We fly from Nairobi in a plane that is one up from that used by Le Petit Prince, land at the one-strip airport with a thatched shed waiting-room, then take a speedboat past timeless fishing villages and mangrove swamps. Welcome to Lamu, a remote island off the coast of Kenya. The downside is the journey. But the upside is that there’s no jet-lag: it’s only three hours ahead of GMT. It’s also where the hip crowd goes. Think Tracey Emin, Sting and make-up artist to the stars, Mary Greenwell.

The lure of Lamu becomes immediately apparent if you stay in Jahazi, a Swahili-style house on a deserted beach about 25 minutes by boat from mainland Kenya at the southernmost tip of the island. You’re welcomed at the water’s edge by five staff – includingyour own boat captain and private chef – all wearing white shorts and Africa-sized smiles. With its private pool, fabulous baraza (meeting area), five colonial Swahili-style bedrooms and view of the Indian Ocean, many guests feel inclined simply to remain supine. (‘I hope for a massive storm so that we have to stay longer,’ scribbled Ewan McGregor in the visitors’ book.)

Jahazi is one of only six Kizingoni Beach Houses built next to what must be the longest stretch of deserted beach in the universe and surrounded by sand dunes. A few steps away from the ocean, the houses are built of coral block and plastered in the local limestone, with palm-thatched roofs, terraces overlooking the ocean, limestone floors tinted a soft ochre yellow and al fresco bathrooms beneath starry African skies (think also Swahili carved wooden door frames, colonial Swahili furniture and palm-leaf Ali Baba lampshades).

All you have to do here is move from one bed to another: from opium beds with big bolsters and oversized raw silk cushions to ones built onniru (plasterwork) bases, hammocks swinging in the breeze, romantic mozzie-net-draped four-posters, traditional Lamu day beds and kikoi-strewn beds swinging from coconut fibre ropes and overlooking the gardens. You wake up to alarm calls from tropical birds and to waves crashing on the white sand.

It’s compelling to spend days just flicking through magazines and eating the day’s catch and coconut rice, served on the terrace overlooking the ocean by the barefoot butler with the mega-watt smile. But Leslie Duckworth, known locally as the Duchess of Fixit, has other ideas for us. Probably the person who put Lamu so fashionably on the map, the Duchess is one of that peculiarly Kenyan breed of indefatigable entrepreneur. She knows le tout Afrique, manages the Kizingoni Beach Houses and has decorated them stylishly, writes books on African medicinal plants, buys and sells houses, is involved in the Lamu women’s community projects, has a shop in Nairobi…

She insists we stir ourselves and walk the few steps to the beach as night falls and the sky fills with stars. There we find a table set, Savoy-style, with a linen cloth and crockery, and at which we sit alone on a beach under the endless African sky eating succulent barbecued prawns and skewered crayfish followed by delicate passion fruit sorbet served by our butler. (Nets laden with fish from snapper to tuna are delivered daily to the beach.) Then Samburu warriors appear suddenly wearing vivid fabrics and bead and feather headdresses, and do frenetic and primitive tribal dances. There’s no sense that they’ve done this a million times before for tourists, because they haven’t.

The more energetic visitors can water-ski (a speedboat and boatman come with the house), donut, snorkel and swim the channel between the house and the mainland. (‘Amazing,’ concluded Sienna Miller in the guest book. ‘Swam with dolphins TWICE.’) Or you can get up at 6am and – accompanied by Samburu to deter the occasional petty thief; there is virtually no violent crime on the island – walk for around three hours in the cool of the early morning. (The less fit can go by donkey or camel.) As the sun moves up the sky, you stride through the sand eight miles to Shela, the Notting Hill of Lamu, along a beach where sea turtles lay eggs at full moon and thousands of teeny pink crabs scuttle sideways into the water. We pass only a goat, a stray dog and wandering cattle and, closer to civilisation, some donkeys with straw panniers being filled with stones and a Moses-style figure wading through the water, hauling a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk and carrying a live goat and a cow.

