Vietnam

We're in northern Vietnam to see the beautiful mountains - the Hoang Lien Son rangealong Vietnam's border with China - and to visit the area's tribes. Of Vietnam's 54 different ethnic groups, around a dozen live in these foothills, each upholding its own language, tribal dress and traditions. They have two things in common, though: they all cultivate rice, and they all converge on Sapa at the weekends.

Sapa is a small mountain town built as a summer retreat by the French in the early 1900s. Tourists have made inroads here: alongside the local market are budget hotels, craft shops and internet cafés. Red Dao women argue over pyramids of tangerines and tangles of fresh herbs. Groups of Black H'mông (dressed in near-black indigo, with black headdresses and velvet legwarmers) haggle with Tays, who wrap their heads in electric pink and bottle-green scarves.

In the murky shadows of the eating area, differently-dressed groups sit over steaming pans of noodles, exclusive pockets of red, black and green, like patchwork. But, says Truong, they all get on very well. They might not intermarry or share traditions, but the different groups trade and work collectively, go to school together, converse in Vietnamese and have lived amicably side-by-side for centuries

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