My lovely wife would like a holiday to Vietnam, but I know very little about it. I assume a 2-4-1 is possible, but not sure where best to fly to?
UG with Avios.
Has anyone any experience of touring Vietnam and who to use? Is it better to fly BA out there, then take a tour once there or a package from here?
Programs: BAEC Gold, BA Cloud Appreciation Society, MUCCI Slayer of Monsters
Posts: 2,726
Quote:
Originally Posted by botham
My lovely wife would like a holiday to Vietnam, but I know very little about it. I assume a 2-4-1 is possible, but not sure where best to fly to?
UG with Avios.
Has anyone any experience of touring Vietnam and who to use? Is it better to fly BA out there, then take a tour once there or a package from here?
BA does not fly direct to VietNam. If you want to do it all on oneWorld, then BA to HKG, and then CX or KA? to HAN or SGN. Alternatively, fly to BKK and take Bangkok Air but this is not a oneWorld airline.
I imagine the Asia forum might have some good information about touring VietNam. Depending on time, I'd do a north to south tour, starting with a puppet show to get the history of VietNam sussed out.
It is a lovely country. Just make sure you remember the conversion rates to the Vietnamese Dong.
Probably cheaper to go to BKK and pick up a cheap ticket from there. Both TK and LH (not OW) have cheap BKK-SGN flights. Jetstar Pacific also have cheap domestic flights in the country. The distances in the country can be considerable, particularly from Hanoi to HCMC. Hoi An and Hue are lovely and worth a look if you get a chance, plus an opportunity to kick back and take it easy.
It's a really interesting country. Most (inc UK) visitors need a visa, there is the possibility of getting one through an agency in advance online, but not all such agencies are reputable, so you will want to do your research if going down that route.
NB if BKK does not appeal you can try transitting through HKG, where there are OW options (CX), plus there used to be cheaper flights with UA. But like the LH, TK flights above, they are, at most, once a day.
If your interested in the war history or coconut growing go to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh. If you want to see the incredible beauty that is Halong Bay the go to Hanoi. Be aware that its not always warm in the North in the winter months with 17c not being unusual. Traffic and getting about by road is horrendous, I wouldn't drive myself in Vietnam, I'd hire a car with driver. Short journeys by road can take ages and longer journeys, for example from Hanoi to Halong Bay (about 110 miles) can take over 4 hours. The road network is atrocious. I love Vietnam, one of my favourite places to visit. People are very friendly, local food and drink are very cheap.
BA does not fly direct to VietNam. If you want to do it all on oneWorld, then BA to HKG, and then CX or KA? to HAN or SGN. Alternatively, fly to BKK and take Bangkok Air but this is not a oneWorld airline.
KA have just announced a new flight to Da Nang from HKG, starts in March.
We did our own organisation for our trip to Vietnam. We did a 2 centre trip, visiting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and used Vietnam Airlines for the internal connection which was cheap and perfectly fine.
Not to be missed are the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi and the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
We had no problems at all organising our trips once we had arrived - Vietnam was a fascinating destination and we had a fabulous 2 weeks there. Hope you have a great trip too!
I usually go by BA to HKG or SIN when going to Vietnam.
From SIN, Jetstar har cheap tickets for the 1,5 hour flight to SGN. The flights alight pretty well, but you risk for forfeit the ticket if there's an irrop. You may want to build an itinerary with an extra day in SIN on the way back.
From HKG the cheapest option is usually United to SGN. The outbound flight line up pretty well. The return flight leaves you in HKG for 13 hours, but that's plenty of time to explore HKG for a day. And BA and UA has a baggage interlining agreement, so you can through check the luggage all the way through both tickets.
Can't speak for BKK.
Great news about Finnair to HAN, btw. Thanks for the info.
We flew from BKK with Vietnam Airways - flying to Hanoi, Na Trang, Ho Chi Minh City and then back to BKK. Their flights were cheaper than AirAsia and the service and aircraft were superb. At Hanoi we were re-issued boarding passes while we queued to check-in - we were a little surprised but on reflection we were one of the few westerners checking in the flight so were easily identified.
If you do travel make sure you are prepared for the sharks at Hanoi airport.
Also bear in mind the scams which I particularly noted in Hanoi. We knew about them but still fell victim.
We were aware prior to arrival that there are lots of taxi scams i.e. taxi drivers taking you to the city from the airport telling you that your hotel is closed due to a 'plumbing accident' or something similar and then driving you to their mates hotel where they'll swiftly steal your belongings as soon as they get the chance. Because of this, we pre-arranged our driver via our hotel which had a perfectly legitimate looking website and booking system. Upon arrival in Hanoi in the arrivals hall someone held our name on a placard and we thought to ourselves 'so far so good'. He was a friendly guy and spoke great English.
He drove us to the city and would you believe it 'your hotel is closed due to a plumbing accident. Here is a hotel I can recommend owned by the same family'. We promptly told him that we were not interested and that we wanted to get out of the taxi. For 5 minutes we argued, he told us that we were crazy for wanting to find a new hotel by ourselves in the middle of the night. Who cares we thought, we were not going to get robbed! Eventually we persuaded him to let us out of the taxi. Luckily we had a Lonely Planet guide on us, and found that there was a recommended backpacker hotel 200m from the cross-roads that we'd been dropped off. We managed to check-in there for the night and then found ourselves a proper hotel the following day.
Whilst we were aware of this happening all over Vietnam, it was only Hanoi that we really saw it and heard of other travellers experiencing the same. In Ho Chi Minh we had no problems at all even getting in normal taxi's at the airport queue.
Just keep your wits about you and enjoy it, it's a great country and Ha Long Bay is truly one of the most impressive places I've seen anywhere in the World.
If you have little experience of travel to a developing nation then I would recommend finding an agent who can put the whole thing together for you. Vietnam is an amazing place but without a certain level of experience and instinct you could get taken for a ride (as shown above) and if thing do go wrong it can be intimidating.
But do go. Shame to miss out on Angkor Wat in Cambodia. One of the sights of the world.
Thanks for the info.
