccurate information—gets repeated for years and is never corrected. As for the historical background, there’s been very little published in English about the history of the region, so international visitors have no context to understand what they see. The government isn’t much help: tourist outreach is essentially non-existent. Even Google Maps as of 2016 has incorrect locations for quite a few businesses and sites.

But give Quy Nhơn a second glance and you’ll discover a fabulous destination hidden in plain sight. Bordered on both sides by layers of mountains receding into the hazy distance, the natural beauty of Quy Nhơn’s waterfront has inspired poets for centuries and is still its most obvious attraction today. A sparkling new promenade runs along the length of the city’s 5-km beach. Just off the promenade, dozens of open-air restaurants with sweeping 180-degree ocean views grill, steam and stew seafood caught only hours before by local fishermen and serve it to customers sitting on tiny plastic stools set haphazardly amidst grass and trees. On the beach, there are no water sports, no jet skis, no raves; most of the coast is undeveloped, unused and quiet, and even in the most central areas, the biggest craziness you’ll find are locals playing volleyball and Vietnamese tourists running—often fully clothed—into the water.

Outside the centre, you’ll find dozens of tiny fishing villages and coastal bays, the most accessible and best-preserved 11th-century Champa ruins in Vietnam, panoramic views from mountain roads slicing high above the coastal cliffs, and pristine beaches with not a soul in sight for 10 km.

And everywhere in Quy Nhơn, you’ll be charmed by the people. Almost no one speaks more than a few words of English, but as one of the few foreign visitors, you’ll be stopped constantly by adults and children shyly greeting you with their one phrase: “Hello, what you name!”. Their doors are always open – figuratively and literally – and if you walk around a bit, you’ll end up being invited to more coffees and meals than you could ever fit into your belly.

Orientation

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The centre of Quy Nhơn lies on a small peninsula which juts out like a dragon’s head from the mainland into the South China Sea. Trần Hưng Đạo street is the most convenient road running east to west, stretching from the far eastern tip through the city centre to connect to Highway 1A and the train station, airport and Bình Định countryside in the northwest. Most sites of interest to tourists are to the south of Trần Hưng Đạo; to the north are residential areas, fishing-related industries and industrial port zones.

Running from the north of Quy Nhơn to the south, the broad avenue Nguyễn Tất Thành splits the city into east–west halves. The eastern side is more developed, with more restaurants and sites of interest; on the western side, the city becomes less developed the farther you move away from Nguyễn Tất Thành. At the base of the mountain in the far west, the southern end of the city is dominated by the bus station, bulk stores and a few factories, while the northern end off Phạm Ngũ Lão street leads west into a labyrinth of arms-width dirt lanes with no names which crisscross between rickety and off-the-grid wooden homes; it’s a fascinating area to walk during the day, but avoid at night: it’s not dangerous, but it’s guaranteed you’ll get lost.

The city beach is on the south–southeastern end of Quy Nhơn. Locals joke that tourists end up driving in circles because they don’t understand the geography of the curving coast, so be careful: if you’re in the south, the beach is to the east, but if you’re in the west, it’s to the south. The main road along the beach is called Xuân Diệu on the east side and An Dương Vương in the south. In the far south of the city, the beach road connects to Highway 1D near the bus station at Tây Sơn street.

Quy Nhơn city limits (marked in cadet blue on the Quy Nhơn region map) stretch far outside the city centre, encompassing coastal villages, empty beaches, and lush green countryside. To the northwest, amidst rice paddies and rolling plains that were home to the Champa empire in the 11th century and to American and South Korean military bases in the 1960s, lie the airport and the main train station.

On the coast to the south of the city centre are several beautiful coves and villages, including Bãi Xép, the tiny fishing village popular with international tourists. To the northeast of the city is the Phuong Mai peninsula, a vast expanse of mostly barren land with stunning coastline; it’s still fairly undeveloped, but is being rapidly transformed into an industrial and luxury tourist zone.

Climate

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Quy Nhơn is classified as a tropical savanna climate due to its heavy monsoon rains from mid-September to mid-December, light and infrequent rain the other nine months, and temperatures which almost never drop below 19°C (66°F) at any time of the year.

Quy Nhon

Climate chart (explanation)

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totals in mmAverage of 10 years from 2006 to 2015. Source: National Centers for Environmental Information.

Imperial conversion
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Average max. and min. temperatures in °F

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totals in inches

It’s hot and sticky during the peak tourist season from April to mid-September, but the summer is much milder than Saigon in the far south of the country or even Nha Trang 220 km (135 mi) to the south. Temperatures in Quy Nhơn can rise up to a sweltering 37°C (99°F), but most summer days are typically around 32°C (90°F), and the beach area benefits from the cooling of gentle ocean breezes. Evenings are warm and pleasant, with temperatures generally around 27°C (81°F) and never dipping below 25°C (77°F).

The monsoon season from mid-September to mid-December sees torrential bursts of rain on most days and nights. Most businesses in the city are unaffected and stay open, but the schedules of the open-air beach-front restaurants are more varied: some close during the rain, some move their tables into the kitchen buildings, and a few hardy souls brave the elements to eat outside under makeshift shelters amidst the puddles. Prices in Quy Nhơn don’t have as much seasonal fluctuation as other beach cities in Vietnam, but hotel rates do drop slightly during monsoon times.

Mid-December to mid-February is the coldest period. Daytime temperatures are mild around 25°C (77°F). But nights get chilly—at least what counts as chilly on the coast of Central Vietnam. Evening temperatures typically drop to 21°C (70°F), and with very few houses or restaurants using heating, locals break out their winter sweaters and scarves and snuggle close together over steaming hot pot dinners. In contrast to the very dry winter weather in Saigon and the far south of Vietnam during these months, Quy Nhơn does have sporadic rain, but it’s light and there are often weeks at a time without a drop from the sky. Outside of the Tết holiday period, this season sees few tourists.

Mid-February to mid-April is Quy Nhơn’s pleasant spring season. Temperatures rise to 28°C (82°F) during the day and 24°C (75°F) at night, whilst rainfall remains infrequent and light.

History

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For a small region which is often overlooked by local and foreign tourists, Quy Nhơn and the surrounding Bình Định countryside have played a surprisingly important role in three major periods of Vietnamese history: Champa, the Tây Sơn rebellion, and the Vietnam-American War.

Champa

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Quy Nhơn first came to prominence in the 11th century as the capital of the Chams, the indigenous people who ruled over what is now Central Vietnam. The Bình Định area in the 8th and 9th century was an undeveloped backwater of the far-flung Champa empire; the centre was in the capital of Indrapura, just outside modern-day Da Nang (Đà Nẵng). But decades of wars against the Viets in the north put enormous pressure on the Champa empire, and sometime around the year 1000, when their capital was sacked, their king killed, their gold stolen, and their women carted off as slaves in a brutal raid by the Viets, the Cham decided enough was enough and moved en masse to the south.

They eventually settled 300 km down the coast in what is now Bình Định province. With its fertile lands, well-protected port, and large river ideal for transportation, the area was able to support the expanding Cham empire and its growing economy, and the surrounding mountains—as well as the extra hundreds of kilometres of distance from the Viets—provided much-needed measures of additional security. The Cham built up a commercial centre and port in what is now Quy Nhơn and established their new capital of Viajaya in the plains 50 km safely back from the coast.

Hindu icons Shiva and makara dragon found at Champa sites outside Quy Nhơn. The sculptures, carved in the 11th to 13th centuries, are held in the Musée Guimet, Paris, France.

