Sep 7, 2007
Vietnam remains a largely unspoiled and low-cost vacation, and you can enjoy two weeks there for an amazing $945 plus airfare
The decline in American tourism to Vietnam is one of the great mysteries. While nearby China is awash with visitors from the U.S., Vietnam -- with the same low prices and exotic culture -- is a disappointment to most of the tour operators who have ventured to promote it. One of them supplied me with a psychological explanation: that second thoughts about the wisdom of having invaded Iraq are being carried over mentally to Vietnam, where identical doubts prevailed three decades ago. And that the unease over Iraq is therefore affecting travel to Vietnam. Go figure. In the meantime, Canadian tour operators are continuing to offer and sell packages to Vietnam that remain popular and rival the top values of other Asian locations. Gap Adventures, of Toronto (tel. 800/708-7761; www.gapadventures.com), operates a superb two-week itinerary -- 10 nights in hotels, two nights on a sleeper train, one night on an overnight boat -- that begins in Hanoi and Halong Bay and then goes sweeping down that nation's coast along the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea to Hue, Hoi An (custom-made suits here!), Nha Trang, and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Departures are every week throughout the fall, winter and spring, in groups limited to 15 persons but averaging 10, and including considerable sightseeing, a tour leader, local guides, and more. These are heavily booked by intellectually-curious Americans. The charge is an amazing $695 per person, plus $250 in local payments; to which you add your own international airfare on Vietnam Airlines, booked through www.mobissimo.com, for about $979, round-trip from Los Angeles.
Vietnam. If you have two weeks free in the months ahead -- what's stopping you?
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Labels: vietnam
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
