Holiday Packages for Vietnam

Why Vietnam is worth the trip

Vietnam is worth the trip because it holds three different countries inside one visa. The north is cool, mountainous and old, with a French colonial capital and rice terraces cut into hillsides. The centre is imperial tombs, a lantern lit trading port and a long flat beach. The south is a hot commercial city on top of a river delta. You see all three on one entry stamp, and no other country in the region gives that much variation for so little effort.

The practical case is strong too. Domestic flights run all day, the rail line connects every major stop, ride hailing works nationwide with metered fares, and hotel standards at every level beat the regional average. Food is excellent almost everywhere.

There is real cultural familiarity for Nepali travellers too. Vietnam is a Mahayana Buddhist country with a strong tradition of ancestor veneration, so pagodas, incense and shoes off at a threshold read as normal rather than exotic, and the terraced north will feel recognisable to anyone who has walked in the Nepali hills.

The honest trade off is distance. Vietnam is about 1,650 km long, and the common mistake is treating it as one destination and trying to cover Hanoi, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City in six days. That holiday is spent in airports. The second is traffic: motorbike density in the two big cities is intense at first, and crossing a road takes a technique nobody warns you about. Neither is a reason to skip Vietnam, only to plan it properly.

Vietnam visa for Nepali citizens: what you need before you fly

Nepali citizens need a visa for Vietnam. Nepal is not on Vietnam's visa exemption list, so there is no free entry stamp on arrival. The normal route is the online e-Visa at evisa.gov.vn, valid up to 90 days and available as single or multiple entry. Almost everyone now needs a second thing too: the free Digital Arrival Card, separate from the visa.

One structural point shapes everything else. There is no Vietnamese embassy in Kathmandu, and Nepal is covered from the mission in New Delhi. That alone is why the online route is the practical one, wherever in the world you live.

How the Vietnam e-Visa works

The Vietnam e-Visa is applied for entirely online at evisa.gov.vn. Since 15 August 2023, under Law 23/2023/QH15, it has been open to all nationalities, valid up to 90 days and issued as single or multiple entry. Before that it was 30 days and single entry only, which is why older guides say the wrong thing.

Official processing is about three working days, with three to five realistic and longer around Tet. Apply two to three weeks before you fly, so a rejection still leaves room to reapply. The e-Visa is accepted at 42 designated border gates, covering every international airport, the seaports and the main land crossings, so you are not limited to arriving by air.

Fees and payment methods on the portal change, so check evisa.gov.vn when you apply rather than a figure on a blog. The payment is not refunded if the application is rejected, and rejections usually come from a mistyped passport number or a photo that fails the format check, so fill the form slowly.

Documents and passport validity

You need a Nepali passport, either the e-passport or the older machine readable passport (MRP), valid more than six months. Beyond that the portal asks for a short and specific set of documents.

• A clear scan of the passport data page, in jpg format and under 2MB.
• A 4x6cm photograph on a white background, taken face on, with no glasses.
• Your intended entry and exit dates, and the border gates you plan to use.
• A temporary address in Vietnam, which is normally your first hotel.

What the portal does not ask for is worth stating plainly, because agents often claim otherwise: no bank statement, no flight ticket and no hotel voucher. Enter your name exactly as it appears in the passport, including the order of names, because the approval is checked against the passport at the border and a mismatch is treated as invalid.

The Vietnam Digital Arrival Card

The Vietnam Digital Arrival Card is a mandatory free online declaration submitted before you fly. It launched on 15 April 2026 at Tan Son Nhat, and from 1 June 2026 expanded to Phu Quoc, Noi Bai in Hanoi, Da Nang, Cam Ranh, the Dong Dang land gate and numerous seaports.

Submit it within the 72 hours before arrival at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn. It generates a QR code you show at the border, so screenshot it rather than relying on airport wifi. It is free, and any site charging for it is a reseller. Critically, the card does not replace the visa and the visa does not exempt you from the card. They are two separate requirements.

