Vietnam has only been a unified, independent nation since 1975, but it possesses a culture that goes back thousands of years and attracts many tourists annually. Preparing for a trip to Vietnam is key to making your visit to this interesting country as safe and pleasurable as possible. You can prepare for a trip to Vietnam by considering which time of the year to travel, whether or not to go on an organized tour, making sure you have all of your travel documents ready, obtaining the correct currency for your Vietnam trip, and making sure you have all of your immunizations at least 6 weeks before you leave. Read the following steps to find out how to prepare for a trip to Vietnam.

            1. Choose which time of year you want to travel to Vietnam.
If you're visiting North Vietnam, plan your trip between November and April to enjoy the spring weather, which is cooler and drier than the rest of the year. In addition, there are many interesting folk festivals and ceremonies during this time
            2. Plan your travel around Vietnamese festivals and celebrations. Vietnam observes many socialist holidays, as well as Christmas and the Vietnamese Lunar New Year , April 30th is Saigon Liberation Day, which is a 1 day holiday, followed by a 1 day holiday on May 1st to celebrate International Labor Day. On September 2nd, a 1 day holiday is observed to celebrate the National Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Around the end of January and the beginning of February, the Vietnamese celebrate the Lunar New Year, which they call "Tet." The exact dates change every year. Though most people go home to spend this 4 day holiday with their families and many businesses are closed during this time, it's an interesting festival to witness.South Vietnam enjoys a warm climate all year round, with an average temperature of 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius).
          3. Decide whether you want to travel alone or as part of a tour.
An organized group tour can ensure that your flights and accommodation is taken care of, as well as help you avoid common pitfalls, such as over paying for attractions, getting lost, or even being robbed.
If you don't want to travel as a part of a group, you're best advised to have a travel agent book your flights and hotel for you but rely on local guides to show you the sights. Most hotels can arrange for state-operated tour guides, who charge around $25 for a day, excluding expenses, to give you day tours. They generally can speak English, French, Chinese, Russian or Japanese.
         4.Obtain your passport and tourist visa.
If you don't already have a passport, apply for one at your local post office.
You do not need a tourist visa if you're Vietnamese and holding a foreign passport. You and your foreign spouse or child are exempt if you stay under 90 days. You'll need to show your foreign permanent residency permit and obtain a visa exemption from the appropriate Vietnamese authorities.
Visitors from Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Laos and Indonesia with current passports can stay for 30 days in Vietnam without a visa, while those from the Philippines can stay for 21 days.
People with diplomatic passports from over 60 different countries, as well as ASEAN officials, do not need a tourist visa to enter Vietnam.
Tourists from Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark may stay for 15 days.
All others need visa, 30 days, issued in consulates or diplomatic offices. You can apply for a tourist visa at the Vietnamese embassy or consulate in your country. Be sure to do this well ahead of time, as the process may take over a month.
           5.Visit your doctor for immunizations and other medical precautions.
If you're entering from a country with a risk of yellow fever virus, you'll need proof of yellow fever immunization to enter Vietnam.
Ask your doctor which immunizations are currently required or recommended for Vietnam, as this may change from time to time.
Ask about other medications, such as anti-malaria and anti-diarrhea drugs.
            6.Get the correct currency for your Vietnam trip. In Vietnam, you can use U.S. dollars in many large hotels and tourist hotspots, but you'll need the country's official currency, the Vietnamese dong, in smaller places and at markets. You can exchange money at the airport and at banks, hotels and jewelry shops. Most hotels and businesses don't accept travelers' checks.
            7.Be aware of the country's entry and exit procedures at customs. You'll need to fill in declaration forms when you enter and leave the country.
Goods you bring into the country for personal use are tax-exempt.
You may bring unlimited amounts of gold, silver, and other precious metal objects, as well as foreign currency, so long as you provide a detailed description on your customs form.
You can take as many souvenirs with you as you like, so long as you can provide the receipts to the customs officers if they ask to see them upon leaving the country.
            8. Buy a guidebook that has a few helpful phrases in Vietnamese. Even a few polite words can get you a long way when traveling.
            9. Purchase a money belt that you can wear under your clothes. This is a safe and comfortable way of storing money and your travel documents on your person without tempting pickpockets.
Source: wikihow

These photos, taken just as the effects of Đổi Mới; reforms were kicking in, show a Hanoi transitioning from an impoverished capital city into one embarking on a path towards the free market.

                                 Many of these steel power poles  have disappeared from Hanoi's street

                                                       A family pose some photos at Hoan Kiem lake

Setting a fish trap

Kids fishing in front of Ngoc Son temple, Hoan Kiem lake

Pomelo vendors and their sack of goods

the right building  used to be a tram station

City tram

Hang Dao street

A tram among pedestrians

An electric bus

A tram on Dong Xuan market

Smartly dressed Hanoian walking his Honda cub

A Crezchslovakia -made Barbetta

Motorbikes used cost as much as house in Hanoi



Nguyen Huu Huan street

Play badminton in the Indira Gandhi Garden

A corner in Old quarter during Tet

A bustling Tet market

A concert during Tet

A sign with alcohol prices

A shopping center

Phan Dinh Phung street

New Year's slogan

The Dong Van district’s Hmong villages and spectacular peaks remain so isolated, foreign tourists are all but unknown.