For the next several centuries, Vijaya was the cultural and administrative capital of the Cham people, and the port-city at modern-day Quy Nhơn was its economic engine. The Cham dominated Central Vietnam and the trade routes of the South China Sea, and in successive waves of war against their main rivals the Khmer to the west and the Viets to the north, they conquered large parts of what is now eastern Cambodia and Laos.

But the Cham kings stepped too far in the 15th century when they tried to enlist Chinese support in their battle against Vietnam. In retaliation, the Viets invaded Vijaya with a massive naval fleet of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The Viets burned the capital and surrounding villages, killed 60,000 Cham men, took 30,000 slaves, and forced the surviving peasants to adopt Vietnamese culture and language. In the centuries since, the remainder of Cham civilization was destroyed piece by piece in an official policy of Vietnamization. The Hindu shrines of the Chams were demolished and replaced with Buddhist temples, tombs were built over with farmland, and the Chams were by and large written out of Vietnamese history books.

Even today, the Cham is a testy subject in Vietnam, touching on minority rights, government censorship, and even international relations. The few thousand Cham still in Bình Định are corralled into substandard living conditions, without electricity, running water, education, or secure land rights, and they are prohibited from engaging in many of their religious practices. There are few beggars on the streets of Quy Nhơn, but if you see any, odds are high that they are Cham from these surrounding villages. Land grabs, rapes and even killings of Cham villagers, documented by human rights groups in 2013, haven’t been prosecuted. The government allows very little public discussion of Cham issues, and as of 2016, most of the Vietnamese-language information on the internet is blocked by censors.

And in a strange irony, one of Vietnam’s strongest historical arguments in its bitter dispute with China over South China Sea territory isn’t used because of the human rights abuses against the Cham. For centuries, the Cham dominated many of the trade routes and islands that are at the centre of China’s current power grab, long before any documented Chinese claims. But because of the past and present human rights abuses, the Vietnamese government is loathe to raise the Chams’ historical claims.

As a traveller in Bình Định, the most visible part of the Champa past you’ll come across are the archaeological sites, mainly towers, scattered throughout Quy Nhơn and the surrounding countryside. Although many sites were destroyed, the area still has the richest collection of Cham towers in the country. The Tháp Đôi towers in the city are the most accessible. The sites in the countryside are bigger and more complete, but they’re also harder to reach, provide no historical information, and are bizarrely neglected. But if you’re a self-motivated Indiana Jones bent on historical discovery, an archaeological day trip from Quy Nhơn is great fun.

Tây Sơn

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The next brush of national fame for Quy Nhơn and the surrounding Bình Định villages came as the birthplace of the Tây Sơn rebellion, a peasant uprising in the 18th century which conquered the ruling feudal overlords in the north and in the south, beat back Chinese invaders and created a unified and independent Vietnam. The three brothers from Bình Định who led the movement are revered national heroes celebrated throughout Vietnam and the diaspora for their military victories and Robin Hood-like support of the common people.

Nguyễn Huệ, local boy made good

Life in Central Vietnam in the 18th century was difficult. Sandwiched between two families of powerful feudal lords—the Trịnh in the north and the Nguyễn in the south—peasants in Central Vietnam suffered from constant invasions, exorbitant taxes on their crops, and forcible conscription as soldiers in wars against Khmer and Siam.

Three brothers from the small Bình Định village of Tây Sơn organized local peasants against the oppressive feudal rule. Following the shrewd military tactics of Nguyễn Huệ, the middle of the three brothers, the ragtag band of peasants, farmers, and indigenous hill people scored a series of upset victories against stronger forces in the early 1770s. After capturing the port of Quy Nhơn in 1773, they drove south and overthrew the Nguyễn clan in 1776. Nguyễn Huệ then marched his troops to the north and defeated the Trịnh lords by 1786.

The Qing empire in China, eager to stomp out the peasant rebellion on its doorstep, lent support to the Trịnh and invaded Vietnam. But Nguyễn Huệ was too clever. In a battle celebrated today as one of the greatest in Vietnamese history, 100,000 Tây Sơn volunteer soldiers launched a surprise attack against the Chinese troops on the Lunar New Year of 1789 (a strategy which was copied almost two centuries later, albeit with less success, by North Vietnam in the war against South Vietnam and the U.S.). Caught unprepared and drunk, the Chinese troops were crushed within five days and fled back to China.

Nguyễn Huệ was celebrated throughout the country for creating a unified and independent Vietnam, and he was proclaimed emperor of Vietnam under the name Emperor Quang Trung. But his reign was short-lived: he died only three years later at the age of 40. Thrown into disarray, the Tây Sơn people’s movement was soon vanquished by the French-backed Nguyễn feudal dynasty, which ruled the country for the next 143 years. Many Vietnamese of all political stripes consider Quang Trung’s short reign a lost opportunity, believing that if he had lived longer, the country would have been on a different path: better able to resist foreign influence and more strongly emphasizing modernization, rights of the common people, and peaceful internal relations.

The Quang Trung Museum, 44 km (27 mi) northeast of Quy Nhơn in Tây Sơn, honours Nguyễn Huệ and the Tây Sơn rebellion. The museum and surrounding area is important in national politics, with many past and present leaders—from all regions of the country—having visited since its 1978 construction to pay their respects publicly.

Vietnam-American war

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American soldiers searching for Viet Cong in a home in the Quy Nhơn countryside, 1966. The “pacification” operations led to over 130,000 locals fleeing for shelter in refugee camps.

With its strategic position as a port city and as a highway transportation nexus, Quy Nhơn and the surrounding Bình Định countryside played an outsized role in the Vietnam-American war in the 1960s and 1970s.

Quy Nhơn in the early 1960s was a small, undeveloped city of fishermen and farmers where health conditions were rapidly deteriorating as tensions grew in the country. According to New Zealand doctors in Bình Định, the locals were “under-nourished and primitive”, “living in filthy houses”, with “human feces found anywhere and everywhere”, and the beach used “as a giant toilet.” Tuberculosis was rampant. Sewage and running water was inadequate for the city and non-existent in the countryside. Bình Định had only six civilian doctors—five in Quy Nhơn and one in a village 100 km (60 mi) outside the city—to service the million residents of the province. The local population didn’t trust Western medicine and treated their ailments with Chinese herbal remedies, acupuncture with gold needles, and broken glass (the glass was used to cut the skin and create scars which were believed to be healing).

The area was nominally under the control of the South Vietnamese government. But much of Bình Định province had been a hotbed for Communist activity for nearly two decades before the start of the war. The rice fields, dense tropical jungles and narrow mountain passes created ideal positions for both Viet Cong troops and North Vietnam’s 3rd Division (the “Yellow Stars”), and by the early 1960s, the countryside around Quy Nhơn was a centre of operations for Communist forces.

Foreign involvement began in earnest when New Zealand, under pressure from the U.S., sent a medical team to Bình Định in 1963. Recruitment for volunteers was difficult—the Kiwis massively preferred Nha Trang for its famous beaches, but American doctors had already claimed it—but eventually, several New Zealand civilian medical teams arrived in Quy Nhơn and stayed continuously until 1975 to treat civilian casualties. A military medical team from Wellington joined them in 1967.

Tigers and taekwondo: Korean soldiers in Quy Nhơn

Quy Nhơn was the base of the South Korean infantry division, “The Tigers”. With a total of 300,000 soldiers from 1965 to 1973, the Korean troops were tasked with ferreting out Viet Cong soldiers in the mountains and plains of the Bình Định countryside. Despite testy relations between American and Korean military leadership, the Tigers in Quy Nhơn coordinated with U.S. troops, and Korean infantry reconnaissance missions provided the information for American warship attacks which decimated large Viet Cong cave networks—and much of the surrounding cliffs and countryside—on the coast 15 km (9 mi) south of Quy Nhơn.

