Vietnam Favorites

  Cau May Street, Sa Pa,Lao Cai...
by Greggor58
 
  • Cau May Street, Sa Pa,Lao Cai Province,Vietnam.
      Cau May Street, Sa Pa,Lao Cai...
    by Greggor58
  • Cau May Street, Sa Pa,Lao Cai Province,Vietnam.
      Cau May Street, Sa Pa,Lao Cai...
    by Greggor58
  • tropical fruit
      tropical fruit
    by aalayaa
  • Coffee beans.
      Coffee beans.
    by cachaseiro
  • View from stairs up to top of Ti Top Hill
      View from stairs up to top of Ti Top...
    by wannabeglobetrotter
 

Most Viewed Favorites in Vietnam

26.

Useful tips   Ho Chi Minh City

Useful tips, Ho Chi Minh City

 65 Reviews  Dont go during TET, many places are closed and everyone goes home to their home town to be with family. Its a great happy time if you are vietnamese and are back home with your family but for tourist,... 

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27.

Arround the City   Hanoi

Arround the City, Hanoi

 36 Reviews  The kids here are gorgeous . Always ready to say hello to us westerners. They have the most beautiful little faces. But before I took a photo I always asked the adult they were with if it was ok to do... 

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28.

Street life   Ho Chi Minh City

Street life, Ho Chi Minh City

 22 Reviews  Christmans in Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica The Christmans day all the people walk around the streets in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). But most of them are around the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica to... 

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29.

Out of Hanoi   Hanoi

Out of Hanoi, Hanoi

 11 Reviews  Dear friend, Kenh Ga is a 10km canal in Ninh Binh province - the South from Hanoi. It take about 2 and a half hours drive from Hanoi. There are not much atraction there, you just sit on a concreat... 

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30.

Sights   Ho Chi Minh City

Sights, Ho Chi Minh City

 24 Reviews  This tip goes for any city in Vietnam, try and go for a tour out in the countryside as this is where you see villages and people getting on with their daily lives......the further out....the... 

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31.

Cultural Tips   Hanoi

Cultural Tips, Hanoi

 12 Reviews  Tet is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar. It takes place from the first day of the... 

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32.

Local Life   Ho Chi Minh City

Local Life, Ho Chi Minh City

 29 Reviews  If you really want to soak up local life and culture the best way to do this is walk! Most of the museums, tourist sights and markets are walking distance from one another and I really recommend... 

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33.

Architecture   Hanoi

Architecture, Hanoi

 10 Reviews  Hanoi, being the capitol of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is bedecked with scultptures from the school of socialist realism. For those, like me, who missed the heyday of communism in Europe, this... 

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34.

Transportation   Ho Chi Minh City

Transportation, Ho Chi Minh City

 10 Reviews  Be careful if u are travelling to Ho Chi Minh... they will just simply rip off, snatch your money... especially transportation..... The cyclos especially....... Will never forget they threaten us....... 

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35.

Architecture   Ho Chi Minh City

Architecture, Ho Chi Minh City

 7 Reviews  High Rise Buildings in Saigon District 7 and district 2 are the new construction and most rich places in Saigon. They are a lot of new High Rise Buildings there. Information Name: High Rise... 

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Reviews from VirtualTourist Members

Getting a visa for Vietnam

by betska

This advice applies only to Australian tourists applying for a visa in Australia.The visa application can be completed on-line at: http://vietnamconsulate.org.auOnce completed and lodged on-line, you will receive a reference number. Print this form and post to the Vietnam Consulate (I sent mine to the address in Edgecliff, Sydney) with the following:1. Your original passport2. A passport photo which should be glued to the application in the top right-hand corner3. A money order or bank cheque (made payable to the Consulate General of Vietnam) for A$70. They will not accept a personal cheque.4. A pre-paid return envelope with your address clearly labelled.I sent mine in an over-night bag. I didn't pay the extra for registered post.My passport & visa arrived back to me 6 days later.The fee of A$70 is for a single-entry visa only. If you intend to travel into Cambodia (for example) and then...

