A few words...

Tourist Guides have it that this is the country with the most smiley people in the world.
Moreover, they inform us that its 85 million inhabitants live with 2-3$ a day but are happy, with a high level of education and an effective health system.

Political Guides, on the other hand, have it that Vietnam is a Communist country that is stepping fast towards the opening if its economy.

Finally, watches have it that it will take you about 13 hours in the air to get there from Greece!!!

Whichever the case, this is a country worth visiting; the sooner the better as it still holds on to its traditional identity.

The nature is still virgin, the floating markets of Mekong river are extraordinary, whereas local tribes in the North and rice fields, still cultivated with a wooden plow and waterbuffalos, are as if taken directly out of history books. Everyone smiles at you and salutes you only because you spent the time and the money to visit them and live with them for a short period of time.

Your only question at the end of the trip is how these poor but dignified, polite and smiley people bit and get rid of three invader Empires: the Chinese, the British-French and the Americans in just one and a half century!

Enjoy your navigation-trip!
Yannis

PS. Special thanks to Mr Hung Do of www.henritours.com