Vietnam travel guide

• Ho Chi Minh City,
• Hanoi,
• Tay Ninh

• Central Vietnam,
• North Vietnam,
• South Vietnam

Vietnam

A beautiful country with a complicated past.

Bamboo-pole skinny and a thousand miles long, energized Vietnam packs so much into its mountainous, slithery shape that repeat visitors still find things to shake their heads at. Now buddies with the USA, Vietnam is feasting over 21st-century business, and its book-end cities – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) – change by the hour. Most itineraries start at one and finish with the other: Hanoi’s prettier, with more cultural history and closer to the mountains, but old Saigon’s food is better and its all-night energy unparalleled. From Ho Chi Minh City, easy-to-arrange tours sample the Mekong Delta’s chocolate-colored rivulets on boat trips past rice villages or visit war sites like the claustrophobic Cu Chi tunnels. Up the coast, Nha Trang is the best beach town, with turquoise water and a growing hotel-filled skyline, but Hoi An, an ancient Chinese trading town with cobbled streets, is a standout for many. A few hours north, is Vietnam’s former capital, Hue, with royal tombs and the country’s spiciest street food. Near the border with China, take a cruise navigating through the monolithic limestone islands of Halong Bay, named after a dragon; an overnight train ride to the north is Sa Pa, with Indochina’s highest mountains and home to ethnic minorities.

Vietnam travel guide by robert

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