We find a new standard of luxury in Vietnam, where time stands still in lieu of relaxation.
Time ceases to exist while at the Nam Hai Resort – well at least that’s the way it feels when you’re spending most of it lying horizontal, be it relaxing by the pool, face down on the massage table or floating in your cloud-like bed.
What was supposed to be four days of exploring central Vietnam and World Heritage-listed sights such as My Son and Hue, ended up being spent mostly within the confines of the Nam Hai’s exquisite grounds.
Make the most of the tropical weather with your private outdoor shower, part of the villa’s spacious bathroom.
Design is a major player
Inspired by more than 2500 years of local history and ancient philosophy, the resort draws on contemporary design aesthetics to create the perfect blend of east-meets-west.
One hundred exclusive villas, a three-tier infinity pool, two Asian fusion restaurants and an award-winning spa and wellness centre span 35 hectares of tropical gardens, all positioned along a pristine white-sand beach.
Upon arrival to this modern day masterpiece and after a seamless check-in where management personally welcomes us by name, we’re whisked away via buggy to become acquainted with our very own private retreat.
The villa
The one-bedroom villa, complete with whimsical four-poster bed.
As the concierge introduces us to the 80 square-metre, one-bedroom villa I can’t help but be in awe of its design.
Delicate hand-spun silks are elegantly draped from the high ceilings and wrapped around an elevated platform that encompasses a plush king-sized bed.
For me, a true marker of a five-star hotel is the bed and its ability to make you lose all senses among its appropriately numbered Egyptian cotton sheets, soft feather pillows and 100-per-cent-down duvets.
While this one is not the best I’ve ever had, it’s certainly up there with the top contenders and much of my Nam Hai time is spent tangled in its alluring web.
A writing desk, padded divan and sunken eggshell bath make up the rest of the villa, which I later read is inspired by the layouts of traditional Vietnamese garden houses.
Rich mahogany floors made from local woods open onto a large terrace with day beds at the front and a private garden with outdoor rain shower at the back.
The bathroom runs the width of the villa and includes his and her basins (and closets!), a separate toilet, and indoor shower, should you not be game enough to bathe outside.
Twice-daily maid service
The twice-daily maid service, which includes a few unassuming tricks to turn your villa into an oasis of relaxation at night, might be expected at a resort of this standard, but I’m impressed with the selection of complimentary drinks and snacks that are included each day, as well as the variety of free movies programmed on the TV.
I find it’s these small inclusions that set the Nam Hai above the rest; from the cold towels and fresh fruit you receive when whiling away time by the pool, to the push-bikes available for use and free yoga and meditation sessions held each morning.
Dine at The Beach Restaurant by lantern light with a view of Ha My Beach
The one let down
However, it’s not all perfect – unfortunately the resort’s food and beverage area lets it down a little.
Don’t get me wrong, the elaborate buffet breakfast with additional à la carte option is something I’m still writing love poems about, but I do question whether this magnificent feat extends past midday.
Case in point: one night we decide to make the most of the free movies and order room service.
While most of the restaurant’s fine-dining menu is available, we opt for our favourite naughty fix of burgers and pizzas.
At the Australian equivalent of nearly $100, I am expecting something pretty amazing, but to my disappointment it does not live up to its exorbitant price tag (bland pizza, soggy burger).
Which leads to my other quip with the Nam Hai – it’s outrageously overpriced.
Forking out $10 for a beer is a little hard to swallow, especially when I know I can get it down the road for less than $1.
It seems as if they are making up for all the freebies by charging through the roof for everything else.
Sadly, this puts me off trying what has been deemed as one of the best spas in South-East Asia by the likes of Condé Nast Traveller UK and luxury hotel website Mr & Mrs Smith, as I can’t justify coughing up $350 for a massage.
But since time ceases to exist at the Nam Hai, it was easy enough to put the expensive extras aside and appreciate the resort for exactly what it is – the perfect place to unwind and forget all of your worries.
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Details
The Nam Hai
Hamlet 1, Dien Duong Village, Dien Ban District, Hoi An, Vietnam
Contact the hotel’s website for more information and to book.
The IT Verdict
A beautiful haven of relaxation that redefines the standards of luxury with its extra little touches of comfort.
Location = 9.5/10
Perfectly positioned on stunning Ha My Beach and only eight kilometres from the charming town of Hoi An.
Style/character = 9/10
Modern yet inviting with its tropical setting and tranquil vibe.
Service = 9/10
Attentive, with staff exuding that warm and friendly Vietnamese manner.
Rooms = 9.5/10
Elegantly designed with lots of space for lounging around.
Food and drink = 8/10
Breakfast is to die for and can easily last for hours, but room service is a let down.
Value for money = 7/10
A one-bedroom villa was reasonable at $450 per night (breakfast included), but everything else will quickly burn a hole in your pocket.
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After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
