What is Vietnam known for?

Vietnam is known for its Cu Chi Tunnels, Halong Bay, Hoi An Old Town and Thien Mu Pagoda.

Cu Chi Tunnel

It is 70 km from Ho Chi Minh City in the Northwest. It is miniature battle versatile of Cu Chi’s military and people during the 30-year struggle long-time and fierce to fight invading enemy to receive independence, freedom for motherland. It also is the special architecture lying deeply underground with many stratums, nooks and crannies as complex as a cobweb, having spares for living, meeting and fighting with total lengths over 200 km. Real legends coming from the Tunnel are over human imaginativeness. (Taken from the Cu Chi Tunnel Organisation Web Site)

Personally, I have been to this 121km-long complex of tunnels at Cu Chi that has been preserved by the government of Vietnam, and turned into a war memorial park. The tunnels are a popular tourist attraction, and visitors are invited to crawl around in the safer parts of the tunnel system. Some tunnels have been made larger to accommodate the larger size of Western tourists, while low-power lights have been installed in several of them to make travelling through them easier and booby traps have been clearly marked.

(Picture of me and my sister at the Cu Chi Tunnel)

Halong Bay

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the great natural wonders of Asia, and it is a popular travel destination. It is a spectacular location for sightseeing in Vietnam, located in the Gulf of Tonkin; it forms an amazing seascape of limestone pillars along with more than 1,600 islands and islets. It houses a great diversity of ecosystems including coral reefs, freshwater swamp forests, mangrove forest, small freshwater lakes, and sandy beaches.

Hoi An Old Town

It is once a major Southeast Asian trading post in the 16th and 17th centuries, the seaside town Hoi An is basically a living museum featuring a unique mixture of East and West in the form of its old-town architecture. Among the heritage architecture stand Chinese temples, a Japanese-designed bridge, pagodas, wooden shop-houses, French- colonial houses and old canals. Though large-scale trading had long moved elsewhere Hoi An has been successful in preserving and restoring its charming roots and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in December 1999.

Thien Mu Pagoda

It is one of the most beautiful attractions that you can find in Vietnam. Situated in front of the famous Perfume River, the pagoda of Thien Mu or the Heavenly Lady pagoda was built by Lord Nguyen Huang after he heard a story about the appearance of the Heavenly Lady on the exact location.

Built during 1610, the pagoda consists of two main parts; the front and the rear ends. The rear part of the pagoda consists of the main hall where the Buddha has been enshrined; it is also the area where the monks live and practice Buddhism. The front part of the pagoda consists of the Phuoc Duyen tower which is an attraction that can be seen in Hue.