Korean soldiers teach taekwondo to locals outside Quy Nhơn. 1965.

The Koreans in Quy Nhơn were famous for taekwondo. Every soldier did intensive martial arts training twice daily. In the field, the Tigers wore combat fatigues, but on the base, they wore the white martial arts dobok uniform. The taekwondo wasn’t for show: the Koreans frequently stormed small Communist bunkers and overwhelmed the Viet Cong guerillas in hand-to-hand combat. Describing the carnage wreaked by the Tigers in one such incident, a U.S. soldier said: “I’ve never seen so many broken necks and caved-in ribs in my life. We helped clean up what was left.”

Korean troops show Bình Định villagers a chart—labelled in Korean—of Viet Cong booby traps. 1968.

Language was a constant issue for the Koreans, but they devised a wordless solution to communicate their message to Bình Định locals: public exhibitions of soldiers using their bare hands to break bricks—a not very subtle demonstration to the villagers of what the Tigers were doing in the field to the spines of Communists and their sympathizers.

Sailing from Okinawa, U.S. marines landed for the first time in Quy Nhơn in July, 1965. Prepared for enemy fire, they were surprised to find hundreds of women and children on the beach welcoming them. The Americans immediately faced problems with the nature in Bình Định—insects, poisonous snakes, monkeys stealing food from the barracks, mysterious red-brown apes making loud barking sounds—and nervous soldiers unfamiliar with tropical conditions provoked laughter among Quy Nhơn residents by trying to shoot the intruding animals. But with support from the locals, the U.S. soldiers ran barbed wire across all the roads, established daily curfew every night from sunset until sunrise, and quickly built heavily barricaded garrisons in the city.

Locals took advantage of the economic opportunity presented by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and much of present-day Quy Nhơn was built out during the war years. Stores and restaurants popped up selling American food, bars opened to offer cheap drinks for the soldiers, and the mayor himself made a small fortune when he turned city hall into a private brothel for U.S. officers.

American attack aircraft arrived to Quy Nhơn in 1965. After pilots complained strongly about the poor construction of the existing airport and its small runway smack-dab in the centre of the city (near the present-day Coopmart), American and Korean troops built an air base in the town of Phù Cát 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Quy Nhơn. Housing over 100 planes and hundreds of thousands of personnel in total, Phù Cát became one of the major air bases during the war and a favourite stop of entertainers performing for U.S. troops, hosting famous 1960s American stars such as Bob Hope, Racquel Welch, and Ann-Margret. Now serving as the main civil airport of Bình Định province, Phù Cát air base in the late 1960s was the heart of napalm- and defoliation-bombing runs aimed at destroying Viet Cong hideouts in the jungles and mountains of South Vietnam.

US and South Vietnamese soldiers taking a coconut break while searching the Bình Định countryside for Viet Cong. June, 1967.

“Pacification” of the countryside—rooting out Communist troops from their hidden bases—was the major goal of the U.S., South Korean and South Vietnamese forces based in Quy Nhơn. In addition to its role as a base of air operations conducted throughout South Vietnam, the area itself was the site of massive ground battles from 1965 to 1968 in villages such as An Khê, 80 km (50 mi) northwest from Quy Nhơn on Highway 19, Phù Mỹ, 50 km (30 mi) north of Quy Nhơn on the coast, and Bồng Sơn, on the coast 80 km (50 mi) north of Quy Nhơn.

As fighting intensified throughout the countryside, Bình Định villagers were forced from their homes, and refugee camps swelled to hold over 130,000 people by the end of 1966. The largest camp was in Quy Nhơn city, with an estimated 30,000 people living in squalor in makeshift shelters on the beach or simply sleeping on the sand.

Quy Nhơn saw little fighting, but three weeks before the Tết offensive, in January, 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces struck the city. Fierce fighting lasted for several days, centred around the train station, with grenades launched from both sides destroying much of the area. U.S. soldiers in the city and South Korean troops in the countryside drove the Communist forces out after several days, and the city remained mostly free of fighting for the rest of the war.

Troops from the U.S., South Korea and South Vietnam drove most Viet Cong out of populated areas around Quy Nhơn by 1969, but the Communist forces were deeply entrenched in the rural areas of Bình Định. As U.S. commitment to the region weakened, Communist forces grew in number, and by 1971 the Viet Cong had once again established dominance throughout most of Bình Định outside of Quy Nhơn and Phù Cát.

Caves and chemicals

The ground battles in Bình Định were notable for the use of caves. Farmers had built hundreds of caves in the fields outside Quy Nhơn to store crops and supplies, and both before and during the war, these caves became both a refuge for terrified villagers and an ideal hiding position for Communist troops and weapons.

These caves came to play a huge role in the course of the war when a U.S. officer in 1965 broke the then-official policy against the use of gas by ordering his troops to throw tear gas grenades into a cave 16 km (10 mi) north of the city centre in order to force out hundreds of Viet Cong soldiers and local civilians hiding inside. The U.S. military prepared for an onslaught of international criticism, but support from fawning reporters who didn’t yet oppose the war (the New York Times even published an editorial in favour of the Quy Nhơn tear gas as “obviously more humane than any other effective type of action”) led U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to order his generals to rescind the ban and promote the use of chemical weapons.

As part of the “Vietnamization” strategy, American and Korean forces in Quy Nhơn were reduced steadily beginning in 1970 and withdrawn entirely by 1973, handing over all city and countryside garrisons, as well as the massive air base at Phù Cát, to the struggling South Vietnamese forces.

The strength of the People’s Army grew throughout 1974, and by early 1975, victories in the Central Highlands gave Hanoi the base of operations needed to attack Bình Định and split South Vietnam. The People’s Army began attacking Highway 19 and Phù Cát air base in early March, 1975. Facing heavy losses by the end of March, the South Vietnamese government gave orders to abandon the region. The province erupted in chaos. Troops and villagers alike desperately tried to escape the onslaught of the advancing People’s Army; prevented from using the main highway, they scrambled through jungle trails and rice field paths in a “column of tears” trying to reach Quy Nhơn. Under heavy bombing, South Vietnamese pilots hurriedly flew 32 planes carrying hundreds of troops out of Phù Cát airport, but abandoned another 58 aircraft on the runways. Over 7,000 remaining South Vietnamese troops rushed to the Quy Nhơn port and hastily boarded ships fleeing to the south. With no further resistance, the People’s Army marched forward quickly and seized Phù Cát air base and the city of Quy Nhơn on March 31, 1975. The date is commemorated each year as provincial liberation day.

US medic vaccinates locals in village 10 km (6 mi) west of Phù Cát Air Base. January, 1970.

Since the end of the war, soil cleanup has been a major focus in Bình Định. As one of the major bases for U.S. chemical bombing in Vietnam, over 3.5 million litres of Agent Orange were stored around Phù Cát and Quy Nhơn. The chemicals leaked into the environment, and the soil has remained massively contaminated for decades, leading to generations of dioxin-related birth defects and cancer. Together with Da Nang (Đà Nẵng) and Biên Hòa airbases, Phù Cát was classified by a joint U.S.-Vietnamese investigation in 2010 as one of the most contaminated hotspots in the country, and it was estimated that cleanup efforts would cost more than $60 million. After spending just $2 million of U.S.-provided funds in Bình Định and moving a small layer of topsoil near the airport into a secure landfill, the governments put on a big ceremony in 2012 to declare the region free of contaminants. But it was a controversial decision, as independent scientists point out that as of 2016 the soil still has more than 400 times the acceptable level of dioxins. Key take-away for travellers: don’t play in the dirt near the airport.

