Making a journey from Ho Chi Minh to Ha Noi

Vietnam is a beautiful country where tourist can easily find everything cheap to eat and stay. There is more than 2000 miles from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Hanoi Capital in the north. Let's discover the length of Vietnam through this article with famous attractions.

1. How do you make a trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Ha Noi

There are many ways to make a trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Ha Noi Capital in Vietnam. Travellers can choose a single-track railway between the two main cities, a journey of 30-plus hours and even main road travel seems to be at scooter pace.

Some tourists tends to make a trip by plane to get the amenities, others think that transportations with local guides is a good choice for them. It's a exciting experience to go from one to end destination of the country. If you travel with your family, you should book a tour from travel company to all members have a dinner well under 10 pound. What is a remarkable value!

2. Exploiring Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City has many skyscrapers where always attract tourist visiting. Tourist can buy everything from these skyscrapers like sourvenirs, handicraft gifts, perfume of the international brands, etc.  

Firstly, Bitexco Financial Tower is a symbol of Ho Chi Minh City, it has a 49th-floor 360-degree observation level and 52nd-floor helipad. This skyscraper appears looming over the Saigon River. 

Secondly, Landmark 81 which is the tallest skyscraper in this city. It has 81 floors with a viewing deck on the 79th floor and a lofty restaurant on the 81st floor, especially, travellers can stay at Central Saigon Citypoint hotel and rooftop bar on the 19th floor. 

>>> Read also: The best rooftop top bars in Ho Chi Minh City

Except for the skyscrapers, Ho Chi Minh City has a lot of tourist attractions where were bolded the historical stamps. 

Reunification Palace is a famous tourist attraction which is built in 1960s as the presidential palace for the south’s leader and where the two halves of the country were united in talks on April 30, 1975. Just in case things went belly-up, the subterranean war room has a tunnel to the waiting helicopter.

Another place people should visit that is Cu Chi Tunnel, the scariest place. Tourists can see a 150-mile warren that served up to 2,000 people during the conflict here. They can squirm at the man traps fashioned from all manner of metal and bamboo spikes, marvel at a rusting bombed tank and then dip into a 50-yard stretch of tunnel that leaves us so disoriented that they don’t even feel like firing a machine gun at 2 pound a shot.

After visiting Cu Chi Tunnel, visitors can choose the red brick Notre Dame Cathedral, the grandiose Central Post Office, designed by Gustav Eiffel, who also designed the Opera House. And the 1908 City Hall, once the Hotel de Ville (based on one in Paris) is home to the council, or Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee.

These tourist attractions will bring travellers a new look about Vietnam, they will understand more about the hurt of historic of the citizens here. 

3. Discovering Hoi An

A two-hour drive south passes vast lagoons, water buffalo squelching through fields and low peaks. This is the meeting of north and south; a road tunnel now carves through the mountains but you can take the timeless, winding road over the top, giving panoramic views of Vietnam’s third city, Da Nang. This was where the Americans first came ashore, on China Beach, but it’s now a modern port (and cruise) city.

Hoi An is a little farther, an ancient fishing port on the Thu Bon river. The local, traditional buildings, a world of carved wood, line streets free of even scooters. By night the river is illuminated by lanterns of tiny boats carrying tourists, candles floating in cardboard saucers and the lights from riverbank food stalls.

The big attraction is Red Bridge Cooking School. Tourists start with a chef’s tour of Hoi An’s open-air fish market with crabs, shrimp, eels and plenty of less identifiable creatures then hop on a boat for a 20-minute journey upriver to the jungle-enveloped school. Here they will learn to steam our own rice paper in which to wrap our neatly chopped vegetables and garden-grown herbs for spring rolls, then get to eat them and our other creations for lunch.

Hoi An place is a throbbing mix of local culture and international visitors. Our hotel, the La Siesta Resort and Spa, on the edge of town, is a place that combines Asian charm with American-style luxury – our room overlooks paddy fields as well as one of the open-air pools. It, like many other hotels, has a private stretch of beach on the coast, five minutes by free shuttle; people laze in the beautifully warm sea with views over modern Da Nang in one direction, the Unesco-protected Cham Islands in the other.

4. Hue Imperial City

The site faces the Perfume River as does the vast Dong Ba market, selling just about anything you could ever eat. Travellers should find Co Chau, a stall of some notoriety , having been visited by Anthony Bourdain in another edition of his show, where he ate (as did we) bun bo Hue, a spicy variation on noodle and meat broth.

A short flight from Hanoi and we’re in Vietnam’s ancient capital (pronounced Hu-ay), home to the Imperial City. The UNESCO site, home to many an emperor, is modelled on Beijing’s Forbidden City, a vast complex of courtyards and pagodas surrounded by a lotus-filled moat. Much was destroyed by American bombs but restoration is underway. The peace here contrasts to the scooter-filled streets and our tour by cyclo (a chauffeur-pedalled tricycle).

5. The beauty of Halong Bay

Two hours from Hanoi is this stunning bay that seems to go on forever, dotted with 3,000 jagged limestone islands. Tourists take a two-day Bhaya Cruise, a boat for 30 passengers with wooden decks and rooms with colonial flair. They swim off the ship in the warm, placid waters, then call at Cua Van floating fishing village where the children explore in a kayak while they sit back in little boat rowed by a lady wearing one of the conical straw hats more normally seen keeping the sun off paddy field workers.

Come sunset we’re enjoying grilled fish in the dining room that runs the boat’s length before trying our hand at squid fishing (to be honest it’s a stick, twine and hook under a bright light, which isn’t wildly successful).

Next morning after choosing between pho (rice noodles in broth) and a fry-up for breakfast, travellers visit Hang Me Cung cave on Lờm Bò island, a vast cavern where a prehistoric civilisation dined on sea snails – most of the shells are still here.

6. Visiting Ha Noi Capital

Only 125 miles from China, sitting on the mighty Red River although the waterside is mostly hidden behind ramshackle apartment blocks. Travellers stay in the old town, a warren of narrow streets lined with little shops and littler restaurants. The cosy Hanoi La Siesta Central hotel, new yet colonial themed, has a top-floor breakfast room with panoramic views.

A perfect introduction to the city is the Vespa Adventures, a nighttime buzz around the streets on the back of a scooter sampling food at every stop. The streets might be awash with two-wheeled traffic yet there’s a zen-like serenity to it, everyone going the same 20-25mph and everyone equal. They sample grilled pork nibbles and Vietnamese coffee (strong and black over ice with a glug of condensed milk) from the rooftop Eden café overlooking 19th-century St Joseph’s cathedral.

Tourists have beer and bun cha (grilled pork and rice noodles) in Bún Chả Huong Liên, opposite the table (now a shrine behind a plastic screen) at which Barack Obama ate with TV chef Anthony Bourdain in 2016, filming the latter’s Parts Unknown. They wash down smoked, dried water buffalo with rice wine at Ray Quan, wedged by the railway track and its rumbling trains and eat more noodles (and banana blossom salad) at Vin Phong in the French Quarter.

An unmissable experience is a walk across mile-long Long Biên Bridge (designed by Gustav Eiffel although much of his original was destroyed by US bombing) leapfrogging homes, banana plantations, island and river. Each side of the railway track is a footpath and a scooter road which in rush hour are filled by thousands of putt-putting machines. Stop for a banana at one of the many stalls.

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