Finally we arrive in Shela. This is where you can sit on cushions in the famous Sixties Peponi Hotel to have a feast of fish in coconut off big brass trays; eat on the terrace while gazing at the dhows sailing past; or lounge at the bar – the centre of the world out here and the only place in Shella serving alcohol – where rastas and Euros in leopard-print bikinis share Tusker beers with royalty. I sit on the terrace feeling mightily smug at having covered my eight miles so fast. I drink steaming cups of coffee, eat fresh exotic fruits and gaze longingly across the water at the Robinson Crusoe home of the tribal-inspired jewellery designer, Carolyn Roumeguere (Julian Sands, Nicole Kidman and Donna Karan are fans).

And then it’s off to look at Shela. It’s clean, gentrified and quaint. A place less spoilt and cheaper than the Caribbean. A place where women wear sequinned kaftans and cheery sarongs. There’s only one bar and one restaurant; it’ll never be St Tropez, thankfully. But it is the place to buy former dilapidated Swahili houses, most now fashionably renovated. Go and see a few with Englishman Andrew McGhie who started Lamu Island Property – the island’s first real estate agency – and climb their stairs and look over makuti thatched roofs at the biblical scene. A delightful and engaging man, Andrew will spirit you into Arab houses built of coral and limestone and Swahili houses with mangrove and coconut roofs. ‘The island has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last 100,’ he says.

If you just want to rent a house for your holiday, try El Yafir, just moments away from Peponi. It’s the stylish house of Mary Greenwell,- who counts Gwyneth Paltrow, Keira Knightly and Kate Moss among her clients. Mary bought a plot five years ago in Shela. Inspired by the island’s Islamic traditions, she designed her beautiful petit palais with the help of architect Claudio Modola. It has niru floors, Swahili doors and furniture designed by Mary and fashioned by traditional craftsmen in local woodwork shops where artisans make intricate mahogany carved door-frames and bed-heads.

A vast Rajasthani front door leads into a cool hall with a fountain and font with bougainvillea petals floating in it. If there is such a thing as romantic church style, then this is it, with its arches, pillars, hanging glass lanterns and ecclesiastical-style windows. There are an abundance of places in which to lie and daydream: delightful alcoves containing day beds, four posters swathed in muslin, Moorish-style sunken baths and a fairy-tale terrace with urns of bougainvillea, cascading flowers and fringed with cream curtains fluttering in the breeze. There seem also to be endless smiling staff bringing endless plates of endless deliciousness, and they all come with the house when you rent it.

If you’re lucky (and Lamu is that kind of place) Andrew or Mary may introduce you to Eric and Christina Zeller – who live about ten donkey paces away from El Yafir. If so, go and be nosey in their home, Lulu Y Shella (Pearl of Shella), the spacious Fifties house built by casting director Bonni Allen. Now lived in by Eric, an interior and furniture designer and architect, and Christina, the über-stylish accessories designer for Givenchy, their house with its fusion of European and African idioms bears many of his deft touches combined with her aesthetic stamp. Between them they’ve come up with an eclectic mixture of cool features: from Arabic words as murals on the white plaster walls (‘we hoped it was going to be a lovely poem,’ laughs Christina, ‘but it turns out it’s just the opening times of the local museum’), to a stunning Eric-designed driftwood table that stretches almost to the mainland.

If you fancy travelling further back in time, jump in a boat and bounce over the waves a few minutes to Lamu town, a place so remote it has been spared modernisation and civilisation as we know it. Lamu is Kenya’s oldest town, a bustling port and Unesco World Heritage site with 72,000 inhabitants, 25,000 donkeys and one donkey sanctuary (opened by two Englishwomen, natch.) It has just one car (which belongs to the District Commissioner), one road (too narrow to turn; if the DC forgets something he has to reverse home), and 28 mosques for its mostly Muslim population.

Here you find women in traditional black bui buis and men in white kanzu robes wandering along tiny, winding alleyways, some only three feet wide. And there’s a throbbing market whose vendors, seated on the ground, sell sweet potatoes and papayas outside the 19th-century fort – once a prison and now housing a cyber cafe.

Originally a 14th-century Swahili sea trader settlement trading ivory, leopard skins, rhino horn and, later, slaves, it has an alluring mixture of Arab, Portuguese, Turkish, Omani and British influences from its erstwhile settlers: the Turks with their glassware and the Omanis with their art and arches. From the 9th century dhows have arrived in Lamu on the Kaskazi wind from the east with perfume, sugar and silk. Lamu is redolent of that history and going into the charming port-side museum is little different from standing in the street.

