In 1944, Maria Coffery and her husband, travelled the length of the Vietnam coastline by sampan, a traditional hand-crafted boat, and this book tells of their journey. Starting from the south, a few miles from Ho Chi Minh city in the Mekong Delta, they sailed through Halong Bay and headed into the Red River Delta, to the end their journey at the capital city of Hanoi. En route they made many excursions to well known sites, but the real focus of the tale is on meeting the ordinary people.