Top Vietnam travel destinations and holiday tips and tricks
High quality Vietnam attractions and holiday advices? One of the world’s best caving destinations, World Heritage-listed Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park is a dramatic karst mountain formation honeycombed with huge caverns, which are home to superb stalactite and stalagmite displays. The most popular destination within the park is the Paradise Cave, which extends for a staggering 31 kilometers below ground. The yawning caverns here are truly spectacular. Tu Lan Cave is a “wet cave,” and a visit here includes swimming through the cave-systems river. The other most popular excursion is to the Phong Nha Caves, where the interior is accessed by boat. You can access Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park from Son Trach. Read even more information at https://khachsandanang.shop/vn/tour-ba-na-hill.html.
Ha Long Bay, in northern Vietnam, is dotted with 1,600 limestone islands and islets and covers an area of over 1,500sqkm. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994, for many visitors, this surrealistic place is like something right out of a movie. Approximately a four-hour drive from downtown Hanoi, the area is also home to different kinds of limestone caves such as phreatic caves, karstic foot caves and marine notch caves. Activities include exploring the many cave formations, kayaking around rocky outcrops and watching the wildlife.
Located in front of the Cambodia coast, Phu Quoc is the largest island in Vietnam. Phu Quoc is what Phuket would be if it hadn’t been overrun by development. The island features pristine tropical forests, undamaged coral reefs and great beaches. One of its beaches, named Bai Dai (Long Beach), was chosen by the ABC News as one of five beautiful and clean beaches. Phu Quoc is famous for producing the best nuoc mam or fermented fish sauce in the world.
While in Hoi An, be sure to visit My Son Cham towers, located southwest. Not only is this one of Vietnam’s most striking examples of its ancient Champa Kingdom and a World Heritage Site, but also one of Southeast Asia’s most important archaeological sites and a foremost Hindu temple complex. Set in a narrow wooded valley, surrounded by forested mountains, this evocative Cham temple sanctuary was once an important spiritual and political center and royal burial ground of the former Champa civilization, built between the 4th to the 14th centuries.
In northern Ninh Binh Province, Tràng An Scenic Landscape Complex is uniquely a World Heritage Site for both its nature and culture, spellbinding visitors with its spectacular landscapes of timeless waterways and jungle-covered limestone karsts and towering cliffs dramatically rising from jade-green valleys, along with ancient sites of great national significance. The big drawcard is taking a paddleboat through two main tourist attractions, in this watery wonderland, dubbed a ‘land-locked Halong Bay and ‘outdoor geological museum.’ At Tam Coc, enjoy a slow, languorous sampan ride along the tranquil Ngo Dong River, which merges with lush rice paddies surrounded by surreal limestone formations and gliding underneath three low-hanging grottoes. At Trang An, an equally impressive boat ride transports you along emerald-green waterways brimming with rich biodiversity overshadowed by stunning islets and a series of karst caves and caverns which the boat passes through. Off the boats, be sure to visit magnificent Bái Đính Pagoda, Vietnam’s largest Buddhist pagoda complex and the ancient capital of Hoa Lu, where two dynastic temples stand at the site of 10th and 11th-century citadel.