Think of Vietnam and you’ll probably think about the war, and it’s fair to say that you probably won’t be alone in defining this beguiling country by the events of over thirty years ago. Scratch the surface though and you’ll find that the war memorials dotted around the country aren’t all that Vietnam has to offer in way of history and culture, by any means. There has to be a reason for so many back packers making their way there.


Nature has blessed Vietnam with a landscape of diversity, one which encompasses impressive mountains, a gorgeous coastline and bountiful rice fields. If you explore beyond the obvious tourist areas you’ll be charmed by the sight of peasant women in traditional conical hats, children hitching rides on buffalo, and a nation that welcomes visitors with open arms...as long as they only come in peace. The Vietnamese people are friendly and generous, and the main cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) are captivating places where everyday life is played out on the streets, with a cold beer and some boiled quail’s eggs.

Rural Vietnam is a completely different story, and even though the rural areas are often just a stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of the major cities, it’s like being transported into a whole new world as you take in the rice paddies and some truly remarkable geography.

Vietnam is in the tropics and borders the People's Republic of China, Laos and Cambodia. Northern Vietnam is dominated by the Red River plains rivers Lo and Chay. To the south is the Mekong River, and in the middle and to the southwest you’ll find the highlands - mountainous areas, where tea, coffee and rubber are grown.

The tropical location of Vietnam leaves it open to some extreme weather and it’s worth noting that typhoons and tropical storms are quite common between the months of June and December.

History
Vietnam came to the attention of the West because of the American War but the country has a spirited history, and has had to fight its corner for centuries before the Americans arrived.

The Chinese, the Khmers, the Chams and the Mongols have all tried to overcome the might of the Vietnamese, and the culture is rich with Chinese influence, due to the thousand-year occupation. The French came along and colonised the country during the second half of the 20th century, and then, of course, the Americans tried to muscle in.

The history of Vietnam stretches back for at least 2700 years and features rule by successive Chinese dynasties until 938. The Chinese tried to invade several times after 938, as did the Mongols - three times during the thirteenth century - and then of course the French took over. During World War II, Imperial Japan threw the French out and occupied Vietnam themselves, although they left the French administration there to run things for them. The French tried to re-establish themselves after the war but failed, and then ‘Geneva Accords’ effectively split the country – promising to reunite it with an election. The partition unfortunately resulted instead in the Vietnam war.

During the war, the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union supported the North while the United States supported the South. Millions of Vietnamese died during the conflict, and Saigon fell to the North in 1975, ending the war. The reunified Vietnam had to then suffer from even more internal repression and was isolated from much of the world due to the Cold War and Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. In 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam started a period of reformation that led to a continuing period of economic growth and prosperity.

Getting There
Noi Bai International Airport is 35 kilometres north of Hanoi. Buses and taxis are available for journeys into Hanoi.

Tan Son Nhat International Airport is 7 kilometres from Ho Chi Minh City. Taxis are also available into the city.

Getting around Vietnam under your own steam can be a hit and miss affair. Although the actual road network is reasonable, the standards of the roads themselves is variable and in some places it’s best described as terrible. The road system operates on a system of numbers, and the main north to south route is Highway 1 which connects Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City. Traffic is supposed to drive on the right but in reality drivers tend to take the shortest route to wherever they are heading, along with the bicycles, motorbikes and animals that also share the road. If you hate bikes, you’ll hate driving in Vietnam as a conservative estimate of the number of bikes on the road puts it at 16 million and counting.

Money
The official currency of Vietnam is the Vietnamese dong, although it’s just as easy to take US dollars as they are widely accepted. In the big cities and tourist areas most hotels will accept either currency, but shops and other businesses tend to prefer payment in dong. As you leave the big cities, don’t expect to be able to use your Dollars – it’s definitely best to make sure you have plenty of local currency once you start to move away from the tourist trail.

Australian, British, Japanese, Singaporean and Thai currency, as well as the Euro, can usually be changed in the larger cities but not many other currencies are catered for so be aware and change currency before you leave and exchange any other currencies.

In the big cities MasterCard and Visa are generally accepted but cash is king everywhere else. Major towns have cash machines but not many of the smaller and rural towns do.

Traveller’s cheques are widely accepted in larger hotels and banks. Take them in US Dollars and you won’t get charged extra for changing them.

