Vietnam

Vietnam is a nice little country in Southeast Asia. It's easily one of the most beautiful countries I've ever visited with great food, friendly people and a tonne of interesting sites to see.

Visas

You'll need a visa. Check the current info on relevant embassy websites. You'll need to apply for your visa in ADVANCE. There is the option of applying for a "Visa-on-arrival" but you still need to actually do some legwork in advance. Only available at Hanoi, HCMC and Danang International Airports. Make sure you have six months validity on your passport when you enter the country. Pretty standard.

In total, you have two options;

1. You can pre-apply for the visa 6 months in advance from your native country. These documents can be mailed to your embassy.
2. You can apply for the visa online and pick it up at the airport. You need to do this 2-3 days in advance.

For more information please look at this website. You need to bring money and 2 passport pictures. The wait time for it is stated to be 15 min. So its not a big deal. There are two charges that you do have to pay. The processing fee of your visa (in the internet) and the stamping fee (when you land).

Getting There

By Air

The main hubs are HCMC (Saigon) and Hanoi, though Danang (central Vietnam) also has international flights.

Major airlines flying to Vietnam from Japan and SE Asia include the following:

• Vietnam Airlines - are a good airline with friendly staff and nice food. Flights from both Nagoya and Osaka are direct to HCMC or Hanoi.

• JAL - no experience flying them but they have flights from Nagoya (via Tokyo) and Osaka to Hanoi and HCMC.

• ANA - as above, no experience. Flights from Nagoya (via Tokyo) and Osaka to Hanoi, HCMC and Danang.

• Malaysian - great airline and reasonably priced with good service and great food. Flies via KL to Hanoi and HCMC.

• Air Asia - a budget airline based in KL. They are a terrific airline with some very, very good deals. The meals can be bought on the plane and are so-so. They only presently fly from Tokyo (Haneda) but if you are in SE Asia, are a particularly useful airline. From Vietnam, they fly from Hanoi (to BKK and KL) and HCMC (to BKK, KL and Jakarta). By far the best budget airline I've travelled with.

• China Southern - flies to both Hanoi and HCMC from Nagoya (via Shanghai and Guangzhou), and to Hanoi only, via Guangzhou from Osaka. They're a decent airline to fly with.

• China Eastern - flies from Nagoya/Osaka to HCMC and Hanoi via Shanghai.

• Singapore Airlines via Singapore.

• Cathay Cathay are a fabulous airline and fly via HK (or occasionally Taipei) to places all across Asia. Excellent on all accounts. HKIA is a lovely airport to transit through too.

• Korean Top notch airline. Flies through Seoul.

Money

The "dong" is the currency of Vietnam, though the USD functions alongside it.

There are pros and cons to both currencies. The "dong" is useful for small transactions such as buying drinks/street food and paying for motos etc., whilst the USD is more useful for bigger transactions e.g. hotels, booking tours etc. The USD is much more portable than the dong. On my first day in Vietnam, I withdrew 2 million dong from an ATM and it was literally a foot high!!! Not exactly practical. But then if you try to make small purchases using anything bigger than a $5 note, it can be a pain e.g. the street vendors might not have change for you!

• I doubt your Japanese card will work in Vietnam though your home country's card should work (provided it has Cirrus/Maestro/Plus) on it. You may also wish to take TCs but I think there's no need.
• Max ATM withdrawal is 2,000,000dong (about US$125) at a time, though you can do multiple withdrawals. Unlikely you will need to do that many if you are travelling on a budget.
• ATMs available in all big cities and most places of particular interest to foreigners.
• Try to use/exchange all of your dong before you leave as it's not much use elsewhere.

Transport

To and from the Airport

When I visited there was a standard taxi fare from the airport into Hanoi/HCMC. It's gonna cost about $10-12 and although it's theoretically fixed, I think you should negotiate before you get in - just to be safe! It takes about 45mins to/from both airports. Vietnam Airlines also run buses that cost about $2. If you have pre-booked any accommodation, you may as well get your guest-house to organise a pick-up for you. It will cost the same amount and then you should be guaranteed to have a driver who will know how to get to your guesthouse - though moto drivers are generally amazing at knowing where everything is!!

Around the Cities

I took motos (motorbike taxis) everywhere. You can hail them down on the street. I'm not sure what the current rate is per ride/day, so maybe check with your guesthouse/hotel or ask someone on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forums to get that info, or google it! I think you can basically hail anyone who has a motorbike down. The moto drivers will no doubt wave to you to try to get your business anyway!! Cyclos are also fun to ride in, but slow and I think less convenient as they get stuck in traffic more than motos. Anyway....always agree on the price before you get on - really just ask the hotel what is acceptable to gauge what's reasonable.

Crossing the road - it looks scarier than it is. Traffic will go around you. Basically you need to start walking and don't stop. If you hesitate for even a moment, you'll miss your chance. Find a local and either walk next to them or just copy what they do. Seriously, everyone will go around you - hope so anyway!

Walking! Central Hanoi is completely walkable. Good exercise and beats getting stuck in traffic!