Most of the signs of the war years have faded away, but some traces still remain, particularly in the countryside. A massive official monument on Phương Mai peninsula commemorates the 1975 liberation of Bình Định. The Bình Định Museum in the city centre displays many American and South Vietnamese weapons captured by the People’s Army, including a tank and howitzer artillery guns. Quy Nhơn still houses a large number of military bases developed in the war years, mainly in the airport area and countryside outside the city, but several are located in the city centre in surprisingly prime areas near the beach. And in the undeveloped countryside outside the city, it’s not uncommon to find small pieces of military equipment; in 2012, a joint Vietnamese-American team even discovered an airplane crash site and the remains of a missing U.S. pilot shot down in 1966.

Get in

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By plane

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Phù Cát airport

As of spring 2016, Phù Cát is served by carriers Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air, and JetStar/JetStar Pacific with a total of eight daily return flights with Saigon and two with Hanoi. A one-way ticket from either city typically costs US$60–90 on the budget carriers and US$80–110 on Vietnam Airlines. With advance planning of more than a week, you can often find tickets on the budget carriers for as low as US$50.

As of April 2023, JetStar Pacific has been acquired by Vietnam Airlines, and a new operator (Bamboo Airways) has joined in offering flights between Phù Cát and Saigon/Hanoi.

A few taxis wait in front of the airport after each flight. If you know you’ll need a taxi, it’s safest to call in advance and have one waiting for you on your arrival. From Phù Cát airport to Quy Nhơn takes about 30 minutes by cab and costs 350,000–450,000 dong, depending on final destination within the city.

A shuttle bus runs from the airport to the city centre after each flight. Tickets are purchased on the bus and cost 60,000 dong per person. The shuttle bus waits just outside the airport on the right-hand side when you exit the terminal. There’s only one shuttle bus per flight; it’s small and fills up quickly after passengers collect their luggage from the tiny baggage carousel, so to be guaranteed a spot, head outside immediately after landing and claim a seat before the crowd arrives. Bags are allowed at no extra fee, although your luggage might get messy as all the suitcases are stacked inside the shuttle bus and passengers often use them as extra seats or footrests. The shuttle bus passes for about 45 minutes through the lush green fields of the countryside, dropping people off in the small villages along the way, and ends in the city centre at the parking lot in front of the airline building at 1 Nguyễn Tất Thành street (the address is misleading; the building is at the corner of Phạm Hùng and Mai Xuân Thưởng). There’s a pleasant outdoor cafe two steps from the shuttle drop-off spot where you can wait. Taxis and motorbike taxis (xe ôm) are occasionally available when the shuttle arrives, but you definitely can’t count on it; if you’ll need onward transportation, just ask a friendly passenger in the bus for help to call a taxi and the cab will wait for you at the drop-off spot at no additional charge.

By car or motorcycle

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As the biggest city between Hội An and Nha Trang, Quy Nhơn is often used by Vietnamese and local travellers as a convenient overnight stop for coastal trips.

The scenic Highway 1D connects Quy Nhơn to Nha Trang 220 km (135 mi) to the south, offering stunning views of the coast and beaches as it wraps around mountain passes. Traffic is light, and you can easily average at least 40 km (25 mi) per hour throughout the whole journey.

Hội An lies 290 km (180 mi) to the north of Quy Nhơn on Highway 1. The road is well-maintained in most areas, but in comparison to Highway 1D heading south, traffic is heavier and the views are less impressive. The road winds on and off the coast and often passes through small villages where locals use the highway to dry seeds, which can significantly reduce the space available for driving and make the journey slow and potentially hair-raising. Most drivers won’t average more than 30 km (20 mi) per hour.

By train

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Diêu Trì train station

Quy Nhơn is served by the Diêu Trì train station on the main Vietnamese north-south reunification line.

The station lies 13 km (8 mi) to the northwest of the city. A taxi between the city centre and Diêu Trì station costs 120,000–175,000 dong. A local bus runs between the station and the city centre once per hour and costs 3,000 dong per ticket.

In addition to the main Diêu Trì station, there is also a much smaller station in the city centre just off Lý Thường Kiệt street near the Quang Trung roundabout. The small train between Diêu Trì and the central station takes 25 minutes and costs 30,000 dong. Not all north-south trains from Diêu Trì have connections to the station in central Quy Nhơn, but if your train does, it’s a cheap and convenient alternative to a taxi.

Seats on the main north-south national train routes can usually be purchased on the day of travel at Diêu Trì station, but beds, particularly the soft beds in the four-person berths, sell out frequently; at high times, it’s best to book a week or more in advance.

Approximate prices and trip length:

Da Nang (Đà Nẵng): 6 hours. Hard seat 150,000 dong. Soft seat 200,000. Hard bed 250,000.
Nha Trang: 4 hours. Hard seat 110,000 dong. Soft seat 145,000. Hard bed 175,000. Soft bed 210,000.
Saigon: 13 hours. Hard seat 300,000–555,000 dong. Soft seat 350,000–700,000. Hard bed 550,000–735,000. Soft bed 650,000–1,000,000.

As of April 2023, above train prices have increased for approximately 50%, with cheaper tickets for early morning/late night trains. There are now no hard seat and hard bed options, and bed prices are different between 4- and 6-bed cabins.

By bus

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The main bus station is at the base of the mountains on the southwest edge of the city. The entrance is on the west side of Tây Sơn street between Cần Vương and Vô Liêu streets. The location is convenient for buses, providing direct access to the main highway, but it’s a sparsely-inhabited industrial area of town. If it’s your first glimpse of Quy Nhơn, don’t worry: the city is much nicer than what you see when you arrive.

Tickets can be purchased in advance or on the day of travel from the several bus company offices in the covered area of the ramshackle station. In the week before and several weeks after the Tết holiday, advance bookings are essential, and even then buses might be fully sold out or cancelled. But at most other times, tickets are almost always available for next-day travel and quite often for same-day travel. Tickets purchased in Quy Nhơn tend to cost slightly less than the reverse route purchased in a bigger city.

Quy Nhơn’s small-town fairness extends to bus tickets. In contrast to other Vietnamese cities, you won’t be charged more because you’re a foreigner: as long as you buy directly from the bus company ticket window in the Quy Nhơn bus station, you’ll pay the same price as locals.

Quy Nhơn is hundreds of kilometres from other major cities, and bus companies offer many different options for covering the distance: the price, length of journey, quality of bus, and number of stops vary considerably between different buses. In general, direct buses from Quy Nhơn are 25,000–75,000 dong more expensive and can be a few hours faster than those which make local stops. Overnight trips tend to be faster and more reliable in their estimated arrival times than daytime journeys. As in other cities in Vietnam, bus companies in Quy Nhơn are notorious for driving at breakneck speeds through the countryside. But they still invariably end up arriving later than the very optimistic time estimates they give you. Be prepared that your bus ride might end up taking at least an hour or two longer than promised… and maybe a lot more.

As a rough guide, the trip length and typical prices for one-way tickets from Quy Nhơn are:

Get around

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By motorbike

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Quy Nhơn is a pleasant city for driving your own motorbike. Traffic is slow and light, particularly when compared to bigger cities such as Saigon, Da Nang or even Nha Trang. Cars are much less common than in the bigger Vietnamese cities, which also helps make motorbike driving smooth and safe. Most streets don’t have—or need—traffic lights. Nowhere within the city is more than 15 minutes away by motorbike. And parking is free everywhere.

