Category: Northern Vietnam

The Northern area of Vietnam extends from the border with China to Ninh Binh Province, about 120 km south of Ha Noi. It’s probably the best region to visit if your time is limited, as it combines the rich culture of the Vietnamese people with a remarkable variety of natural features. It offers Vietnam’s stately capital city, superb landscapes and exotic ethnic minority hill-tribes in the northern mountains, magnificent Ha Long Bay, the Red River Delta, craft villages, excellent and varied cuisine, and the best scenery in the country. The downside is a lack of decent beaches, and a more extreme climate than the rest of Vietnam. Ha Long Bay cruises are always ready for people who are interested in discovering this landscape. The Northern area, and particularly the Red River Delta, is the heartland of Vietnam. It was there that the Viet people established themselves more than two thousand years ago, and remained as a power base throughout the intervening years.