Mui Ne

Jeep at dawn on Bau Trang, scallops at Bo Ke by dusk

Mui Ne's classic first day starts with a jeep tour before sunrise, booked the evening before. The loop heads first to Bau Trang, the White Dunes, a field of pale sand beside a lotus lake about an hour up the coast, where the dawn light is soft and the sand still cool.

Quad bikes start up soon after, so walk away from the car park for quiet. On the way back, stop at the Red Dunes above Mui Ne village, then at the fishing harbour, where round basket boats bring the night's catch ashore. Finish by wading up the Fairy Stream between its eroded red and white banks before the heat sets in.

Spend the hot middle of the day by the pool or under the palms. In the late afternoon, ride local bus 1 or 9 west to the Poshanu Cham towers on their hill above Phu Hai and watch the bay turn gold. Dinner is at Bo Ke street, the row of open-air grills near 122 Nguyen Dinh Chieu.

Day two belongs to the sea. From November to April, sign up for an introductory kite lesson with one of the schools on the strip; most need only a morning to get you comfortable with the kite on the sand. Outside the windy months, the water is calmer and better for a long swim, or for a bicycle ride east to the quieter sands of Ganh Beach.

Goi ca mai, banh can and Phan Thiet fish sauce

Mui Ne's best seafood is cooked away from the resort restaurants, on Bo Ke street, a cluster of shacks by the shore near the fishing-village end of the strip. They grill whatever came in that morning, squid, prawns and crab, and above all scallops with spring onion oil and peanuts, which every table orders.

Hygiene is basic and the plastic stools wobble; the cooking makes up for it.

Look for two Phan Thiet specialties. Goi ca mai is a salad of tiny raw herring cured in lime, tossed with roasted rice powder and herbs, and rolled in rice paper with green banana and star fruit. Banh can are little rice-flour cakes cooked in clay moulds over charcoal, topped with egg, shrimp or squid and dunked in fish sauce with chilli. Both are sold at local stalls in Phan Thiet and along the road into Mui Ne village.

That fish sauce has a long local pedigree. Phan Thiet is one of Vietnam's main producers of nuoc mam, fermented for months in huge jars and wooden vats, and you will smell the works before you see them. Small shops sell bottles to take home. Dragon fruit, grown in fields all around the town, is the other local crop, cheap and sold everywhere. Evenings in Ham Tien tend to finish at beachfront bars near Bo Ke, where the biggest club has two dance floors and a pool.

Kite winds, the Kate festival and Ke Ga lighthouse

Mui Ne's seasons follow the wind. From about November to April a strong, steady north-east breeze blows, the sky stays dry and the bay fills with kitesurfers; December to April is peak season. From May to October the wind drops, short afternoon showers appear, the sea calms, rooms get cheaper and swimmers often prefer it.

The same winter wind makes the shore break choppy and pushes sand along the coast, so a few resorts lose their beach for months and face a bare sea wall; ask before paying for beachfront.

Lunar New Year, in late January or February, brings Vietnamese families in large numbers, so book transport and rooms early around Tet. In early autumn, the local Cham community gathers at the Poshanu towers for the Kate festival, one of the few times the 8th-century temples come alive with music, dance and offerings.

For a day out, head south past Phan Thiet to Ke Ga, where a stone lighthouse built under the French at the end of the 19th century stands on a rocky islet off the beach. Nearer at hand, the Poshanu towers and the fish sauce workshops around Phan Thiet fill a relaxed morning. Back in Mui Ne village, the road east beyond the Red Dunes leads to Ganh and Suoi Nuoc beaches, much quieter than Ham Tien.