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While they can practise their faith, Vietnam’s Cham Muslims have been sidelined economically, writes MARK GODFREYin Chau Doc, Vietnam

THE NONDESCRIPT river town of Chau Doc is home to one of Vietnam’s less likely attractions, Islam. It’s an easy sell for tourists who are surprised to find a Muslim village on the Hau river, a wide brown-watered branch of the Mekong often depicted in Vietnam war film scenes of patrol boats fading into a jungle sunset. This is also home to the Cham, one of oldest, most idiosyncratic Muslim communities in Asia.