20 May 2025

Vietnam

We offer a wide choice of cheap flights to Vietnam together with Vietnam hotels, tours and self-drive itineraries.

Other Asia Reviews

Vietnam’s happy invasion

As the scars of war heal, Peter Stephens finds designer shops and great hotels springing up - and Ho Chi Minh City is even being called Saigon again

Vietnam - Cycling is the best way to travel

Vietnam - The dramatic cliffs of Halong Bay

1 Cycling is the best way to travel 2 The dramatic cliffs of Halong Bay 3 The fabulous Nam Hai Resort

IT was all over. The helicopters were waiting at the US Embassy to pull out the remaining Americans, together with several politicians and their families, as the oncoming troops from the north headed into Saigon.

‘There was a huge scramble at the embassy gates with people trying to push their way through and the marines fighting to stop them,’ said Ho, our Vietnamese guide. ‘I was with my family who were among those leaving the country.

But I got separated from my parents and two brothers.’ Unable to reach them Ho, aged six, stood looking through the railings with tears rolling down his cheeks, as the rest of his family took off for a new life in America. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see them again,’ said Ho, who went to live with his uncle and cousins. But the story had a happy ending. Ho’s father became a professor at Harvard and the family has since been reunited.

‘I have visited the US a couple of times but I wouldn’t want to live there,’ he says. ‘My life is in Vietnam.’ War has left its scars on Vietnam, which seems to have been fighting battles on and off for ever. In round numbers it fought with the Chinese for 1,000 years, the French for 100 years and the Americans for 10 years. And now it’s being invaded yet again. But this time the invaders are welcome - tourists bringing with them much needed hard currency.

The country is changing rapidly

But with tourism comes change. When I first visited Saigon 15 years ago there were just four hotels and seven million mopeds and it had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Today there are a dozen top international hotels, swanky cars with international branded shops. And the locals are calling it Saigon again.

The country is changing rapidly and it’s already being talked of as the next Thailand. Take a tour of Saigon and you’ll visit the War Remnants Museum with its chilling memories of the Vietnam War. When I was here last it was called the Museum of War Crimes.

But the name has been changed at the request of the USA, which is funding various redevelopment projects. And the dog tags of dead GIs, previously on display in glass cases, have been returned to the States. So too, the Cu Chi tunnels, used by the Viet Cong have been widened after well fed tourists started getting stuck in them.

And you used to be able to shoot lifesize replicas of cows with an AK 47, another activity which seems to have gone out of fashion. The classic way to see Vietnam is to travel from Saigon to Hanoi or vice versa visiting the coastal areas such as Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and Halong Bay.

It is steeped in history

These now have superb hotels with more under construction. Nha Trang has a five star Evason Hotel with a Six Senses spa and the five star Vinpearl Hotel boasts the largest outdoor pool in South-East Asia.

In Hue we stayed at the colonial style Residence, which was once the home of the French Governor, and in Hoi An the fabulous Nam Hai boutique hotel. Hoi An is everyone’s favourite town. It is steeped in history and full of tailors shops. One of the best is Yaly. It’s slightly more expensive than the others but the most professional.

Take in a dress or shirt and they will have it copied and delivered to your hotel the following day. Or if you want to dress like your fave celeb take in a picture and they’ll copy their outfit for you overnight.

One evening we discovered the Secret Garden, a little restaurant with its own cooking school tucked away down a side street and dined on freshly caught fish, with local beer and wine. Restaurants in Vietnam can be quite eccentric with delicacies such as snakehead fish, which look just like snakes, fried crickets and tarantula legs.

Unlike some other countries in Asia you will notice a lack of dogs roaming the streets… that’s simply because they tend to go into the cooking pot too. But for a really unusual culinary experience head for Snake Village, 20 minutes outside Hanoi, where they breed highly venomous king cobras. Here you can drink snake wine, which the Chinese say gets rid of aches and pains.

They’ll eat the still beating heart to reduce blood pressure and the head to get rid of headaches. In a country which has spent much of its history at war Vietnam has had more than its fair share of burials and has developed some quite unusual customs.

As you pass through the countryside one of the more curious sights are gravestones randomly dotted around the fields. It is customary to bury the dead and then dig them up again three years later, soaking the bones in whisky to get rid of any remaining skin and burying them again in their final resting place.

We never quite found out why. And it is tradition in some of the hill tribes to buy yourself a coffin when you get to the age of 50. You then sleep in it until you leave the mortal coil.

Hoping, I suppose, that you don’t put on weight in the meantime. No trip down this coast is complete without a trip to Halong Bay with its huge limestone cliff formations. Being short of time we did this in a day trip from Hanoi but most tourists enjoy a more leisurely overnight stay on a boat.

Halong Bay makes a trip complete

En route we stopped for coffee at a visitors centre where 50 disabled teenagers were embroidering pictures for sale.

Two generations on from the war, many children are born with some form of mental or physical disability, a legacy of Agent Orange which was used in the carpet bombing. For most people the war is just a distant memory,’ said Ho.

'We have moved on and there are no hard feelings.

Even Bill Clinton got cheered when he came down to talk to the students in Hanoi.’ Vietnam is changing fast and tourism will speed that change so if it’s on your list of places to visit go sooner rather than later.

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