Banking Hours are usually Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 4:00 pm

Shopping
Shopping is great fun for the Vietnamese and many a bargain can be had if you know what you’re looking for and where to find it! In the markets, to be fair you can probably find just about anything you’re looking for – and probably many things that you didn’t actually know you were looking for... you can find nearly anything in Vietnam. Wander around and you can see anything from top end shopping malls, well-stocked supermarket and charming open markets, complete with a host of galleries, exclusive boutiques and quirky street stalls.
Don’t buy imported designer or branded names in Vietnam as they will probably turn out to be more expensive due to the high tax rates. This applies mostly to perfumes and cosmetics, clothes and electronics The best things to come back laden with from Vietnam are the handicrafts, war souvenirs, textiles, art and gems.

Vietnam is definitely a great place to find good quality gemstones. The market has definitely picked up recently and the sophistication of their home-crafted jewellery is superb. You can find some great examples of this in local jewellery stores, either made by local artisan craftsmen or big businesses. Always look for good quality establishments if you’re on a gemstone mission, as in some cases the quality can be slightly dubious – if they seem very cheap there’s probably a very good reason for that.

There’s an assortment of war souvenirs on sale across the country, including things like Zippo lighters, but to be honest, most of them are worthless fakes and best bought for decorative value and novelty rather than as any kind of authentic antique. Be aware when you travel that if you’re carrying a weapon – even a fake or an antique, you may have trouble getting it onto the plane as they aren’t allowed on most airlines.

Other popular handicrafts worth looking for in Vietnam include their lacquer ware, wood-block prints, bamboo blinds and leatherwork.

Food and Drink
Vietnamese cooking has a great reputation, which is probably why it has been exported so successfully to the rest of the world. Put simply, the cuisine combines the best of Vietnamese, Chinese and French traditions, all with regional touches, extra ingredients and secret variations. Rice or noodles usually make up the majority of the meal, and some of the national specialities include a noodle soup called pho for breakfast, or rice porridge; Nem – a rice paper wrapped spring roll filled with pork, egg and mushroom; and the ubiquitous fermented fish sauce nuoc mam.

Where to Go
The first decision to make when you’re heading to Vietnam isn’t necessarily where to go but when is best to head there. The climate differs a lot between the north with its monsoonal weather and the south which is more tropical. It can be a case of hoping for the best as sometimes you can find that the weather is perfect in one part of the country but absolutely abysmal in the other.

Hanoi
Hanoi is Vietnam’s capital city, and you’ll find it on the banks of the Red River with Hoan Kiem Lake right at its heart. To the north of the lake you’ll find the busy streets of the Old Quarter, where every street is named after a trade that was once based there. The capital is home to around 3.5 million people, many of which drive like crazy people – and it’s also home to plentiful buffalo that also like to stake their claim on the bustling highways of the city. The volume of motorbikes on the roads of Hanoi is quite phenomenal, and once you’ve got over the shock of being surrounded on all sides by two wheeled transport and livestock, you can stop and ponder the Old Quarter’s decaying French architecture which acts as a last reminder of the days of colonialism.
To be fair, the city was more or less transformed by the French when it became a French protectorate in late 19th century, and attesting to this are the grand, colonial style buildings that now house government offices, and the wide boulevards that break up the city landscape.

Hanoi’s reputation as an unwelcoming city isn’t deserved, and at least in modern times they strive to welcome visitors with open arms. The residents had a hard time rebuilding their city following the Vietnam war, after it had been bombed to smithereens by American forces, and the locals have had to work incredibly hard to rebuild the city, which also suffered from out of control inflation, widespread poverty and even repression. The economic reforms of the late 1980s seem to have revived the city’s fortunes somewhat and Hanoi is now nothing like the austere city of reputation. Recent years have seen tourism levels increase as the city’s reputation for being entrancing and exciting is building – so much so that in peak season it can now be hard to find a spare hotel room.

Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City, the old style Saigon, is festooned with tiny temples and faded French colonial buildings – while also being steadily populated by modern high rises. Places to see in the city include the Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum, not to mention the bizarre Ho Chi Minh mausoleum – where massive winding queues form to see the embalmed body of Vietnam's national hero Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh was responsible for leading the country's resistance forces and declaring independence for Vietnam in 1954. There’s a truly surreal museum on the site which is also well worth looking at just to say that you’ve been...

One of the most poignant symbols of the city’s turbulent past has to be the Reunification Palace, where the last days of the Vietnam War were played out. The Reunification Palace was the headquarters of the South Vietnamese during the war. As you look straight at the palace, you’ll see the two tanks to your right – these are the actual tanks that that knocked down the gates, the event which marked the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, when power was officially handed over. A guided tour will take you through the presidential rooms and you can walk through the basement that was once used by the South Vietnamese and Americans to run their campaign.