In smaller towns, either hop on a moto or hire a bicycle - bikes are particularly useful for getting around central Hue/Hoi An.

Between Cities

You can either catch the train/bus. Both are fine. Perhaps the train is more comfortable but the trains often arrive at really odd times e.g. I arrived on an overnight train from Lao Cai (station nearest to Sapa) to Hanoi at around 4 in the morning!! Of course the city was abuzz :)

Open-bus tickets can be bought all over Vietnam and offer a cheap way to get between the cities - you'll be stuck on a pretty uncomfortable bus for hours with a load of foreigners. I'd take the train, or fly, if your time is limited!!

Food

Is really good everywhere, as is the coffee. Get the coffee with condensed milk in it. It's divine. Street food is really good too. I had no probs with anything there, and I ate a LOT of street food. Pho (noodle soup made from vermicelli noodles with either beef (ba) or chicken (ga) is available everywhere, and they can generally tailor it to your liking - i.e. how much chilli, cabbage, lime etc. they put in it. The spring rolls are awesome too. And you can get really good baguettes in Vietnam. If you fancy trying snake, it's a gourmet available at several restaurants - many of my friends liked it. Some restaurants also have dog on the menu...though I have no experience with this. If you did want to try it, I believe it's not that hard to find. Tamarind flavour is in a lot of dishes and is really delicious.

It's possible to get excellent baguettes here, a remnant of the colonial days.

Nuoc mam, fermented fish sauce, is pretty ubiquitous .....so vegetarians should be aware of this.

Places

Hanoi

In general it's a beautiful place worth wandering about.

• Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum

  You can go see the embalmed remains of Uncle Ho. It's pretty cool! You may have to queue for a while but it's really interesting. You have to dress respectfully and be kinda mellow while queueing too. No laughing, smirking or anything of the sort. It's all very serious - don't underestimate it! If you're been to see Lenin in Moscow or Mao Zedong in Beijing, I would personally say this is the most interesting of the three.

• Hoan Kien Lake

  Is really pretty and worth a look. If you go early in the morning you see people practising their shadow boxing, doing tai chi, getting romantic etc. The temple there is nice

• Markets

  Are awesome - different streets are allocated to the sale of different products e.g. coffin street, silver street, shoe street. great bargaining to be down. The vietnamese are hard-core salespeople so you need to bargain hard!!! Shopping in Vietnam can be exhausting (you have been warned) though also immensely satisfying!

• Revolutionary Museum

  Is a great place to get a little vietnamese history - a little biased...but still interesting

• Temple of Literature

  Beautiful - sublime.

• Water Puppets

  Are pretty unique and kinda cool...it's all in Vietnamese - i thought it was overrated personally...but still it's not something you get to see everyday

Halong Bay

It's just not practical or economical to visit except on a tour, though perhaps, if there is enough of you, you could negotiate a boat charter, though I have no experience doing this and I'd say you should look into it before you go to see if it's even economically feasible or advisable. I went with HANDSPAN several years back and was more than satisfied with the trip they organised. We had a young and friendly guide who spoke excellent English and looked after us very well. I would recommend the 3 day trip as it's four hours drive from Hanoi to Halong, before you even get on the boat. I think on all the tours you get to sleep on the boat overnight, which is really cool. On the three day trips you get to stay one night on cat ba island, so you can do some hiking and relax there itself - there's a funny karaoke place we all went to. If you do end up hiking on Cat Ba you need proper shoes as it can get be very wet up there and it's a steep hike up the hill!

If you've been to Krabi (Thailand), Vang Vieng (Laos), or Yangshuo/Guilin (China), the scenery is equally stunning, though still worth the visit.

Sapa

You could pre-book a trip to Sapa or just rock up in Sapa and organise something up there, particularly if you are with a few people It'll be an overnight train journey from Hanoi either way. Trains are reasonably comfortable, though mine was freezing (winter)! Again, Handspan do trips - though again more expensive than when I went! If you can get 4 people together you could probably organise your own trip - as in get it tailored to your needs. Otherwise, if you want to do some trekking and/or visit a bunch of places around Sapa itself, it's probably easiest to link up with a tour company. Sapa is in the mountains and can be very cold,so bring warm clothes, good waterproof boots and proper rain gear.

The local Hmong people are relentless salespeople...and can be annoying. Though keep in mind that, for the most part, they live in extreme poverty and they are only trying to make a living!! It's a hard situation to be in when you have a dozen kids surrounding you trying to sell you their "tres jolie" goods....and essentially, you can't buy something from everyone, nor should you. You should be very clear about your intentions - I would strongly recommend that unless you intend to buy something, that you DO NOT say "MAYBE" or "MAYBE LATER". This will likely be interpreted as YES! I found that in the situations where I did buy something, I was soonafter preyed upon by a dozen or so kids trying to sell me things!!! It can get pretty tiresome...

Many guesthouses in Sapa are NOT HEATED. So be prepared for that - bring appropriate clothes or pay for a pricier hotel. You might want to have a waterproof jacket as well....it's pretty lousy when it's bucketting down AND cold. Many places are heated using charcoal burners - be careful you are getting enough oxygen.