Visa on arrival, and why you can ignore it

Vietnam's visa on arrival still technically exists, but for a tourist it is now redundant. It is not a stamp you can request at immigration. It needs a pre approval letter arranged in advance by a sponsoring company inside Vietnam, works only at airports and not at land or sea crossings, and the agency adds a service charge on top of the same stamping process.

So the advice is simple: apply for the e-Visa and ignore visa on arrival offers. Any page telling a Nepali traveller to get a visa on arrival in Vietnam is out of date, and following it narrows your options.

Applying if you live outside Nepal

The Vietnam e-Visa is issued on nationality, not residence, so a Nepali passport holder living in Australia, Japan, the United States, Canada or the UAE uses the same portal and the same documents. There is no separate queue and no local sponsor. Only the border gates and travel dates change, and they should match the flights you hold. You never send your passport anywhere. The embassy route matters only for stays beyond the e-Visa validity, or for work, study and family categories.

When is the best time to visit Vietnam?

There is no single best time to visit Vietnam, because the country stretches 1,650 km north to south and the three regions have different and partly opposite seasons. If you want one window that works reasonably everywhere, take March to April. Otherwise decide which region matters most first, then pick the month.

The north

Northern Vietnam is at its best from October to December and again from March to April, when the air is dry and the humidity drops. Those are the months to plan Hanoi, Ha Long and Sapa together, and also the busiest, so hotels and cruises fill early.

Winter, December to February, is genuinely cold rather than mildly cool. Hanoi sits around 10 to 17C with grey damp days, and Sapa drops to near or below zero with frost and occasional snow on Fansipan, which stands at 3,147m. Bring layers, because hotels in the north are not always heated. Summer, June to August, is hot, humid and inside the Gulf of Tonkin typhoon window.

The centre and the typhoon season

Central Vietnam is the region most people get wrong. Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An are best from February to August and should be avoided from September to December, the typhoon and flood season. The peak is October and November, when Hoi An old town regularly floods knee to waist deep and shops trade from upper floors or close entirely.

This matters because the most repeated advice about the country, that you should visit Vietnam in September to November, is simply wrong for central Vietnam, and it is the single most damaging piece of stale advice in circulation. Those months are excellent for Hanoi and fine for Ho Chi Minh City, but they are the worst possible window for the one region most first time visitors build their trip around. If your dates are fixed in autumn, reshape the route rather than cancelling.

The south

Southern Vietnam is hot all year and splits into dry and wet. The dry season runs December to April and is the most comfortable time for Ho Chi Minh City, the Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong Delta. The wet season, May to November, brings short heavy afternoon downpours rather than all day rain, and the south stays entirely travellable. You plan around a two hour interruption, not a washed out week.

Phu Quoc follows the same pattern with a sharper edge, because sea conditions matter. November to March is the island's window, with calm water and reliable sun. July to September is the wettest stretch, when boat trips are cancelled more often.

Tet, and what actually shuts

Tet is the Vietnamese lunar new year and the one date that can genuinely disrupt a holiday. Tet 2027 falls on Saturday 6 February 2027, the Year of the Goat, with core days from 6 to 8 February and a national break running roughly from 5 to 13 February 2027.

What actually shuts is more specific than the rumours suggest. Between 80 and 90 percent of family restaurants, street food stalls, local markets and small shops close for three to five days, which removes most of the eating you came for. Hotels, hotel restaurants, international chains, convenience stores and malls stay open on reduced hours, and the major museums keep working.

The bigger problem is movement. Domestic flights, trains and buses sell out four to six weeks ahead as the whole country travels home, and fares multiply. If your dates fall across Tet, book internal transport the moment your international flights are confirmed and expect fewer places. The upside is real: the flower markets and the atmosphere before Tet are worth seeing. Mid Autumn, the other major festival, falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, so September or early October, and it disrupts nothing.

How do you get to Vietnam?

There is no nonstop service between Kathmandu and any Vietnamese airport, so every itinerary on that pairing connects at least once. The realistic hubs are Bangkok, normally the shortest option at around eight and a half hours in total on the best connection, then Kuala Lumpur, Delhi or Kolkata, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Doha. Typical total journey time runs nine to sixteen hours, so this is not a short hop.