Today, Ho Chi Minh City fuses traditional and modern influences – there are incense-filled pagodas, even more motorbikes and pavements absolutely choc-full of manic street hawkers and food stalls, and everything you can think of on sale right next to the road. Contrast this with the stark, efficient shopping malls and skyscrapers, the typical chains of coffee shops and bars and you can see why so many visitors are mesmerised by Ho Chi Minh City.

There are two main areas that visitors to the city tend to head for: Dong Khoi which is well known for good value range accommodation or Pham Ngu Lao for the budget option.
Hué
Hué was once the capital of the emperors of Vietnam, and it’s an amazing place to visit for an on location history lesson. You can see the remains of the Imperial Citadel, which was more or less flattened in the Tet offensive of 1968, as well as taking in some of the nearby mausoleums which contain the bodies of and tributes to some of Vietnam's emperors, including Khai Dinh and Tu Duc. All the main sights lie in and around the Citadel.

Most accommodation and restaurants are to the south. If you’re feeling brave you could walk across the Trang Tien Bridge to get to the Citadel, which is beautifully illuminated at night, but you might have to tolerate the constant stream of people who offer you a lift to the Citadel or to take you on a city tour. They mean well but they can pester you a little so if this is likely to ruin your evening you might want to find another way of getting there. It seems almost beyond their comprehension that visitors might actually enjoy the walk, so you might have to be firm.

Hué is well worth visiting just to see the Citadel and then to indulge in a trip down the Perfume river to see some of the many pagodas and tombs of the emperors just to the south of the town. It is also the centre for making the traditional conical hat.

Halong Bay
The world famous Halong Bay is probably one of the most fabulous natural wonders in Vietnam, a UNESCO World Heritage site that’s made up of 3,000 small limestone islands which rise out of the South China Sea. The bay lies in the Gulf of Tonkin which is to the east of Hanoi. The entire area is really strange to behold, somewhat eerie in places and undoubtedly also incredibly beautiful.

Legend has it that Halong Bay was created when a dragon which lived up in the mountains ran into the sea, gouging out valleys and crevasses with its large and quite uncontrollable tail. As a result of the dragon’s carelessness, areas which had been dug up by its tail soon became filled with water leaving only the high land visible.

Geologists on the other hand prefer to think that the cause of the unusual rock formation is probably more likely to be wind and sea erosion. But the dragon story is much more entertaining.

Sa Pa
If you care to take a ride out of Hanoi, to the highlands, you’ll come across Sapa, which is home to several hill tribes whose way of life still follows the old traditions. The residents still wear the old fashioned traditional dress, and the place is fascinating – it’s as if time has stood still, or you’re on a film set
Sapa is in the very north west of Vietnam close to the Chinese border. Along with Halong Bay it’s the other must-see excursion if you’re based in Hanoi, and if you have the time it’s worth doing a circuit around the northwest highlands taking in the sights of Mai Chau, Son La, Dien Bien Phu, Lai Chau and finally Sapa before heading back to Hanoi. During the wet season the roads around the highlands can be pretty treacherous and there are regular landslides so it’s best to do this with a guide and not attempt to tour alone – especially as it could take you up to a week if you tried to drive yourself. The best time to see Sapa is between March and May or September and mid-December.

Dalat
To escape the heat of the plains, take the opportunity to head off towards Dalat, a former colonial hill station with faded, elegant villas and some beautifully serene romantic lakes and mountains which make them the perfect getaway for Vietnamese honeymooners.

The high spots of a trip to Dalat include Emperor Bao Dai's Summer Palace, the Linh Phuoc Pagoda and Dalat railway station. If you want to immerse yourself fully in the mountainous, almost Alpine landscapes, you could take one of the sightseeing tours that will take you further out of town – some of the organised mountain hiking tours will take you to a traditional Lat village courtesy of a four wheel drive car – then drop you off there so that you can up walk the steep hill all the way to the top of the mountain. If you’re feeling particularly energetic it’s an amazing trip that affords you some truly stunning views over Dalat and beyond. The climb, however, is not for the unfit, so be warned...

The Mekong Delta
The Mekong Delta is where the great Mekong river's journey through south east Asia from the mountains of Tibet comes to its end, and the river is the 12th longest in the world. From the start of its journey in the Mountains of Tibet it runs through China's Yunnan province Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It splits into two between Cambodia and the Vietnamese border. Once into the Mekong Delta area of Vietnam the river splits again and forms a complex series of canals and rivers.

The area is incredibly fertile, and one of the major centres for rice growing in the country in fact there’s enough rice grown in this area alone to feed the whole of Vietnam. The colourful villages along the river combined with the intriguing floating markets are one of Vietnam's most important tourist attractions.