There’s fine Swahili architecture (including 16th-century houses) and many 19th-century mansions – high, austere, windowless homes hiding airy courtyards pungent with jasmine and delightful, hidden cool spaces with carved doors, intricate coral work, plasterwork niches and, possibly even antique hardwood furniture inlaid with bone. You can see all this and more with Andrew McGhie, if you’re looking to buy. (It’ll cost a snip of what anything as beautiful would cost nearer home; contact him on +254 (0)720 859 599, www.lamuislandproperty.com).

Lamu is known for attracting the ‘gyp set’: artists, eccentrics, escapists, dreamers, weirdos and romantics (once it was the African version of Kathmandu, a paradise for backpackers in search of alternative realities). It’s far from Kenya’s mainland political instability and election violence. There are no perilous roads, no traffic jams, no television and, thankfully, a lousy internet signal. Just dhow racing, henna painting competitions, donkey racing and er, competitions for who has the most healthy donkey (the prize for a robust donkey? A mobile phone).

It’s a place where time is measured in sunsets and you feel free and supremely relaxed; where you’re in touch with the vast African sky, nature and the rhythms of life. Where there are dhows in full sail and donkeys laden with panniers of coral rock. Where there are exotic days filled with lime sodas, sea breezes and ever-smiling people.

As long as you remember to keep slapping on the factor Ten Zillion suncream (it’s two degrees south of the Equator) and popping the horrid anti-malarial pills, if you must (although, being an island, there are virtually no cases of the disease,) there’s no downside. We bounce back along the waves to our Kizingoni Beach House, a smile on my face, another in my heart. Yes, it certainly out-paradises the competition.

Kizingoni Beach Houses from £1,965 per person based on four couples sharing a house for seven nights on a fully inclusive basis, including flights and transfers and airport taxes. For more information or to book, call Scott Dunn on 020 8682 5070;www.scottdunn.com. E-mail africa@scottdunn.com or info@kizingoni.com.
Virgin Atlantic flies Heathrow to Nairobi daily. Fares from £379. Book on: 08448 747 747; www.virginatlantic.com.

To hire Mary Greenwell’s house, contact Babu British: 00 254 7358 02340; babubritish@yahoo.com. High season prices: December, January, August – $400 for the master bedroom, and $50 for each extra person using the other two bedrooms per night. February and March: $300 for the master bedroom, and $50 for each extra person. Rest of year: $250 for master bedroom and $50 for each extra person. Price includes transfers, private chef and house boys. Food and beverages extra. Menus can be discussed on a daily basis with the chef.

Picture a sandstone building shimmering like a mirage. Perhaps something out of Lawrence of Arabia – or maybe a creamy Moroccan fort. Then imagine honey-coloured alleyways, a piazza and a church – just built but looking as if they’ve been there for centuries. Now envisage, if you will, 93 townhouses in the style of traditional Apulian hill villages. And finally add to the mix some large villas – grand-ish residences encircled with dry stonewalls and cacti – on the outskirts of the town.

Fill the air with the scent of figs and oregano and conjure in your mind’s eye a private estate with vines growing alongside fields bursting with cherry tomatoes and aubergines. Then you have an idea of Borgo Egnazia, Italy’s smartest new offering. Most of it opened at the beginning of the year.

Borgo Egnazia is a resort in Puglia – in the stiletto heel of Italy – and a feat of vision and design. It’s a place that has opened to oohs and ahs; a venue snapped up for French Vogue fashion shoots; and to which photographers from Architectural Digest Italia and suchlike have been hotfooting it. It’s rather like a film set – with extras wafting past in Alberta Ferretti and Pucci.

It ‘s a borgo (Italian for village) and comprises La Corte – a masseria-style hotel – plus the aforementioned townhouses, villas, pools too numerous to count and a fantabulous children’s club. Its design speaks of the rural architecture of the nearby hill villages with their Greek, Goth, Norman and Spanish influences – the legacy of Puglia’s invaders.