Schedules on that market have changed repeatedly, with carriers adding and dropping the route, so check current connections when you book rather than what worked for someone last season. Nepali passport holders living elsewhere have it easier: Vietnam is well connected to Australia, Japan, Korea and the Gulf, and many of those routes are nonstop or a single short connection.

The international airports you will use are Noi Bai (HAN) for Hanoi, Tan Son Nhat (SGN) for Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang (DAD) for the centre, plus Phu Quoc (PQC) and Cam Ranh (CXR) for Nha Trang. Because the country is long, the smart move is an open jaw booking: in to Hanoi and out of Ho Chi Minh City, or the reverse, so you never backtrack. Make sure the gates on your e-Visa match what you booked.

One forward looking point will catch people out. Long Thanh International Airport, about 40 km east of Ho Chi Minh City in Dong Nai, held its technical opening in December 2025 with a commercial launch targeted for 1 December 2026. After that, international routes over 1,000 km are due to shift there from Tan Son Nhat. If you are booking Ho Chi Minh City for late 2026 or later, confirm which airport your flight uses, because the transfer time into the city is very different.

Places to visit in Vietnam

Vietnam divides into three clusters, and the best trips pick two rather than sprinting through all three: the north with Hanoi, Ha Long Bay and the mountains; the centre with Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An within an hour of each other; and the south with Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc.

Hanoi and the north

Hanoi is the more atmospheric of Vietnam's two big cities and the better base for a first visit. The Old Quarter is a dense grid of streets that still sell by trade, and the walking between Hoan Kiem Lake, the Temple of Literature and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex is much of the point. Give it two full days.

Ninh Binh, roughly two hours south, is the best day trip in the country. The limestone karsts of Trang An and Tam Coc rise out of flooded rice fields and are rowed rather than motored, which is why it is called Ha Long on land, and it is a genuine fallback if a cruise is cancelled.

The Ha Giang loop in the far north is the most spectacular road in Vietnam, but a Nepali licence and a Nepali issued international permit are not valid there, so riding it yourself is not an option. The standard solution is the easy rider arrangement, riding pillion with a local driver for the whole loop.

Ha Long Bay and Lan Ha Bay

Ha Long Bay is the image most people have of Vietnam, and it is also the part of the trip most likely to be disrupted. On 19 July 2025 the tourist boat Wonder Sea capsized in a sudden squall there, killing 39 people. It was the country's deadliest maritime accident in over twenty years, and it is why the current rules are strict.

Departures are now suspended by the Quang Ninh Port Authority, not by the cruise operator, whenever there is an official storm warning or winds reach Force 6 or above, roughly 39 km per hour. There are typically eight to twelve full closure days a year, most often in July, and the decision is out of the operator's hands.

Three consequences follow. A cruise can be cancelled or shortened at no notice. The refund policy is the operator's own, so read it before booking. And never put a cruise on the day before an international flight.

Lan Ha Bay is the sensible hedge. Same continuous water, same karst scenery, but it sits under Hai Phong rather than Quang Ninh province, so it issues sailing permits independently and can sometimes depart on a day Ha Long is closed. It is also noticeably quieter.

Sapa

September is the best month for Sapa. That is the golden harvest, when the terraces turn yellow before cutting, and the driest stretch, around 15 to 22C with firm trails underfoot. The harvest runs late August to late September and peaks in the first half, so aim at the first two weeks. The second window is late April to June, the water and reflection season, when the flooded terraces mirror the sky.

July and August are the worst time in Sapa: peak rain, slippery landslide prone trails, fog that removes the views, leeches, and landslide risk on the Lao Cai to Sapa road. December to February is cold with bare terraces, frost and occasional snow at altitude.

Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An

These three sit within about two hours of each other and are usually done as one block. Hue is the old imperial capital, with the walled Citadel, the royal tombs along the Perfume River and the most formal cuisine in the country. Da Nang has the long beach, the Marble Mountains and the Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills. Hoi An is the lantern lit former trading port, with a pedestrianised old town, a serious tailoring trade and the My Son ruins nearby.

