The hub of central

Following the 1954 partition, Dong Hoi and its southern neighbour Dong Ha went from being at the centre of the country to frontier towns. Both suffered more than most during the American War – as the ruins and bomb craters throughout the area will attest. The fact that Dong Hoi has bounced back to become an attractive city while Dong Ha still retains a badlands feel surely owes a lot to being on the winning side. It has a wonderful location with the Nhat Le River dividing the main part of the city from a beautiful sandy spit, with lengthy stretches of beach to the north and south of town. While most tourists head from Hanoi to Hué, Dong Hoi is the best spot to break up the journey. It's also a much nicer base to explore the DMZ sites than Dong Ha – but it's slightly further away, and being on the northern side you won't find as many English-speaking drivers. From Dong Hoi you can easily make a day trip to the Phong Nha Cave. Đồng Hới is a capital city of Quảng Bình province, in central Vietnam. The city area: 155.54 km² (60 square miles), population in 2005: 130,000. It is located at around around 500 km (310 mi) south of Hà Nội (Hanoi), 260 km (160 mi) north of Đà Nẵng (Danang), 1,200 km (750 mi) north of Hồ Chí Minh City (Saigon). It borders Laos on the west, South China Sea on the east, Hà Tĩnh province on the north and Quảng Ninh in the south