visa

by xymmot

Forum Guidelines.* For a better response, post your member picture and tell others a little bit about yourself.* No advertising or solicitation postings of any kind are allowed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You Are Answering:I got a hard time searching for the information of Vietnam tourist Visa on my last trip to Hanoi and I believe most of the traveler would be in the same situation as me. Therefore, I decided to share the information that I found... According to WikiTravel and others forums, Visitors from the following countries do not require a visa and can stay for the following number of days. - 15 days: Denmark, Finland, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Russia - 21 days: Philippines - 30 days: Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand All other nationalities will require a visa in advance to visit Vietnam. A single-entry...

Pre- Trip Recommended Reading List

by tampa_shawn

I truly believe the more understanding you have of a country the more you appreciate the country. As usual I have read dozens of books and have spent countless hours on the internet preparing for my trip. Most of the books I read on Vietnam were just OK. They were either too guts and glory war-based for me or poorly written, but I did find a few gems….HISTORICAL STORIES1) "The Girl in the Picture, the story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph and the Vietnam War", The story behind that amazing picture of young Kim running naked in terror after the South Vietnamese Army bombed her village with Napalm. Hearing her story is interesting but, the real reason this book is such a gem is it gives an amazing insight to life of a normal family under Vietnam’s rule from the 1960s and on. 2)"Voices of Vietnam" is a computation of various quotes and book exerts grouped by time (all during or around the...

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Americans in Vietnam

by tampa_shawn

While the Vietnamese do have a reason to hate Americans (the “American War”, the continuing damage of Agent Orange, the US embargo, My Lai Massacre) they Don’t In fact, most of the Vietnamese have very positive feelings towards Americans (especially Jimmy Cater who ended the trade embargo) and every time I told someone I was an American I was greeted with pretty much the same response…a big smile and “AHHHH America”, then an outstretched hand and “Please go home and tell your friends what a beautiful country we have” …If the war is brought up at all…its usually to tell us its over and done with and its time to move on.While I have been told there are some small communities in Vietnam that still hold a grudge against Americans (My Lai and other villages near the DMZ that were destroyed during the war) I definitely did not meet anyone that wasn’t extremely gracious and friendly…there is...

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Hoi An

by Nemorino

-- From Da Nang I took a day trip on the back of a Honda motor scooter (driven by a young man named Van) to Hoi An, the Marble Mountains and China Beach.Actually Hoi An was a place I had never even heard of up to then, but in Da Nang I was told that it was a very historical town and a popular tourist attraction, so I took up Van's offer and went on his tour. Hoi An turned out to be a pleasant place with lots of flowers on the streets, and with numerous restaurants and tailors' shops catering to the tourists. I didn't go into any of the historic buildings, but just had a look around and had a delicious lunch of fried fish with garlic at a restaurant called Faifo that Van recommended.Actually there were two restaurants called Faifo. The one I ate at was near the Japanese Bridge, and they were very anxious not to be confused with the other one, which was a few blocks away and supposedly not...

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Climate change in the Mekong Delta

by Nemorino

-- On the third day of our Mekong Delta tour in 1995 we went to Can Tho, then had a boat trip at Phung Hiep and another boat trip Cai Rang.Climate change was not yet a big issue in 1995, at least there was little or no mention of it on our tour, but since then the changing climate has brought rising sea levels and more frequent storms. For this reason, development agencies like the German GTZ have been supporting projects to replant the mangrove forests and promote biodiversity to protect low-lying areas.On the GTZ website they quote one of their climate experts (who happens to be my daughter) as saying that "Viet Nam and in particular its south coast are especially hard hit by climate change," because much of the protective mangrove forest in the Mekong Delta has been cleared to make way for shrimp farms, while the remaining forest has been so severely decimated by overuse that it...