We go inside to find a cream-on-cream minimalist dream and wow! contemporary take on the farmhouse look. There are huge tufo pots of grain (‘pile’ as they’re known,) baskets of almonds and a massive sculpture of hanging birdcages. Then there’s Vair, its spa with Roman baths – including a Tepidarium, Calidarium and Frigidarium and therapists who float around in togas and offer locally -inspired therapies.

We stay in a very comfortable 3 -bedroom villa, enjoying our own space, attentive service and a private pool. It costs 10,000 Euros a week. It’s unusual in a new villa that costs that much for the shower to drip through the kitchen ceiling and the bedroom door handle to come off in your hand. But the Chief of Maintenance – he’s included in the price – deals with these minor issues. After all this is a paradiso where they pride themselves on attention to detail.

The one thing that is faultless and beyond compare is the food. A god among culinary men is Mario Musoni, Borgo Egnazia’s Michelin-starred Executive Chef. He’s a big noise in the Slow Food movement, believes in zero food miles and takes the organic produce for his dishes from the 250-acre estate surrounding his kitchens at Borgo Egnazia. To the Italian press he’s ‘The King of Risotto’ and his pistachio ice cream with a drizzle of olive oil is the talk of tutti in Puglia.

Puglia is a top destination for gourmet travellers. It has a microclimate producing many of the world’s best ingredients, plus fresh seafood from the Adriatic and some of the most delicious cuisine in Italy. One can also enjoy, courtesy of Mario, fantastic cookery lessons – there are four staff to six pupils – who teach us to make Pizza Margherita in an al fresco wood burning pizza oven. Additionally he does Olive Oil Tastings.

Outside the resort there are a number of restaurants. Nearby is Masseria Ciminowhere we eat like Apulian royalty on holiday in the countryside. It’s a 17th century farmhouse with agricultural implements decorating the walls. Dinner is a four- course homemade buffet – simple peasant fare and all of it delicious: from taralli (like delicious olive oil shortbread,) to homemade orecchitte pasta (rabbits’ ears pasta and the region’s speciality), and baked sea bream.

Next we go to Pescheria 2 Mari in the nearby fishing village of Savelletri. (It’s a restaurant ina glass box on the harbour.) Basically it’s a fishmongers where we choose our fish which they then slice (if necessary) and give to us to eat. Sea truffles, octopus, noci (pink mussels) , slivers of sea bass… They serve only raw fish and local wine.

You can play golf on the 18-hole San Domenico Golf Course. (It’s lovely and overlooks the sea.) We also cycle 15 minutes to the ruins of the important ancient city of Egnazia – from which the resort takes its name – to see pots, skeletons, tombs, crypt and acropolis. Some of it is still unexcavated and dating back to the Bronze Age. And all in a picturesque setting beside the sea.

Further afield, we visit Alberobello, ‘The capital of trulli’ – with its Hobbit hovels with conical roofs. Here we wander through alleyways amid these small, round stone houses like so many sun-bleached beehives. Afterwards we enjoy nearby Ostuni – known as The White Town – with its Byzantine-style cathedral and citadel. In its market they sell three types of green bean (one as long as spaghetti), curious indigenous melon- shaped cucumbers and artisan-made burratta (moonballs of double cream mozzarella) plus dried tomatoes.

Among my favourite sights, however, are the olive trees that stand in serried ranks in the estate surrounding Borgo Egnazia. Enormous, ancient olive trees. They are breathtakingly beautiful.

“These trees are two hundred years old, maybe more,” says our driver.

“They’re thousands of years old,” another local tells us later. If we stick around a few hours, the trees will celebrate their millionth birthdays.

Regardless, there are 65 million of them, give or take one or two, in Puglia. And they are, indeed, many hundreds of years old. Until 2005, these olive trees emigrated in biblical numbers – as they were stolen for fashionable gardens by thieves getting £8000-ish per tree. But now they’re protected and produce gallons of delicious extra virgin oils. Forty per cent of Italy’s oil, to be precise.

We can’t take a tree home with us these days. But we take some olive oil. Our stay may end up with us tipping the bathroom scales. It may do the same to the bank balance. But it’s definitely worth it. Without a doubt we’ll be back to visit this special resort on what’s known as the Olive Coast.