For exploring the surrounding areas, a motorbike is even more ideal. The kilometres of empty beaches north and south of the centre, the mountains on both sides of the bay, and the surrounding countryside and archaeological sites can all be reached very easily in day trips from the city.

You can rent motorbikes from all hotels in the city. Many hotels rent the bikes out, and those which don’t always have connections with a bike renter. You have the choice of automatic transmission or semi-automatic (left-foot gear shift, but no clutch needed). The price should be at most 100,000 dong per day; anything more means that the hotel—or the hotel staffer helping you—is getting a nice commission from your payment.

By taxi

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Taxis are generally ordered by phone. The taxi call-centre operators speak no English and probably won’t understand your pronunciation of the street names when you request pick-up, so the most effective strategy is to ask a Vietnamese-speaker to make the call on your behalf.

Taxis can also be hailed on the street, but there aren’t many empty cabs driving around. Standing on the street and waving in vain at full taxis does tend to attract locals, though, who might kindly call a cab for you.

A typical short ride within the city costs 15,000–30,000 dong. From the far east side to the west costs about 60,000.

By bicycle

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Quy Nhơn is pleasant for bicycling as the city is fairly flat and traffic is light.

The main promenade runs directly next to the beach, and with views of the ocean and mountains, a perfectly flat road and very little traffic, it makes for a delightful little jaunt. Bicycles are also great for day trips to explore beaches and archaeological sites in the surrounding area which are too far for walking.

Bicycles can be rented at a few hotels, but bike rentals aren’t common and most hotels won’t be able to help you. Cafe Ô Mê Ly, a slightly shady karaoke club on the west side of the Coopmart shopping complex on Lê Duẩn street, has a small street-side business offering a few bicycles for rent, including tandem (two-person) bicycles. Prices are negotiable; locals pay 20,000 dong for an hour and 100,000 for a day.

On the one hand, Quy Nhơn is a wonderful city for walking. Traffic is very light, and crossing the street isn’t the life-threatening hazard that it is in the bigger Vietnamese cities. People are friendly and constantly greet foreigners with “Hello”. And many of the lanes are very picturesque: old wooden houses, street vendors on every block, peeks of local family life visible through the always-open doors, and sidewalks lined with trees and Vietnamese flags. Additionally, the well-maintained beach promenade is beautiful for a stroll and quite often nearly empty of other people.

And if you’re just going for an ocean holiday and will stay at a hotel close to the beach, you can definitely get by on foot and with the occasional taxi.

On the other hand, although it’s not a huge city, Quy Nhơn is quite spread out, and winding streets can make walking times slightly longer than what you’d expect given the as-the-crow-flies distances. Even at a brisk pace, it could be 20–30 minutes to walk from the central areas to the beach, while a walk from the far southwest end all the way to the eastern tip takes about 90 minutes. And the beaches and archaeological sites in the surrounding countryside are definitely too far for any walking trips.

There is public transport of any type that is useful for getting around within the city.

Bottom line: if you want to explore the city and don’t fancy walking for hours, plan on taxis or your own motorbike. But if strolling for hours as you explore quaint streets sounds like fun, then it’s a fabulous walking city.

By cyclo

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Quy Nhơn cyclo driver and passenger

Cyclos have fallen out of favour, but there are still more than 100 full-time cyclo drivers in the city.

In contrast to bigger cities where the cyclos are often marketed to foreigners, cyclos in Quy Nhơn are mainly used by locals. Customers are often either older residents who don’t drive or street vendors transporting food and goods cheaply. The drivers are all men and are usually older than 45.

Because of their local customer base, the cyclo drivers generally wait for customers in the main streets of the city rather than at the beach. They often congregate near local markets; for example, there are usually a handful waiting at the southern end of the central market at Tôn Đức Thắng and Trường Chinh streets.

Drivers speak no English, but they’re expert in the geography of the city, so to get started, just point on the map to your destination or show them its address. Prices are negotiable. A short ride of 1–1.5 km costs locals about 7,000 dong. Most cyclo drivers in Quy Nhơn aren’t used to foreign customers. They might initially request higher prices from you than they offer to locals, but in contrast to other Vietnamese cities, they’re not mercenary: a smile and a little friendly bargaining will quickly get them down to local levels.

By motorbike taxi

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A few xe ôm (motorbike taxi) drivers exist, but in contrast to cities such as Saigon, motorbike taxis are fairly rare and cannot be relied on as a normal mode of transport.

Although full-time xe ôm drivers can be quite difficult to find, enterprising locals will often offer foreigners a quick ride for a fee or even for free.

You negotiate xe ôm fares in advance before starting the ride. The price should be a slight discount to what a taxi would cost for the same route, but drivers often initially ask foreigners high prices for small trips, e.g. 60,000–100,000 dong for a trip that should cost 20,000.

By bus

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There are no local bus routes of any real use serving the streets of the central city.

For trips to the bays and coast south of the city centre, there is a bus between Quy Nhơn and Chí Thanh which stops in Bãi Xép, the tiny fishing village which has become popular among Western tourists. From Bãi Xép to the city, the bus route passes along the coast and north over the mountain into Quy Nhơn, heads past the main bus station and makes several stops along the beach promenade before ending on the west side of the Coopmart shopping complex. It runs hourly from 05:30 to 17:30.

See

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Beaches

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Bãi Kỳ Co on Phương Mai peninsula

Sandy solitude

Since 2005, provincial authorities have promoted the barren Phương Mai Peninsula as an economic development zone. They completed the longest sea bridge in Vietnam, constructed a highway down the spine of the 20 km (12 mi) long peninsula, built infrastructure, and even meticulously planted thousands of trees and bushes. Happy with their work, they marketed it to investors as a site for oil refineries, industrial factories, and tourist resorts, but nature had other ideas. It turns out there’s too much sand… and it never stops coming. High winds from ocean storms push the sand over the land, covering the roads, the vegetation, the factories and any people caught out in the gusty weather. A decade after completion of the bridge, much of the peninsula is still undeveloped, many investment projects were cancelled or delayed, and the factories constructed must frequently clean out the invading sand. The province tried to fight back—workers shovel the deserted highway clean, and projects have been designed to better withstand the sand onslaught—but development has been slow and the empty peninsula has the eerie feeling of a “build it and they will come” scheme gone bad.

Sand, sand, sand

What’s tough news for the economic development zone is good news for travellers. The beach on the east side is enormous and much of the northern half is empty of people or development. It’s hard to find such a vast stretch of undeveloped and desolate beach so close to a city anywhere in Southeast Asia. It’s a fortunate mix of just enough development to make it easy to reach but not enough to blemish the pristine coast. That situation won’t last long—as of 2016, development of luxury tourism sites, oil refineries, bottling plants and lumber factories is underway—so take advantage while you can: hop on a motorbike, take a drive over the bridge, and enjoy in solitude the never-ending piles of sand.

Cham towers

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Tháp Đôi Cham Towers

Buddhist temples

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Chùa Minh Tịnh

Chùa Phổ Minh on the riverbank in the north of the city

Tượng Phật đôi, the tallest Buddha statue in Vietnam, towers over the coast on the Phương Mai Peninsula.