On the road
Google the name “Dong Van” and you won't find much. Until 2013, this mountainous frontier district in Vietnam's northeast corner was under military control and in order to visit, foreigners required special permits that were notoriously difficult to get. “Tourists in Vietnam – if they want to see mountains, they go to Sapa in the northwest,” said Anh Tuan Nguyen, the director of Mototours Asia, a company that offers motorcycle trips throughout the north of Vietnam. “The problem with Sapa is the people are now used to tourists and they are not too interested in being friendly to them. But in Dong Van, the people are still wearing traditional clothes and living traditional lifestyles and are very happy to see you.” With that in mind, I set out from the traffic-choked capital Hanoi on an eight-day guided road trip to Dong Van, riding a vintage Royal Enfield 500cc Bullet motorcycle – and eager to visit a part of Vietnam few foreigners have ever seen. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

Curves ahead
The district of Dong Van is so uncharted by Western visitors that many of the roads and mountain ranges have no English translations, making them difficult for travellers to navigate without the help of a local guide. But you don't have to be a local – or a biker – to appreciate the symmetry and engineering of the road leading to Dong Van. Together with Mototours Asia guide Quyen Do Huu, we spent day after day careening around hairpin turns that snaked some 1,500m up colossal mountain ranges. After finding a pass, the road would drop like a bomb into massive canyons carpeted with rice paddies, and it would amble through a village or two before it found another mountain to climb – the dizzying ascent starting all over again. When we left Hanoi, Do Huu told me that Vietnam’s roads and scenery would top even those of Laos, a place many consider a motor biking paradise. On roads like this one, with its peg-threatening curves, negligible traffic and stunning scenery, I realised he was right. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

Civilisations built on rice
The further north we travelled, the bigger the mountains became. We rode up to 250km a day across ranges riddled with thousands of rice terraces – an ancient form of agriculture that gave rise to every civilisation to inhabit Vietnam for the past 10,000 years. February marks the middle of the dry season, which accounts for the terraces' brown and earthy tones. But during the monsoon season, from April to October, the terraces light up in bright green and yellow. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

Weaving by hand
One of the great draws of exploring Vietnam's northeast is the chance to meet and interact with the Hmong, an ethnic minority that resides in the mountains of Southeast Asia and is often identified by their bright clothing: elaborate dresses, shawls, shirts and scarves, handmade from cotton and hemp fibres that are then dyed with root vegetables in shades of electric pink, red, green and blue. In a world where so many indigenous tribes have capitulated to the convenience of T-shirts and tracksuits, many Hmong girls still learn how to sew and weave tribal motifs passed down to them by their mothers and grandmothers. In this photo, a Hmong woman in traditional dress works an antique loom inside a barn on the outskirts of Yen Minh town, approximately 90km south of Dong Van town – the capital of Dong Van district. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

Entering Meo Vac
About 30km south of Dong Van town is Meo Vac, a Soviet-era concrete town surrounded by Hmong villages. With the exception of electricity cables, scooters and ubiquitous mobile phones, the villagers living here still lead traditional lives. Their daily chores include tilling the earth with ox-driven ploughs, fermenting corn to make wine and collecting tinder to warm their homes and cook their rice.

Meo Vac's famous weekend market
One morning we awoke at 6 am and, in the dark, made our way to Meo Vac's famous weekend market. Dressed in their Sunday best, the Hmong people gathered in the thousands, buying and selling herbs such as ginseng, anise and cinnamon, apples the size of pears, pears the size of melons, the butchered carcasses of pigs, goats and dogs, handmade rice noodles and huge slabs of tofu. They also sold homemade corn wine, a fiery spirit with a vodka-like finish and warm, aromatic flavours. It was here that I saw Western faces for the first time since leaving Hanoi: a retired couple from France travelling around on local minibuses. They were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

The old Hmong king's palace
About 15km south of Dong Van town in the Sa Phin Valley is Nha Vua Meo: the Palace of the Hmong King, a two-storey four-winged building backed by massive sawtooth cliffs and enclosed in a forest of pines. Built by Chinese tradespeople in 1902 for the Hmong warlord Vuong Chinh Duc, the fortress-like building includes 500mm-thick stone walls set within an 800mm-thick stone barrier, two internal courtyards, 64 bedrooms where the king's wives, children and guard slept, a shrine, armoury, marijuana store – and a large stone block used for lopping off traitors' heads. Only one other Hmong king – communist sympathiser Vuong Chu Sen – lived in the palace before it was abandoned during the Anti-French Resistance War, known in Vietnam as the French War, of 1946 to 1954. Today the palace is run as a museum with a small collection of period artefacts set in dusty glass cases. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