Vietnam is the new Thailand. You get incredible history, magical landscapes, deserted white beaches, top colonial hotels and wonderful spas. You find bustling cities – some surpassingly beautiful with the faded elegance of the French colonial era – ancient temples, pagodas and haunting relics of the Vietnam War.

You haggle in colourful markets piled with dry shrimps and Buddhist artefacts, and swipe your plastic in sophisticated shops selling silk clothes and embroidered linens. Then stop to eat delicious street food such as pho (beef broth with noodles) and nem (delicate rice flour rolls filled with glass noodles, shrimps and coriander). You can walk amid pole carriers laden with dragon fruits, or try a three-wheeled cyclo pedicab. If you want to follow in my family’s intrepid footsteps, below is a round-up of destinations and hotels visited during our time in Vietnam.

1) The Sofitel Metropole, Hanoi

The spot: Perfectly situated in the French Quarter, just by the Opera House. It’s near the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake.

Why stay here: It’s one of the last great historic hotels in Asia. The 1901 Metropole offers French colonial elegance in the old wing and after the $20 million renovations finished last year, a zingy new Opera Wing. They’re virtually separate hotels in character and even have independent lobbies. In the old Metropole Wing there’s traditional furniture, ceiling fans and an old-fashioned shoe-shine service on offer; in the new wing, it’s a bold, contemporary look which slightly misfires. But there are nice touches like a choice of five pillows – doll’s house-sized models of which are popped on your bed for you to choose. Everyone gathers around the courtyard pool to sunbathe and eat fruit kebabs. And if you want history, there’s even a bunker under the poolside Bamboo Bar. Try Le Spa (the only luxury spa in the city) in a double treatment room then have a green-tea-and-bamboo-shoot facial followed by a Sacred Flower Scrub.

Don’t miss: The exquisite 1070 Temple of Literature, Vietnam’s first university and the Confucian temple with its five courtyards, ornamental gateways, stone stelae and red lacquer pillars. And the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre for shows from hidden puppeteers standing in waist-high water and musicians on instruments made from dried watermelon.

Retail therapy: Propaganda posters from the Pham Manh gallery. Mangosteen and longan from pole carriers with conical hats and baskets

Must eat: The lotus blossom and bamboo shoot salad at the hotel’s elaborate buffet lunch at Spices Garden. And chocolate teas prepared by their Maitre Chocolatier – think chocolate fondue and chocolate jelly. Otherwise go to Bobby Chinn’s restaurant. He’s South East Asia’s culinary TV star. His temporary restaurant is in his home and it offers bordello décor and global cuisine. Try the lotus-leaf-wrapped caramel ginger chicken and sticky rice.

2) Halong Jasmine junk, Halong Bay

The spot: Breathtaking scenery at UNESCO world heritage site of Halong Bay. Think a seascape of strange-shaped outcrops, caves and coves. The area covers 580 square miles with more than 2,000 limestone pinnacles, pillars and dolomite outcrops scattered across it. Legend has it that a gigantic dragon careered into the sea and created the fantastical islets by lashing its tail in the Gulf of Tonkin. A more conservative view is that they’re the result of erosion over millennia. It’s a place that gets poets’ juices going and inspires artists, who see everything from monks to gods in the rocks and dragons’ lairs in the caves. Halong Jasmine cruises in Lan Ha Bay and anchors at night near 690 island. The brochures and guidebooks make it sound amazing, which it is. But it’s also fantastically touristy.

Why stay here: It’s a traditional junk with fan-shaped golden sails apparently dipped in vegetable dye for protection. But it also has air-con and three floors and sun deck. (At 55 metres long and 11 metres wide, it’s Halong Bay’s largest junk.) There’s polished woodwork, 1930s style Indochine décor and 24 cabins with comfy beds and ensuite shower rooms. It even has a spa. There’s plenty to occupy the water-borne tourists from a welcome drink on boarding to the cooking demo, spa treatments and T’ai Chi on the upper deck at 7am. But I couldn’t help thinking I was on a floating version of a luxury coach.