Christian churches

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Museums and buildings

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Martial arts in Bình Định: birth, death, and rebirth

Martial arts statue on beach promenade

Bình Định has been the heart of martial arts in Vietnam since the 15th century. According to local legends, the techniques were first developed by peasants who needed to defend themselves against invasions, thieves, and rabid mountain animals in the secluded and lawless region. Combat skills were honed and passed down through the generations, and 300 years later, Bình Định martial artists were front-line troops when local hero Nguyễn Huệ unified the country in the 18th century. In gratitude, after becoming emperor he organized a state-sponsored system, with schools, competitions, certification and official military roles.

But those glory days were short-lived. After Nguyễn Huệ’s death in 1792, the new feudal dynasty stamped out all traces of Bình Định’s martial arts. Schools were closed and competitions banned decade after decade as each successive ruling power – the imperial Nguyễn dynasty, the French colonialists, South Vietnam, North Vietnam – all feared the legendary strength of Bình Định’s martial arts warriors. But the fighters continued training, secretly hiding away in Buddhist temples when necessary, and passed down their traditions through the next 200 years. By the late 20th century, as official attitudes towards Vietnam’s cultural traditions warmed (and martial arts fighters were presumably seen as less threatening to the national defense), Bình Định martial arts came out from the shadows. Schools and competitions restarted, and the international success of local fighters led to a resurgence of popularity. By 2012, times had changed so much that the provincial government once again started support of martial arts both as an activity for locals and as a tourist attraction.

The martial arts scene today is booming. Dozens of small schools have opened in the villages surrounding Quy Nhơn, with each offering its own take on one of the two main Bình Định styles, staff fighting and “empty hands” combat. The Quang Trung museum honouring Nguyễn Huệ puts on a martial arts gala each year on the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1789 defeat of invading Chinese forces. A separate biannual martial arts festival and competition started in 2006 brings together thousands of fighters from across Vietnam and from abroad (Russia, in particular, has produced several high-quality fighters of the Bình Định school). One-off exhibitions are held several times each year in the central plaza in the city. Statues of famous martial arts fighters from Bình Định’s past line the beach promenade. And in 2015, thousands of students, many times what had been expected, showed up when Quy Nhơn schools began offering extracurricular martial arts classes. In contrast to other martial arts traditions, girls were historically important in Bình Định fighting (a famous traditional song advised young unmarried men throughout the country to “Head to Bình Định, to find beautiful girls performing powerful martial arts”), and centuries later, that tradition was also resurrected when girls – without any official targeting – represented almost half the new students. Centuries after being forcibly banned and driven underground, martial arts came full circle and was once again a pillar of Bình Định cultural life.

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Children

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Movies

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Sports and activities

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Buy

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Quy Nhơn is not a shopping paradise.

In the centre there’s a Coopmart supermarket, and in an undeveloped area in the far southwest there’s a Big C hypermarket and a Metro bulk store. That’s it for big stores.

Outside of that, Quy Nhơn has almost none of the chain stores that exist in bigger Vietnamese cities. There are no convenience stores such as Family Mart or Shop&Go. There are no department stores. And the city is far, far off the radar screen of the international retailers with operations in Vietnam such as Gap, Nike and Mango.

The majority of the city’s stores—and the cafes and restaurants and guesthouses—are operated from family homes. Clothes, phones, motorcycle helmets, drinks, sports equipment… whatever you buy, it’s likely that the family selling it to you lives in the floors above the shop.

Siesta time

The afternoon siesta has faded away in most Vietnamese cities, but it still reigns supreme in sleepy Quy Nhơn. Most businesses—all banks, most offices and retail stores, a bizarrely large number of cafes even—close down for several hours in the afternoon. The exact hours vary by business, and many of the more local places don’t have fixed hours in any case, but a rough guide is that most open in the mornings around 08:00, close for a long lunch break from 11:00 or 11:30 until some time around 14:00–15:00, and re-open in the afternoon until 20:00.

Money

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Most local businesses in Quy Nhơn are cash-only. Higher-budget hotels accept credit cards, but almost all low- and mid-budget hotels are cash-only. Very few stores, cafes or restaurants accept credit or debit cards.

There are ATMs throughout the city. Most accept foreign bankcards with no problem. The maximum withdrawal limit varies by bank, ranging from 2,000,000 to 3,500,000 dong per withdrawal.

The biggest concentration of ATMs is found just north of the Coopmart on Trần Thị Kỷ between Nguyễn Tất Thành and Lê Duẩn streets. Six banks offer ATMs within a short distance from each other: Techcom, VietinBank, Agribank, Dong A Bank, ACB, Maritime Bank.

U.S. dollars can be exchanged at numerous bank offices throughout the city. Bills must be fairly new and in good condition; bills which are slightly worn or older than 10 years are often rejected. No passport required.

Some bank branches might be able to also exchange euros, British pounds and Australian dollars, but it’s a bit of a chance, and new U.S. dollars in good condition will cause you less problems.

Several gold and jewellers shops in the centre also exchange dollars quickly and often at rates slightly better than the banks. They are also more willing to accept older or more worn bills, albeit at lower rates.

Stores

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Markets

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Eat

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Breakfast on the street

With hundreds of fishermen hauling in their daily catch each morning and kilometres of open-air beach restaurants, Quy Nhơn is a great city for fresh seafood. But beyond its well-earned fame as a year-round pescatarian paradise, it also offers the adventurous traveller the chance to try specialties little known outside Bình Định province. And for a small city, Quy Nhơn can boast of a surprisingly huge selection of vegetarian restaurants.

Compared to other Vietnamese cities, restaurants are informal and cheap. Customers usually sit directly on the street or inside the multi-use living room of the restaurant owner. In all but the most expensive places and a few mid-budget venues, tables and chairs are wobbly and often-broken contraptions made of cheap plastic and aluminium. Even nicer places are often set inside a semi-open garden rather than what you’d imagine as a more typical indoor restaurant. The price of any dish in Quy Nhơn is much cheaper than in bigger cities—an entire plate of shellfish costs less than one shell in Saigon—and you can easily fill yourself for just a few dollars in most restaurants and for less than a dollar in vegetarian places.

Still very far off the international traveller circuit, restaurants cater only for the tastes of local residents and Vietnamese tourists. As long as you stay away from the very few places marketed to international visitors, you’ll almost always be the only foreigner anywhere you go as you discover steamed rice-cakes, guava-leaf pork rolls, fish-cake noodles, pots of shellfish simmering in lemongrass broth, scallops still in the shell grilled with peanuts and chili sauce over open fires, spit-roasted veal, goat skewers, snails cooked in herbs and coconut milk, and vegetarian dishes in homestay-style settings.

It’s the stuff of underground foodie-fantasies: a coastal city with a wide range of locally-caught and freshly-prepared food choices, completely unspoiled by international chains and still undiscovered by mass tourism. Take a plunge into the local restaurant scene and you’ll experience a side of Vietnam that you can’t find anywhere else.

Local specialties

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Bánh bèo chén

Bánh bèo chén (“Waterfern cake cup”) is a steamed rice-cake in a cup with fried shallots and dried shrimp on top, served with dipping sauce. Very common in Bình Định province. Students and workers eat cup after cup—the usual portion is 10 cups per person—sitting at small street-side tables throughout Quy Nhơn city. Vendors set up on many street corners in the afternoons and early evenings. 2,000 dong per cup.

