Vietnam: a short tourist guide for business travelers
Vietnam is a booming center of world trade, with a highly skilled workforce and a fast growing economy that presents great opportunities. However, if you visit this fascinating country on business but return home without spending a little time as a tourist, you will be missing out. Vietnam has a lot to offer, from stunning scenery to great food and of course a strong sense of recent history.
Traveling in Vietnam is complicated due to its geography. The two main cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) lie on virtually opposite ends of this long, thin country that measures around 1000 miles from north to south, while sometimes not more than 32 miles from East to west. The distance between cities is best traveled by plane, taking a little over two hours. Although a flight will mean missing out on the experience of the densely forested highlands of the interior of the country, Vietnamese trains are generally crowded, slow and unreliable, and the journey will last up to a day and a half.
The capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, is located in the north of the country, nestled in a meander of the Red River delta. As befits a city with a history spanning over a thousand years, there is so much to see and do. The Old Quarter offers all the noise, bustle and atmosphere that you would expect from this one of the cities of Southeast Asia, where adventurous diners can enjoy the best street food in the world. The city’s proud heritage is expressed in countless ornate temples and ancient monuments, alongside romantic 19th-century architecture and ultra-modern commercial buildings.
A little further afield, Ha Long Bay, just over 100 miles from Hanoi, is a destination worth visiting if you can find time. Recognized as a World Heritage Site, this coastal idyll features spectacular limestone pillars and islets emerging from emerald seas, and is a haven of peace and tranquility despite being Vietnam’s number one tourist attraction.
Hanoi offers a host of accommodation options, from 5-star hotels like the Hilton Hanoi Opera to the venerable Sofitel Metropole, which can claim Charlie Chaplin, Jane Fonda, and many more as celebrity guests.
Ho Chi Minh City, in the extreme south of the country in the Mekong Delta, is perhaps better known as Saigon even for its more than eight million inhabitants. Visitors can enjoy the French colonial atmosphere of the older parts of the city, as well as the more modern districts of a city that in recent years has grown to rival nearby neighbors like Singapore and Bangkok as a Southeast Asian powerhouse. .
Besides being the economic and commercial center of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City also has a rich and turbulent history from which the visitor is never far away. From the claustrophobic Cu Chi tunnels to the War Remnants Museum, the city and surrounding areas are filled with strong reminders of the trauma of the country’s recent past, but also of the remarkable transformation of fortunes since then.
As the largest city in Vietnam, Saigon is blessed with a wide variety of places to stay. Ma Maison is a bit out of the city center, but makes up for it with its romantic, otherworldly French atmosphere, while the Cinnamon Hotel in District One offers modern amenities in the heart of the city.
Vietnam is a country rich in visitor attractions, so no matter how tight your schedule is, exploring what the country has to offer beyond commercial possibilities is an opportunity not to be missed.