Don’t miss: Going on a bamboo sampan rowed by a lady in a conical hat to visit Cua Van, the floating village. It has houseboats, a school, pig-pens and tourist-weary residents. Residents live as many as three generations to a room. Later, shuffle with the queues through Sung Sot cave which is larger than most Knightsbridge flats.

Retail therapy: Tourist rubbish and pearls on the mainland and vendors in boats trying to flog shells and wicker hats.

Must eat: The seafood lunch on board, unless you’re going to swim 50km for an alternative.

3) La Residence, Hue

The spot: On the Perfume River with floating dragon boats and sampans, overlooking the ancient Citadel.

Why stay here: La Residence was a former annex to the French governor’s house (the French governor of Annam – now Central Vietnam). The original 1930s house has been sympathetically restored and expanded with two comfortable modern wings and Art Deco-style pieces and fixtures. Think a bowed, nautical facade, high ceilings and pieces that speak of the Jazz Age to the 1950s. There are suites with terraces big enough to build a village and four-posters with mosquito nets. Bedrooms are comfy and many have outstanding views. The lobby is set around Le Gouverneur bar – a bar with Art Deco type murals at the heart of the hotel. There’s a slightly run-down 30-metre saltwater pool in a lush courtyard garden which is great for cooling off from the overwhelming humidity. Near the pool is Le Spa, which has seven treatment rooms. Packages are designed by Italy’s Comfort Zone but the therapists are Vietnamese. I started with ginger and honey tea and ended with a sublime four-handed massage.

Don’t miss: Anything: the Imperial City, royal palaces, pagodas, tombs, statues of Mandarin warriors, dynastic bronze funerary urns and ancient bronze cauldrons. There’s also the Thien Mu Pagoda which still has Thich Quang Duc’s rusty blue Austin. (He was the Buddhist monk who self-immolated in response to persecution.)

Retail therapy: ‘Rolex’ watches ($25) from the Dong Ba Market and conical ‘brushes’ of yellow and red incense.

Must eat: The hotel food doesn’t quite pass muster but for a trip down student-backpacking memory lane, go to Mr Cu’s Mandarin Cafe. It’s one of those places that draws Lonely Planet souls in search of banana pancakes and Vietnamese rice dishes. His charming, naturalist photographs of Vietnamese rural life on the walls are for sale.

4) The Nam Hai, Hoi An

The spot: Miami-meets-Cancun coastline. The resort is hidden from this on a deserted 35-hectare golden stretch of Hoi An Beach overlooking fishing boats bobbing on the China Sea. It’s just 10 minutes from Hoi An, another UNESCO world heritage site.

Why stay here: The Nam Hai is a top chilling option combining haute design with stunning views. It has a manicured resort of 100 almost-Aman villas (Adrian Zecha is a non exec board member) designed by Paris architect Reda Amalou. Villas have chic, contemporary Asian décor by interior decorator Jaya Ibrahim. Think Lombok-style with elegant dark woods, bronze and taupe silks, and moody lighting. The other bathroom opens onto courtyard with alfresco shower. The design and décor brings on a dose of Zen serenity. Choose an Ocean Villa rather than a Pool Villa for better views. Some have private infinity pools edging onto the beach and they’re spacious – even a one-bed villa is 860 sq foot. They come with private butlers and Phuong, our butler, unpacks and packs for us, sorts our laundry and serves us meals by the pool. There are buggies to transport you to the fitness pavilion, tennis, badminton and basket ball courts, as well as the library, kiddies’ club or one of three huge pools leading down to the sea. If you’re feeling pamper-hungry, go harem-style in Le Spa and have a double-handed massage followed by a bathing ceremony in scented water strewn with petals – and look out on flames burning in cauldrons along the lake.

Don’t miss: Great cookery classes with the chef, Binh, after 3km bike ride to buy produce from the local market. (I can now make a mean fresh rice noodles with prawns and a banana blossom salad.) Also take a walking tour in Hoi An with Luong Chinh, a charming English-speaking guide. See the 18th century merchants’ houses, the Japanese Covered Bridge, the Old Quarter, Chinese temples and hundreds of tailors.

Retail therapy: Hand-hammered, patinated bronze bowls with 24k gold leaf interiors from the resort’s shop. Simple tailoring from Yali in Hoi An, which can be made in a couple of days.