One administrative change makes older sources wrong. From 1 July 2025 Vietnam went from 63 provinces to 34 and abolished the district tier. Quang Nam was absorbed into Da Nang City, so Hoi An is now a ward of Da Nang City, not a separate city in Quang Nam. If a guide or even a hotel booking address still places Hoi An in Quang Nam, it is out of date.

Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc

Ho Chi Minh City is faster, hotter and more commercial than Hanoi, and it is where the twentieth century is most directly confronted. The War Remnants Museum is difficult and essential, the Reunification Palace sits as it was in 1975, and the Cu Chi tunnels are a half day out.

The Mekong Delta is the counterweight, a flat green world of channels and boat traffic. The floating markets around Can Tho are the draw and need an early start, because the trade is over by mid morning. Doing the delta as a rushed day trip is the standard mistake; one night in Can Tho fixes it.

Phu Quoc is the island add on, at its best from November to March. It suits honeymooners and families who want to finish a busy route lying still for three or four days, and it is the one part of Vietnam that works as a pure resort stay. A well built Vietnam tour package from Nepal usually pairs two regions with a few flat days at the end rather than tick off the entire map.

Getting around Vietnam

Start with the fact that matters most, because people discover it too late. You cannot legally drive or ride in Vietnam on a Nepali licence. Vietnam recognises only International Driving Permits issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention, and Nepal is party to neither the 1949 Geneva nor the 1968 Vienna Convention. A Nepali issued permit is therefore not valid, which means a Nepali tourist cannot legally ride a motorbike or drive a car in Vietnam at all. Converting to a Vietnamese licence needs a residence card, a work permit or a visa of three months or more, none of which a holidaymaker holds.

Riding without a valid licence risks a fine of around five million dong plus a ten to fifteen day vehicle impound. More importantly, it voids your travel insurance in a crash. Vietnam records on the order of nine to eleven thousand road deaths a year, overwhelmingly motorbikes, and helmets are legally compulsory. Rental shops will still hand you a bike without asking, and that is the trap.

Use Grab instead. It works nationwide for cars and motorbike taxis, shows a metered fare before you accept, and removes the bargaining entirely. Be and Xanh SM are local alternatives that work the same way, Xanh SM with electric vehicles.

For distance, the railway is the pleasure option. The North South Reunification Express runs Hanoi to Hue to Da Nang to Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City in 32 to 37 hours end to end, which is why almost nobody rides the whole thing. Ride a segment instead: Hanoi to Da Nang overnight, and Da Nang to Nha Trang over the Hai Van Pass, are the scenic stretches, and the four berth soft sleeper is the visitor standard.

Do not plan around high speed rail, because it does not exist yet. The North South high speed line was approved in November 2024, with groundbreaking targeted for the end of 2026 and substantial completion around 2035. Anything describing a fast Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City train describes a project, not a service.

Sleeper buses run every long route with fully reclining berths and are the cheapest way to cover ground, but night driving standards vary a great deal between operators. For the length of the country, flying is the sensible answer. Domestic carriers are Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air, Bamboo Airways, Vietravel Airlines and Pacific Airlines, and the main hops take about an hour.

What to eat in Vietnam

Vietnamese food is lighter and fresher than most of the region, built on herbs, broth and rice rather than heat and oil, which makes it easy to eat three times a day for two weeks. It is also strongly regional, so the same dish name means different things in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The dishes worth planning around: pho, the clear beef or chicken noodle soup that is the national dish; banh mi, the baguette sandwich that is the best cheap meal in Asia; bun cha in Hanoi, grilled pork in a dipping broth with cold noodles; cao lau and white rose dumplings, both local to Hoi An; bun bo Hue, a spicier beef noodle soup; and com tam and banh xeo in the south. Vietnamese coffee is its own reason to go, and the egg coffee of Hanoi is worth the detour.

For vegetarian travellers the essential word is chay. Dedicated Buddhist chay restaurants are common in every city, and chay dishes are widely available on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month. This matters because fish sauce, or nuoc mam, and pork are in almost everything by default, including dishes that look plainly vegetable, so asking for vegetarian in English will often still get you a meat broth. Say chay explicitly. The same works reasonably well for Jain travellers, though root vegetables and garlic need raising separately.

