Day trips out of town are popular and a good value. The Mekong Delta is only two hours away by coach, and a round trip including lunch is a mere US$6. You get to see fish and fruit markets, visit a bee farm, travel on two different kinds of boat, and play with thieving monkeys in a riverside garden. Also popular are the wartime tunnels at Chu Chui and the center of the eclectic Caodai religion at Tay Ninh.
You can also take the trip to Vung Tau, a peninsula and the nearest seaside place to Ho Chi Minh City. Locals get there in crowded buses, but the easy way is by Greenlines hovercraft. These ancient but efficient vessels leave from a pier in central Ho Chi Minh City every hour until 5pm. The trip is just over an hour and the price is US$10 each way.
They roar you down the coiled snakes' nest of rivers between Ho Chi Minh City and the ocean in air-conditioned comfort, albeit with the windows crudely whitewashed over against the sun. The scene from the roof -- mangroves, blue water, the occasional thatched hut -- is far wilder and more picturesque than anything you'll see on a one-day Mekong Delta trip.
Whether you'll like Vung Tau when you get there is another matter. It was an elegant resort under the French, and is still, from a distance, reminiscent of Macau. But the main beach (known as the "Back Beach") is a mass of shabby umbrellas and wonky chairs on weekends. Few Vietnamese go in for swimming trunks, so instead you see fully clad people venturing into the waves supported on inflated black inner tubes. Mass poverty can be a shock, and it's unlikely you'll want to stay later than 5pm when the last hovercraft leaves for Ho Chi Minh City.
Flight and visa information:
Flights to Ho Chi Minh City from Taipei are operated by EVA Airlines and Vietnam Airlines. The trip takes three and a half hours, and the price is NT$14,500 on EVA, NT$13,000 on Vietnam Airlines.
Tourist visas are issued for one month, extendible for another month. The office for this in Taipei is at 65 Sung Chiang Road, 3F; tel: (02) 25166626. Visa processing takes four working days and the charge is NT$1,240. US$1 = 15,750 Vietnamese dong, but expect to be offered 15,000 dong in small transactions.
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