Must eat: Go to the restaurant in the resort for Vietnamese specialities such as fish on sugar cane ‘sticks’ and fresh spring rolls. The breakfasts are also excellent: rice congee to vitamin shooters, pomelo marmalade and canary-yellow eggs any which way. In Hoi An try The Cargo Club Restaurant for delicate rice flour dumplings and sesame-crusted tuna.

5) Six Senses Hideaway, Ninh Van Bay

The spot: You’d be hard-pushed to find anywhere more beautiful. It’s on a peninsula which feels like an island because it’s accessible only by boat. There’s nothing nearby, just towering mountains behind, coral-strewn beach in front and views of the South China Sea, Ninh Van Bay and the Hon Heo mountains. The owners have even rented 50,000 square metres of sea in front of the resort to ensure that no noisy boats obstruct the view or disturb the peace.

Why stay here: It really is a no news, no Louboutins (or indeed any shoes) place. Even resort time is set one hour ahead of Hanoi time to allow guests to enjoy more daylight. There are 58 villas, all with private pools and delightfully dotted among the hills, on beach and over rocks. The interior décor is rustic chic with a wooden bath tub and bathroom open to a courtyard with alfresco shower. We walked out of our door of our Beach Villa onto golden sands. But I loved the Spa Suite Villa too – a hilltop villa with its own spa area and stunning views. (You climb about 70 steps to get there.) The Presidential Villa – two beds at $2,800 – is where Prince William and Kate Middleton stayed. We shower to the clicking of geckos, Duc monkeys come down close to the restaurant and sea eagles hover above. Nearby snorkelling is not yet great as the coral reefs with which the resort is fringed are mostly dead. The spa offers holistic treatments in rooms hewn in rocks and forest to the sounds of cicadas and birds. It has blissful bamboo walls, thatched shower and towels on rails made of branches. The very un-local Lomi Lomi (Hawaiian massage based on an ancient Shamanic rite of passage) is great. The new GM promises great things but he’ll need a good English teacher and a big new broom. Service can be rural and, luckily, a new chef is en route, too.

Don’t miss: The visit to lobster farm on a local fishing boat (kitted out with bamboo roof and white-towel-covered mattresses) then a BBQ lunch on the beach.

Must eat: Have a private dinner in the wine cave dotted with tea lights, or a BBQ lunch on a deserted beach. We were looked after beautifully by a private staff of two boatmen, one chef and a waiter.

6) Park Hyatt, Saigon

The spot: Near the 19th-century post office (still in use) and the 19th century Notre Dame Cathedral in a city that is an economic powerhouse.

Why stay here: It’s an unbeatable oasis in a city of eight million people and four million motorbikes. The Park Hyatt Saigon is built in faux-colonial style. It also has French-colonial-inspired décor, a great outdoor pool and 24-hour butler on every floor. The hotel is run with consummate professionalism and slick service. The GM, an Australian called Michael Golden, has the golden touch. There’s a good jazz performer every night in the lounge. HCMC has a staggering number of hotels but this one is said to beat them all.

Don’t miss: The grimly fascinating War Remnants Building in the former US Information Service building. Also 25 miles northwest are the Cu Chi tunnels – used by the Viet Cong for guerilla warfare and mounting surprise attacks. Built at different levels, they extended for more than 125 miles.

Retail therapy: Catherine Denoual for beautiful French-style bed and table linen by a French woman living in Ho Chi Minh City and Apricot Gallery for contemporary Vietnamese artists. Saigon Square for fake Converses (£6 a pair).

Must eat: Superlative Vietnamese street-food-inspired cuisine at the hotel’s Saigon Square One restaurant. Try the soft shell crabs with coconut, ginger and tamarind; shrimps on sugar cane; beef rolls with la lot (wild betel) leaf and five spices; and sea bass with lotus leaves. Then palm sugar ice-cream, passion fruit sorbet and warm coconut brownies. Have it with local beer or fresh juices – from guava to sour sop (like custard apple) and small, sweet fresh coconut. Also incredible buffet breakfasts in the Opera Restaurant, which is trattoria-style and overlooks Lam Son Square.