Hanoi has been named one of the cheapest and best places to drink fresh beer in Asia by travel guides and journalists, thanks to its lively drinking culture.

This is a new land. Here sameness takes me home.

A romantic landscape of verdant, terraced rice fields stretches into the distance, but there’s nothing romantic for someone working knee-deep in mud, sweat running down their bodies and bent over so they see nothing but the soil in front of them.

The Hoi An seaside is a real attraction to me, but there’s a much more prominent reason than that for coming back to.  

Hanoi comes alive at night. The day’s oppressive air cools and draws out the people.

As many as 75,000 foreigners from over 60 nations are living and working in Vietnam, according to recent statistics.

In the quest for the best pho, bun cha and more in this culinary capital, look for the stands favored by elderly Vietnamese - they know quality when they taste it. Along the way, you'll find religion, history, art and the theater of daily life.

Just ten minutes walk from the spires of Notre Dame Cathedral, the Post Office and the colonial thoroughfare of Dong Khoi in the centre of Saigon is the alley where I live.

A woman martial arts master teaches disabled children Aikido for free, hoping to help them integrate into society.

Tourists consider the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology and the Vietnam Military History Museum "must-see" destinations in Hanoi.