Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [47]
To call Vietnam from abroad, dial your international access code, then 84 + number minus the first 0.
To call abroad from Vietnam, dial either 171 00 or just 00 followed by the country code (See "Telephones") + area code minus first 0 + number.
Australia61
Canada1
Ireland353
New Zealand64
UK44
US1
* * *
Travel essentials | Telephones |
Mobile phones
If you want to use your own mobile phone in Vietnam, the simplest – and cheapest – thing to do is to buy a SIM card and a prepaid phone card locally. Both the big phone companies, Vinaphone (www.vinaphone.com.vn) and Mobiphone (www.mobiphone.com.vn), offer English-language support and similar prices, though Vinaphone perhaps has the edge for geographical coverage (which extends pretty much nationwide). At the time of writing, Vinaphone starter kits including a SIM card cost 120,000đ (with 100,000đ worth of calls credited to your account). Further prepaid cards are available in various sizes from 100,000đ to 500,000đ. Phone calls cost slightly more than from a land line, while sending an SMS message costs 350–400đ in Vietnam and about 2,500đ internationally. However, rates are falling rapidly as more competitors enter the increasingly deregulated market.
The other, far more expensive, option is to stick with your home service-provider – though you’ll need to check beforehand whether they offer international roaming services.
Travel essentials |
Time
Vietnam is seven hours ahead of London, twelve hours ahead of New York, fifteen hours ahead of Los Angeles, one hour behind Perth and three hours behind Sydney – give or take an hour or two when summer time is in operation.
Travel essentials |
Tourist information
Tourist information on Vietnam is at a premium. The Vietnamese government maintains a handful of tourist promotion offices and a smattering of accredited travel agencies around the globe, most of which can supply you with only the most general information. A better source of information, much of it based on firsthand experiences, is the internet, with numerous websites around to help you plan your visit. Some of the more useful and interesting sites are www.travelfish.org, a regularly-updated online guide to Southeast Asia; www.worldtravelguide.net, a viewer-friendly source of information on Vietnam and other countries; www.activetravelvietnam.com, with helpful information about national parks and beaches; and www.thingsasian.com, which consists mostly of features on Asian destinations and culture.
In Vietnam itself there’s a frustrating dearth of free and impartial advice. The state-run tourist offices – under the auspices of either the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (www.vietnamtourism.com) or the local provincial organization – are thinly disguised tour agents, profit-making concerns which don’t take kindly to being treated as information bureaux, though the official website has a lot of useful information about destinations and practicalities such as visas. In any case, Western concepts of information don’t necessarily apply here – bus timetables, for example, simply don’t exist. The most you’re likely to get is a glossy brochure detailing their tours and affiliated hotels.
You’ll generally have more luck approaching one of the many private tour agencies operating in all the major tourist spots (See "Tourist information"), where staff have become accustomed to Westerners’ demands for advice.
Another useful source of information, including restaurant and hotel listings as well as feature articles, is the growing number of English-language magazines, such as Vietnam Discovery, Time Out, The Guide and Vietnam Pathfinder(see "Information"). There’s also a government-run telephone information service (1080; 300đ per minute) with some English-speaking staff who will answer all manner of questions – if you can get through, since the lines are often busy.
Travel essentials |
Travellers with special needs
Despite the fact that