Hue

I quite liked Hue - I think 2 days is about right. The Citadel and Forbidden Purple City are really interesting - yes, they are largely in ruins, but still pretty impressive and the gardens are lovely.

The Royal Tombs near Hue are pretty interesting (particularly Tu Duc and Minh Mang), as is the Thien Mu Pagoda. You could hire a motorbike for the day and drive yourself around, or easily hire a driver for the day to take you around to a bunch of them.

Hoi An

Awesome place. I think the whole town is on the World Heritage List (and consequently over-run with foreigners). It is a lovely town though, and with the mix of interesting temples, a nice beach, great food and tailors, makes for a relaxing few days!!

It's about a 4km cycle to the beach - mostly flat. There are bicycle parking lots near the beach. You pay a small fee to leave your bike under an attendant's supervision for the day. Alternately, if you eat at any of the cafes near the beach, they may look after it for you for free.

"My Son", a town near Hoi An, has some semi-interesting Cham ruins (from the former Khmer empire - essentially Angkor era ruins). If you are heading onwards to Angkor Wat or Wat Phou, near Champasak, Laos, it's missable.

If you want to get tailor-made clothes in Vietnam, Hoi An is the place. I think it's a bit of a luck of the draw. There are many good tailors around, but there are an AWFUL lot of tailors so maybe difficult to know which one to go to. If you happen to meet someone else who has already had some clothes (or shoes!!) made, perhaps ask them if there is someone who they would recommend. Anyway, the whole process is pretty fun, and the clothes will cost you very little.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Crazy but awesome!

• War Remnants Museum

  Until the late 90s, the museum was known as "The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes" though it was renamed to with the hope of offending fewer foreign visitors. Pretty interesting museum, thoroughly biased, but nonetheless informative. The comments book makes interesting reading too.

• Reunification Palace

  May be worth a look, though it was closed when I was there!

• Jade Emperor Pagoda

• CD Shopping

  Yes, they are bootlegged, and yes it's naughty, but if you want any CDs made, it's pretty easy to get them very cheaply.

• Beauty Salons

  If you need a hair-cut/manicure/pedicure/waxing etc. I got one of the best hair-cuts of my life for $2!

• Institute of Massage

  A very above-board place where you can get a 1 hour massage for $2!

• Cho Lon (Vietnamese for "big market" but affectionately known as 'Chinatown' after its predominantly Chinese population)

  Not a bad market, though, ANDONG market is better for your genuine imitation designer shoes/bags.

• Fine Arts Museum

  Nice collection of politically correct artworks.

• Quan Am Pagoda

  Lovely litle pagoda - not very touristy

• Notre Dame Cathedral

  Skippable...

Mekong Delta

I did a 2 day trip with Delta Adventure tours. They advertise the trip as one that involves "More boat less bus" - douze points!! Quite enjoyed all the scenery along the way. We visited a few floating markets - one at Cai Be, and another at Cai Rang where all sorts of fruits and veges are for sale. If you don't know who is selling what, it's not hard to work out as the vendors have large (bamboo?) poles sticking from their boats with whatever they are selling attached to it. Some vendors sell not only potatoes, but also eggplants, kumara, pineapples.....and so on.

We made a couple of stops on the An Binh islands, where we visited a popcorn factory, rice processing factory, vermicelli noodles factory, coconut candy factory and did some cycling around some villages.

Cao-Dai Temple / Cu Chi Tunnels

A good little day trip that I think any guesthouse in Saigon can organise. I'm pretty sure you could make your own way here using local buses too. CaoDaism is a pretty interesting religion with about 2 million followers in Vietnam. It has elements of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Catholicism among other influences, in its teachings and practices. Caodism has a myriad of Saints including Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Confucius, Victor Hugo and Sun Yat-sen. Services are pretty fascinating and the main building near Tay Ninh is extremely colourful.

Cu Chi tunnels (where Viet Cong had their underground world during the war). You get to climb through some of the tunnels and visit the little museum there.

Accommodations

I can't remember where I stayed anywhere so can't give any specifics here! There are a load of basic guesthouses for $10 or less. I don't think I paid more than $10 anywhere!! Most of those rooms were private with single/double beds, a fan and not much else. Generally bathrooms were in the hall - cold showers - though occasionally I had a private bathroom. Aside from in the far North of Vietnam (i.e. in the mountains around Sapa), it was too hot to really warrant anything more than a cold shower anyway! Be aware that in Northern Vietnam in the winter, it can be extremely cold, so have a look at the room first and ask about heating if you think you might need it before you book the room.

I didn't book anything in advance - I simply walked in and asked if they had anything, and that was fine, even in peak season (Nov-Feb).

If you want to pre-book accommodations, try HostelWorld , or contact the guesthouse/hotel directly.

Ho Chi Minh City

• Luan Vu Guesthouse

  Clean, convenient, and the staff was very friendly and helpful. The rooms are pretty basic, ours didn't have a window, but for the price, it's great. You can book it on HostelWorld.

See also

• Vietnam - Wikitravel