Bánh hỏi with pork and shallots

Bánh hỏi are strings of rice vermicelli woven into small packets, served with pork and fried shallots or with oil and onions. You can find them ready-made for eating in restaurants or for take-away by street-side vendors. The most famous street vendors sell from the morning to the evening at the corner of Trần Phú and Nguyễn Công Trứ streets. A take-away order of bánh hỏi wrapped in banana leaf with oil and chives costs 10,000 dong, while a plate for immediate consumption, served with cooked pork and shallots, costs 20,000 dong.
The sweet cake bánh ít lá gai (“Little cake with gai leaf”) is made from sticky rice, sugar, mung beans, ginger and (sometimes) coconut, enveloped by mashed gai leaf and then all wrapped up in a banana leaf. The gai leaf—common English name: pinnate leaves; botanical name: Boehmeria nivea var. tenacissima—isn’t well-known or often used outside Vietnam. Mashed up and steamed, it turns a greenish-black colour and adds a slightly bitter and chewy contrast to the aromatic sweetness of the other ingredients. Bánh ít is sold in stores and by street vendors, e.g. just outside the central market on the northeast corner of Tôn Đức Thắng and Trường Chinh streets. The banana-leaf wrapped treat is also offered at many restaurants, where they’re stacked up on the tables; you just take as many as you like and are charged per piece. 3,000 dong per cake.
Nem chợ huyện (“Huyện market roll”) is a pork roll with peanut sauce, chili and herbs. Known as a specialty of the Phương Mai peninsula, the roll packs salty, sweet, sour and spicy in one small bite. It can be made with either fresh pork, which is grilled over charcoal with sugar, salt and pigskin, or fermented pork, which is wrapped in a guava leaf for three days to give it a sour pungent flavour and then covered with a banana leaf for serving. One roll can be eaten as a quick snack, or many are eaten together as a full meal. You can find the rolls in many local restaurants and street vendors throughout Quy Nhơn city. Or head to their birthplace, the Huyện market in the tiny Phước Lộc district of Tuy Phước village, 2 km (1 mi) from the Bánh Ít Cham Towers and 18 km (11 mi) northwest of Quy Nhơn, where 17 shops just off Highway 1A have been churning out thousands of rolls each day for over 100 years. 3,000 dong each.

Beach seafood restaurants

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Small clams boiled in lemongrass broth (con nghêu hấp) served on the grass across from the beach

Just across the street from the beach promenade are dozens of open-air restaurants specializing in fresh and locally-caught seafood: snails, oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, prawns, jellyfish and many types of fish.

Most of the restaurants are run by families who live above or just behind their restaurants on the narrow Trần Đức street. The food is cooked on open fires and charcoal grills which spill out everywhere on the street. Waiters scurry back and forth across the road while dodging motorcycles, potholes, wandering cats and dogs, and occasional fires raging out-of-control. Customers eat at low plastic tables and chairs set haphazardly on the grass and between the trees of the wide median strip between Xuân Diệu and Trần Đức streets, enjoying sweeping 180-degree views of the beach, the bay and the mountains.

Most of the beach restaurants are very similar in price, quality and selection, but a few offer more unusual or expensive choices such as lobster (year-round) and King crab (spring season). The seafood is all locally caught, so prices fluctuate based on the season and fishing conditions, but a rough guide is: plate of oysters, scallops, snails, clams, mussels, or cockles: 30,000–45,000 dong; plate of oysters: 40,000–60,000 dong; plate of grilled shrimp: 60,000 dong; grilled squid: 60,000–80,000 dong; grilled fish: 50,000–120,000 dong; hot pot (for 2–4 people): 200,000 dong. Prices just a block off the beach are 30-50% cheaper, but without the phenomenal ocean views.

Restaurants are found at many spots along the waterfront, but the highest concentration of places is on both sides of Trần Đức at Phan Đăng Lưu street, with 11 restaurants side by side. Just west of Lê Lợi street is another big cluster of seven slightly cheaper places.

Restaurants

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Your dinner is being prepared.

Bánh xèo

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Bánh xèo is a very popular food in Quy Nhơn, sold in a wide range of venues including specialty restaurants, semi-permanent stalls, and temporary stands in front of homes.

Locals take great pride in their bánh xèo, earnestly proclaiming that several key culinary differences make their version by far the best in Vietnam. In contrast to the more well-known style of south Vietnam, the bánh xèo in Quy Nhơn is cooked without tamarind and is small and thin. A crepe of rice flour and water is fried with bean sprouts on a sizzling oil skillet. The customer selects the main ingredient; options vary from vendor to vendor, but can include prawn, pork, beef, chicken, squid, and quail’s eggs (trứng cút). The cooked pancake is folded and served to the customer, who wraps it together with fresh cucumber, mint, cilantro, and lettuce into a semi-stiff piece of rice paper which has been dipped in water enough to give it some flexibility but not enough to lose its crunchiness. The roll is then dipped into the famous local sauce, a sweet brown concoction made from roasted peanuts, fermented soy beans and palm sugar.

Certain neighbourhoods of the city have developed into bánh xèo specialty areas, where restaurants or street-side vendors congregate in friendly competition with each other. The atmosphere, setting and price varies widely among locales, but—although each place has its fans who swear that their place is the absolute best—the food and preparation is quite similar everywhere in the city. The most famous area is on Diên Hồng street just south of Lê Duẩn in the city centre, where four adjacent restaurants produce hundreds of pancakes per hour for the huge streams of customers churning through every afternoon and evening. A world away on Đống Đa and surrounding side streets on the north shore, particularly near the covered market Chợ Đầm, is the heart of the city’s bánh xèo tradition; two full restaurants and numerous street-side vendors offer their versions of the dish in settings that are both less hectic and less touristic than Diên Hồng. And at the small night-food market just off the beach promenade, on Ngô Văn Sở and surrounding alleys between Nguyễn Huế and Nguyễn Lạc, several small- and mid-size vendors prepare bánh xèo every evening.

Roving bánh xèo vendor cooking on hot coals on the street

Bánh mì

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As everywhere in Vietnam, there are hundreds of bánh mì (baguette sandwiches) stands scattered throughout the city. Prices are 6,000–10,000 dong for most standard sandwiches, and 12,000–15,000 dong for fancier ingredients.

Hot pot

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Hot pot (lẩu) is by far the most popular food in Quy Nhơn for groups of family or friends eating out. There are dozens of hot-pot specialty restaurants throughout the city. Additionally, even restaurants that don’t specialize in it quite often still offer some form of hot pot.

Quy Nhơn hot pot is similar to other regions throughout Vietnam. Beef or pork is typically the main protein, although some venues—including almost all along the beach promenade and nearby side streets—also offer seafood. The cooking style varies between places: most offer a pot of stock simmering on a bucket of coals, while some places give diners a semi-circular metal tray for grilling the food in butter or oil.

Vegetarian

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There are dozens of vegetarian restaurants in Quy Nhơn.

The majority of the restaurants are very small family-homes within a block or two of a Buddhist temple; look for signs saying “Chay” (vegetarian) in front of houses and small alleyways. The meals offered can be quirky—in a good way—and are often quite pleasant discoveries after the monotony of the standard vegetarian fare in Vietnam. And the setting—eating with every generation of the owner’s family smack-dab in the middle of their house at their living room table—makes the experience feel very much like a homestay. However, the opening hours of these little family operations are completely random; on full moon days, they’re usually open from morning to early evening, but at other times, it’s hit or miss.

The larger vegetarian restaurants offer the advantage of more predictable and regular hours. But they generally have (slightly) higher prices and the food selection is the more typical vegetarian fare in which the meat and fish in the standard Vietnamese noodle and rice dishes are simply swapped out for meat-substitutes like seitan and tofu. Buddhist monks are frequent diners at the vegetarian restaurants; a few of the more gregarious ones speak some English and often chat up any foreigners to learn about life abroad.