Halal restaurants exist in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and Phu Quoc, mostly near the mosques, so plan meals around location rather than assuming availability everywhere. Travellers who avoid beef should know that beef is entirely ordinary in Vietnam, with pho bo the national dish; ask for pho ga, the chicken version, on every menu.

On water: tap water is not potable anywhere in Vietnam, so drink bottled or filtered water throughout. Ice is less of a worry than its reputation suggests, because ice in established restaurants and cafes is factory made and generally safe. Roadside and market ice, stored in open bags, is the risk.

Money, connectivity and practical basics

The currency is the Vietnamese dong, VND, in polymer notes of 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 and 500,000. One trap catches almost everyone at least once: the 20,000 and the 500,000 are both blue polymer notes of the same width and very similar appearance, and confusing them is the most common accidental overpayment in Vietnam. The tell is the picture: the 20,000 shows the Japanese Covered Bridge of Hoi An. Keep large notes in a separate pocket.

Cash still dominates for street food, markets, small vendors and cyclos, while cards are fine in hotels, malls and chain restaurants. QR payment is everywhere among locals but needs a Vietnamese bank account, so it is rarely an option for a visitor. ATMs are widespread and apply a per withdrawal charge for foreign cards on top of your own bank's, so withdraw larger amounts less often.

Always decline dynamic currency conversion. When a card machine or ATM offers to bill you in your home currency instead of dong, choose dong. The markup runs roughly three to seven percent on every transaction you accept it on.

Currency exchange in Vietnam is legal only at licensed banks, hotels and authorised gold or jewellery counters. Street exchange is illegal for both parties, not just the dealer. Cash above the customs declaration threshold must be declared on arrival.

There are three mobile operators. Viettel has clearly the best rural and mountain coverage and is the right choice if Sapa or Ha Giang is on your route. Vinaphone and Mobifone are fine in the cities and along the coast. Passport registration is mandatory by law for a physical SIM, and the airport counters at Noi Bai, Tan Son Nhat and Da Nang do it on the spot. Vietnamese operators do not sell tourist eSIMs directly, so travel eSIMs come from third party providers and activate by QR. Download offline maps before leaving the airport.

Laws and customs that catch travellers out

Vietnam is an easy country to travel in and a strict one to break the law in. Most visitors never come close to a problem, but a few rules are enforced far more seriously than a tourist would expect.

Vapes and e-cigarettes

Vapes are banned in Vietnam. Resolution 173/2024/QH15 took effect on 1 January 2025 and prohibits the production, trade, import, storage, transport and use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. It is a full ban, not a restriction on sale, and the word use is in the law.

Under Decree 371 from December 2025, users face fines of three to five million dong plus confiscation, and devices are routinely seized at airports on arrival. Penalties for selling are far heavier. The advice is blunt: do not bring a vape or heated tobacco device to Vietnam.

Drugs

Vietnam applies some of the harshest drug laws in the world, and precision matters here. From 1 July 2025 Vietnam removed the death penalty for the illegal transport of narcotics, which now carries life imprisonment. Drug trafficking and the illegal production of narcotics remain capital offences.

The death penalty has narrowed but has not gone, and quantities treated as personal use elsewhere are taken seriously here. Never carry a package or a bag for anyone else, including someone you have met and liked on the trip.

Photography and currency exchange

Do not photograph military installations, border posts, airport security areas, police officers, or government and party buildings. These are not soft conventions, and a camera pointed at the wrong building can turn into a long conversation. The interior of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is strictly no photography. On money, worth repeating: change money only at licensed banks, hotels or authorised gold and jewellery counters, because street exchange is illegal for the customer as well as the dealer.

Temples, pagodas and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

Pagoda etiquette in Vietnam will be familiar to Nepali travellers. Cover shoulders and knees, remove shoes where indicated, do not point your feet at a Buddha image, no flash, keep your voice down. Do not photograph worshippers mid prayer without asking.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi has a much stricter code, enforced at the door. Shoulders and knees covered, no shorts, no sleeveless tops, no flip flops, hats and sunglasses off. Bags, cameras and phones must be left at the security deposit before you join the queue. Inside there is silence, no photography, hands out of pockets and no stopping, because the line keeps moving.