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see what you can see

by richiecdisc

Fifteen days is a fair amount of time to see a good amount of Vietnam. My wife and I spent three weeks and felt we got a representative view of the country. In a country that is long and narrow like Vietnam, it often helps to fly into one city and out of another to save backtracking. In your case, arriving in February, it would be better to come into Saigon and travel north to Hanoi as the weather should be more favorable in both places. Saigon is a great city but it has been very westernized and sights are not its hallmark. The food however is excellent. The Mekong Delta is very nice but not sure it's a can't miss. We did it en route to Cambodia so we did not have to backtrack and it was "on the way." We bypassed Dalat though many people love it, we chose to hit the coast along that part of the trip. Hue and Hoi An are surely must see cities but I don't think you need much more than a...

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Marguerite Duras in Sa Đéc

by Nemorino

-- On the first day of our Mekong Delta tour in 1995 we went from Saigon to Long Dinh and Sa Đéc and then stayed overnight at a hotel in Chau Doc.Sa Đéc is the town where the French author Marguerite Duras lived between 1928 and 1932. Parts of her autobiographical novels L'Amant (The Lover) and L'amant de la Chine du Nord take place in Sa Đéc. The town also figures in one of her earlier novels (fourth photo). In 1992 Sa Đéc became known to a wider public, especially in France but also in other European countries (and in Vietnam, for that matter), because of the film of L'Amant, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, which was partly made on location in Sa Đéc.I forget what we saw on our tour, if anything, when we went through Sa Đéc in 1995, but I have now learned from various websites including VietNewsOnline that the house of Huynh Thuy Le, whose love affair...

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Mekong Delta tour

by Nemorino

-- Photos:1. Life on the Mekong, 19952. Holding a big snake (we called him Monty)3. A plant as a dragon4. A mosque in the Mekong DeltaTowards the end of our Vietnam trip in 1995 Nick and I took a three-day bus tour of the Mekong Delta at the southern end of Vietnam. This excellent tour was organized by the original (and at that time only) Sinh Café, which is now called TheSinhTourist to differentiate it from all the imitation Sinh Cafés that have sprung up in the meantime.As the oldest person on the tour I got to sit up at the front of the bus next to the driver. When he discovered that I spoke a bit of Vietnamese he amused himself by teaching me more and more words, so that my vocabulary increased exponentially during those three days. I actually succeeded in using some of these words in conversation, but my vocabulary expansion was short-lived because I left Vietnam a few days later...

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Hanoi

by Nemorino

-- Photos:1. Leaflet on the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi2. The leaflet unfoldedJust being in Hanoi in 1995 was a totally exotic experience for me, since back in the 1960s when I was an American soldier it was the last place in the world I could have gone. The American air force was bombing Hanoi constantly back then, and the only Americans in Hanoi were bomber pilots who had been shot down and were kept in an old prison complex in the center of Hanoi that had been built by the French in the nineteenth century to hold political prisoners. The official name was Hoa Lo Prison but the Americans called it the Hanoi Hilton.In 1995 most of the old prison buildings still existed, and I rode past them several times on my rented bicycle. I understand that since then most of the prison complex has been torn down to make room for a new high-rise building, but a small part still remains and is used...

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Top 3 Hotels in Vietnam

Park Hyatt Saigon  Ho Chi Minh City

 5 Reviews and 438 Opinions  All rooms offer pool of City views with full luxury amenities. As true sense 5- Star hotel, it is... 

 Hotels in Ho Chi Minh City

Hanoi Elegance 2  Hanoi

 5 Reviews and 712 Opinions  I booked our family sized room for 2 adults and our teenage daughter direct with the hotel from... 

 Hotels in Hanoi

Victoria Hoi An Resort  Hoi An

 4 Reviews and 444 Opinions  It's worth the money to stay and enjoy the beach like in Victoria Hoi An. Price from 150$++ public... 

 Hotels in Hoi An

Questions and Answers

suzeb profile photo

Q:  could someone please help? where can i buy ao dai (preferably well made and silk) for my grand-daughters, they are only 2-3... 

pfsmalo profile photo

A: Loads of places in both cities to buy Ao Dai either already made or to measure. For the small extra cost, have them made to measure and take the mesurements before going... 

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