An Lạc, 6 Nguyễn Lữ (just off Ngô Mây). Small family-run restaurant serving cơm (rice with assorted toppings): 20,000 dong. Very kind and friendly owners who will appreciate if you can say even a few words of Vietnamese.

Bakeries

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Drink

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Cafes are the centre of social life in Quy Nhơn. They come in all sizes: huge and impressive, small and quaint, tiny and jammed between parked motorbikes in a family’s living room. They’re in every style: knee-high tables on street corners, outdoor gardens with wooden verandas, hipster joints infused with attitude, cubbyholes serving milk tea to teenagers on bamboo floors, tables set amidst bonsai forests. And with over 1,000 cafes for a city of only 300,000 people, you find them everywhere: on the beach, in the city centre, on the sides of the mountains, on median strips in the middle of streets.

Cafe hours can be tricky to predict. Most cafes are open in the prime hours in the late afternoon and evening, and many are also open in the early morning. But the exact hours vary a lot from place to place. Even at one cafe, the hours will vary from day to day based on customer flows, the weather, and the owner’s schedule. Lunchtime is also hit-or-miss: some cafes always take a siesta break, some always work through lunchtime, and many just open or close based on the whims of the day. As a general reference, a typical schedule might be to open at 07:00 or 08:00 in the morning, close for a break from 11:00 to 15:00, then serve until 21:00 or so.

As for nightlife…. the answer is “no”. Quy Nhơn has no real nightlife to speak of. There’s one slightly dodgy neon-and-smoke-machine nightclub. Most restaurants open at night have beer—or will find some for you—and many cafes serve cocktails, but there’s nothing like a bar scene where people mingle over drinks. The majority of places close by 22:00, and by midnight the city is almost deserted. So kick back in an open-air cafe or restaurant, lap up the sea views and ocean breezes, and enjoy the city’s sleepy small-town vibe.

Cafes

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Bars and clubs

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Sleep

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Quy Nhơn city

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Despite the hopes of local officials to turn Quy Nhơn into a mega beach resort similar to Nha Trang, with 10-storey chain hotels packing international travellers into every nook of the beach promenade and smaller hotels stretching the tourist zone several blocks back from the coast, accommodation is still very low-key. As of 2016, only a few hotels of more than five floors are scattered over the kilometres of prime beach-front streets, and many blocks in front of the ocean are either completely devoid of buildings or have only a patchwork of small residential houses and gardens.

This guide uses the following price ranges for a standard double room:

Budget
Under 300,000 dong

Mid-range
300,000–600,000 dong

Splurge
Over 600,000 dong

Almost all visitors to Quy Nhơn are local Vietnamese tourists, and the accommodation options cater to them in terms of hotel styles, food, and service. And with very few international travellers, English language knowledge is almost zero: plan on lots of hand movements for communicating in all but the handful of higher-end places. On the plus side, though, you’ll find prices that are significantly cheaper than in other beach cities in the country, no scams or higher rates for foreigners, and a personal friendliness that overcomes all language difficulties (well, many of them, at least).

Online reservations are available through the standard international booking websites for all the more expensive hotels and a few enterprising budget inns, so if you like, you can guarantee yourself a room before you arrive. But you won’t find the majority of low- and mid-budget places on the internet: either have a Vietnamese-speaker call by phone to reserve for you, or just show up and ask when you arrive. Hotel growth hasn’t been massive, but it definitely has outpaced tourist numbers in the last decade, and even in the Tết holiday period or peak summer months, you’ll never have a problem finding a room for the night if you just ask around a bit.

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Splurge

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Bãi Xép fishing village

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The bay of Bãi Xép, a hamlet of Quy Nhơn 10 km (6 miles) south of the city centre, has a total population of a few hundred people, dogs, cats and chickens. There is one lane, a handful of wooden homes, a few people selling rice crackers and gum from their creaking verandas, and a hand-pumped water well which doubles as a rather touch-and-go mini electrical station.

But this tiny fishing village has become an unlikely focus of international tourism in the region. With deserted beaches, hilly islands close to shore, and round wooden fishing boats bobbing in the water, it’s an ideal destination to stay if you’re looking to get away from it all and enjoy a peaceful seaside holiday. The good and the bad of staying here are the same: there’s nothing to do except lounge on the beach in utter tranquility.

In an odd twist of fate, the small beach and one-metre wide lane of Bãi Xép is the only place in the entire province where you’re guaranteed to find lots of foreigners, and the tiny hamlet is still adjusting to the effects this tourism is causing. Despite some effort by the hotels to minimize their negative influence, it’s impossible for 100 rooms designed for relatively-rich foreign tourists not to have a big impact on the environment and the village culture in such a tiny place. And although the hotel managers plead with their guests to respect traditional village ways, tourists shower gifts and money on the local children, which leads the kids—and their families— to lose interest in the fishing life. It’s a complicated issue underway right now and it’s not at all resolved: there are lots of conflicting opinions from locals, tourists, hotels, and provincial authorities regarding what, if anything, should be done about the situation.

In contrast to Quy Nhơn proper, the hotels in Bãi Xép are all geared towards foreigners. Most of the staff speak fluent English, and many of the managers and workers are foreigners themselves. Online booking is advisable at all times… and an absolute necessity in the peak season. The contrast with the city is also clear in the higher prices: even the low-budget dorm beds in Bãi Xép generally cost as much as—or more than—private double rooms in the city, and at the high end, the tiny fisherman’s cove can boast of having the only luxury resort in the province.

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Splurge

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Connect

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Internet

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Covered in a haze of cigarette smoke and usually jammed in the middle of a family’s living room and kitchen, hundreds of houses on almost every street of the city have desktop computers you can use for high-speed internet access at low prices. Their customers are almost exclusively local teenage boys playing video games day and night, but you’re welcome to use the computers for web browsing. The computers all have old-and-illegal but functional Windows operating systems, web browsers and headphones for video calls. Many even have Photoshop (again, illegal copies), Microsoft Office and other software installed. One hour of use is 3,000 dong.

If you have your own laptop or smartphone, you’ll never be more than a few-minute walk from a connection, as almost every cafe and restaurant in the city offers free Wi-Fi access for customers. Connection speeds are uniformly very fast and there are no download limits.

Telephones

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The area code for Quy Nhơn land lines is 0256. To call from outside Vietnam, add the country code and drop the 0: +84 256 XXX-XXXX.

All the major mobile networks provide excellent coverage for both local and international communication. You can purchase SIM cards in any phone shop or small kiosk on the street. Competition between the carriers keeps prices even lower than in bigger Vietnamese cities. Special offers come and go every week, but a typical pre-paid deal for one month is 50,000 dong for 10 gb of internet with 75,000 dong of included credit for calls and texts. No documentation is required and all cards are pre-activated.

There are no public phones in the city.

Go next

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Da Nang — fifth-largest city in Vietnam. Famous to tourists for its beaches, early Champa history, and convenience as a base for exploring Hội An and Mỹ Sơn. 300 km (185 mi) north of Quy Nhơn.

Hoi An — well-preserved 15th–19th-century trading port popular among foreign tourists and honoured as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. 290 km (180 mi) north of Quy Nhơn.

My Son — Cham ruins from the 4th–14th centuries. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is considered the longest inhabited archaeological site in Indochina. 300 km (185 mi) northwest of Quy Nhơn.

Nha Trang — booming beach resort popular among international tourists. 220 km (135 mi) south of Quy Nhơn.

Pleiku — small Central Highlands city critically important to both sides during the Vietnam-American war for its strategic location. 160 km (100 mi) west of Quy Nhơn.

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