Opening hours are narrow and seasonal: 07:30 to 10:30 from 1 April to 31 October, and 08:00 to 11:00 from 1 November to 31 March. It is closed Mondays and Fridays, and closes entirely for roughly two months around September to November each year for embalming maintenance. Entry is free. Check it is open before building a Hanoi day around it, because the surrounding complex stays open when the mausoleum does not.

Common scams in Vietnam

The scams in Vietnam are financial rather than dangerous and follow a small number of scripts. Knowing them is enough to avoid all of them, in a country where the overwhelming majority of interactions are straight.

• Rigged taxi meters. The most common one, with documented cases of tenfold overcharging on short airport runs. Use Grab so the fare is fixed before you get in, and if you must take a street taxi, use Mai Linh or Vinasun and nothing else.
• The passport as deposit demand. Rental shops often ask to hold your passport as security, then produce damage claims for scratches that were already there. Surrendering your passport is not required and you should refuse, offering a cash deposit instead, and film any rented item from every angle first.
• The unsolicited shoe shine. Someone crouches and starts on your shoe uninvited, then demands roughly ten times a fair price once the job is half done. A firm no before contact ends it.
• The cyclo with no agreed price. A pleasant quoted fare becomes a much larger bill at the end, recalculated per person per minute. Agree the total, in writing, in dong, before you sit down.
• Copycat tour agency shopfronts. Small offices trade under a well known operator's name with a word changed. Book through an operator you contacted directly, not one you walked past.
• Overpriced Ha Long day trip resellers. Street agents sell the same boat with no accountability if it is cancelled. Given how often Ha Long closes for weather, buy from someone whose refund policy you can read first.

Is Vietnam safe?

Yes, Vietnam is a safe country for tourists and violent crime against visitors is rare. Solo travellers, including women, and families move around Vietnam without difficulty. The genuine risks are specific and mostly avoidable.

Road traffic is the real one. With nine to eleven thousand road deaths a year, overwhelmingly motorbikes, the roads are where a Vietnam holiday goes wrong. Do not ride, because you cannot do it legally or insured. Cross roads at a slow steady pace without stopping or running, because traffic flows around a predictable pedestrian and cannot react to a sudden one.

The second risk is bag snatching from passing motorbikes, concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City. Keep your phone off the table at a pavement cafe, carry your bag on the wall side of the pavement, and do not walk along a street navigating with your phone held out.

The third is water and weather. A suspended Ha Long departure, a flooded Hoi An in November or a landslide prone road into Sapa in August are all seasonal, predictable and solved by picking the right month. Take closures seriously rather than seeking an operator willing to sail anyway.

Carry travel insurance that covers what you actually plan to do, and remember it will not cover a motorbike incident without a valid licence. The emergency numbers are Police 113, Fire 114 and Ambulance 115.

How many days do you need, and how to plan yours

Ten days is the honest answer for a first visit to Vietnam. That covers two of the three regions properly, with a bay cruise or a beach stretch built in, without spending every second day in an airport. A week gives one region done well, which beats three done badly. Two weeks takes all three, and is the point at which Sapa or Phu Quoc stops being a squeeze.

Sequence the trip around four fixed points and let everything else move. Which region your dates actually suit, because September to November rules out the centre. Whether Tet falls inside your window. Where your open jaw flights enter and exit, because that must match your e-Visa. And the fact that you cannot ride, which determines how you see Ha Giang, Ninh Binh and the countryside. Get those right and the route designs itself.

A well built Vietnam tour package from Nepal is really just those decisions taken in the right order, with the internal flights and the bay cruise booked around the weather rather than against it. Book roughly three months ahead for the autumn peak in the north or anywhere near Tet, when the good cruise cabins and the domestic seats go first.

Gomayu Holidays plans each Vietnam holiday for Nepali passport holders around the region and the season rather than a fixed template, whichever country you are flying out of. Send us your dates on WhatsApp and we will tell you honestly which regions are worth your days, and which month to move to if yours falls in the wrong window.