Dong Van's Old Quarter
After four days and 900km of arduous riding on our trusty old Enfields, we crawled into Dong Van town just after nightfall. We spent the night in a home stay in the Old Quarter, a maze-like warren of cobblestoned alleyways and century-old flagstone buildings topped off with terracotta tile roofing. The oldest of these homes – a large terrace with two stone-pillar supports festooned with red lanterns – was built by the Luong family between 1810 and 1820 and is still inhabited by their descendants today. It was one of 40 heritage buildings that survived a fire that ravaged Dong Van in 1923, before the French rebuilt the town. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

End of the road
Set in the strategic heart of a 1,600m high plateau only 3km from the Chinese border, Dong Van became France's northernmost outpost during the country’s ill-fated 59-year-long colonial occupation of Vietnam. French soldiers used indentured Vietnamese labourers controlled by local kapos (collaborators) to build a large garrison that now lies in ruins on top one of the many karst rock formations overlooking Dong Van town. The garrison can be reached via a steep, roughly 1km goat trail that leads from an alleyway on the eastern boundary of the Old Quarter. This photo was taken from the top of garrison shortly after dawn, when the town was still partly wrapped in the nightly mist. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)

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The Cold Food Festival or Hanshi Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated for three consecutive days starting the day before the Qingming Festival in the Chinese Calendar, which falls on April 5 by the Gregorian calendar, except in leap years (the 105th day after dongzhi). It is celebrated in China as well as the nearby nations of Korea and Vietnam. At this time of year, the sky becomes clearer and buds sprout in the field. Farmers sow various seeds and supply water to their rice paddies.

In Vietnam, where it is called Tết Hàn Thực, which takes place on the 3rd day of the third lunar month in the year. This is occasion for family gathering and remember ancestor the Cold Food Festival is celebrated by Vietnamese people in the northern part of the country on the third day of the third lunar month, but only marginally. People cook glutinous rice balls called bánh trôi on that day but the holiday's origins are largely forgotten, and the fire taboo is also largely ignored.“Banh troi” and “banh chay” are two traditional food of Tet Han Thuc in Vietnam. “Banh troi” are spheres made of glutinous rice flour with piece of sugar inside. “Banh chay” are bigger than “banh troi” and have sweet green bean paste inside instead of piece of sugar. After all have been done, “banh troi” and “banh chay” will be put on a tray on altar to offer ancestor. The householder will burn incense to invite ancestor enjoy Cold Foods Festival with family. When the liturgy of ancestor worship ended, all family will eat “banh troi” and “banh chay” together. “Banh troi” is usually added some coconut fibers and sesame; “banh chay” is associated with sweet broth.

 In some regions of Vietnam, besides “banh troi” and “banh chay”, people also make “banh rom” on that day. “Banh rom” shares some similar characteristics with “banh chay”. The coat is made from glutinous rice flour with sweet green bean paste inside. “Banh rom” is usually wrapped by a piece of banana leaf.

Modern versions of the banh troi come in rainbow-like colors and are filled with many flavors.Many vegetables like beetroot, spinach, carrot, pumpkin, and purple cabbage are used to get the colors for the balls. 

Other ingredients, used to make toppings, could be coconut flesh sliced into thin ribbons and roasted sesame seeds.Knead glutinous rice flour well with the colored liquids.
Wrap the bean balls with the flour. Make the in various sizes.Boil the balls in water. 

 Serve the finished balls with sweetened water and top with sesame seeds and thin slices of coconut.

Surrounding Hanoi, we see residenst in Hanoi are making or buying Banh troi, banh chay :

One of the most favourite experience  of tourist when they travel to Vietnam is   immersed in the peaceful nature and fresh air You can try to cycle on the pathways , look around slowly 

This photo is taken  in Ninh Binh

Explore the Mekong river , sitting  on boat , you will see the South’s unique beauty, especially in  the water lily’s harvest, local people often earn more money by  cutting the  3-4m height water lily and sell ones  

The beauty of the limestone islands in Halong Bay  are  spectacular . which  you should not miss out  in the discovery journey in Vietnam 

The best time of the day in Hoi An is  at night when along   the river is reflected  by the twinkle lights from the old house 

Vietnam trip is not completed if you not stop at the dynamic capital-Hanoi city

If you are looking for  the adventurous  experience, you should not ignore Son Doong- the the largest cave in the world . Located in  Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh , Son Doong cave is the   desired destination of many tourists around the world which only limited 450 visitors every year. Like Son Doong , Hang En is  very popular  place 

You can also  have experience  on sand dunes in Mui Ne , Binh Thuan like on Sahara  desert

On Ba Na Hills cable car is the world’s  longest single-wire cable car system , you  feel you lost in the way to heaven  , surrounded by white clouds.

The lush vitality in Bac Son valley make people ask themselves if this place is real or not ?


Coming to To Do Travel (Tonkin) you can join in one of our tours  both private and group tour then explore one of the above destinations
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