Vung Tau (Vũng Tàu) has long been considered an attractive tourist destination in Vietnam (Việt Nam) because of its natural beauty. Regardless of the places of visiting, tourists will always be attracted by the scenery of Vung Tau.

It takes just 3 hours of driving to go from the center of Ho Chi Minh (Hồ Chí Minh) City to Vung Tau. With a coastline that stretches 20km, Vung Tau is one of the favorite destinations of tourists from the south. Located jutting out like a strip of land, from here, tourists can see the Sea but in the sunrise and sunset. Besides the natural landscape values, Vung Tau also has a long history of cultural tradition.

Coming to Vung Tau you will have a feeling of peace, comfort with spacious roads. The blue sea, big and small mountains, and pure temples … all create a magical Vung Tau, a city which has countless famous landscapes but still simple and mild.

CLIMATE

Ba Ria – Vung Tau (Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu) has the tropical monsoon climate. Each year, there are two distinct seasons: rainy season starts from May to October; there is southwest monsoon this time. Dry season starts from November to April of the following year, this time has the northeast monsoon. The annual average temperature is 27 ° C, with the lowest month of about 24.8 ° C, the highest month of about 28.6 ° C.

In Vung Tau, tourist season is year-round tourist because the temperature is not too cold or too hot. You only need to watch the weather forecasts to avoid traveling Vung Tau during rainstorm periods. Also, on weekends and holidays, Vung Tau attracts a large number of tourists; prices of services also rise. To have the best Vung Tau holiday, you should avoid that period.

TRANSPORTATION

It just takes 125km to to go from the coastal city of Vung Tau City to Ho Chi Minh City. It is a great place for a short trip. Currently, there are three means of travel for backpacking travel: by motorbike, by car or by hydrofoil.

Motorbike

Option 1: Go along Highway 1, across the Dong Nai bridge, you will encounter a traffic roundabout, from where you turn right along Highway 51. Take more 100km and you will arrive at Vung Tau City.

Option 2: From Ho Chi Minh City, you can choose to make your way from Cat Lai ferry (District 2, HCMC) to Nhon Trach, Dong Nai (Nhơn Trạch, Đồng Nai). This route will lead you to highway 51, at the point near Nhon Trach Industrial Zone. This route is about 20km closer in compared with the 1st option.

Moreover, for those self-driving tourists, they can choose to follow the route of Long Thanh (Long Thành) – Dong Nai (Đồng Nai) Expressway to help shorten the time arriving Vung Tau to about 2 -2.5 hours.

Note: The time to go to Vung Tau by motorcycle is about 3 – 3.5 hours.

Passenger cars

High quality passenger cars: Price from 60,000 – 80,000 VND / ticket. You can go to Mien Dong bus station to buy tickets; the time of driving is approximately 2.5- 3 hours.

Mien Dong Bus Station: Address: No. 292 Dinh Bo Linh (Đinh Bộ Lĩnh) Street, Ward 26, Binh Thanh (Bình Thạnh) District, Ho Chi Minh City

Vung Tau Bus Station: No. 192 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia (Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa) Street, Ward 3, Vung Tau (Vũng Tàu) City.

Hydrofoil

Travel time: 1.5 hours.

The hydrofoil running the route HCMC – Vung Tau and vice versa. Every 30 minutes there is a trip, running from 6:00 until 16:30, with 1 hour 45 minutes runtime. Departure from Bach Dang pier and stop at Cau Da (Cầu Đá) – Vung Tau pier. You can buy tickets at the pier, or at ticket agents in HCMC or Vung Tau (some hotels also sell hydrofoil ticket).

RESTAURANT/DINING

Are you pursuing your way to explore different food cultures along Vietnam? Vung Tau is an absolutly perfect destination for you to stop by and experience all famous local dishes here.

Mai fish salad
Goi ca mai is one of the specialties considered as the top of most attractive dishes in Nha Trang. Mai fish is quite like anchovies, white body, small less fishy so that people often use it to make salad. For locals, the best goi ca mai is when selecting the freshest alive Mai fish – the fresher it is, the more delicious the salad will be.
After being caught, Mai fish will be shaved off all flakes. It need to be boneless to be very absorptive marinated. The ingredients to marinate are quite simple such as vinegar, garlic, lemon and chili. When fish is medium-rare, it will be mixed with some “bột thính” (a kind of brown rice flavor), peanuts to raise the smell. This salad is served with fresh vegetables and rice papers. The sauce of this dish includes garlic, minced chili, sugar, lemon, vinegar, fish sauce, crushed peanuts, soda or shrimp sauce. Although the ingredients seem simple, making a delicious sauce or not is all about the art.
 
Sawfish hot pot

Sawfish hot pot is one of must-try food once you visit here. As boneless fish and only soft cartilage, sawfish is quite popular and cooked in many different ways like grill, stir-fry, or hot pot, yet hot pot is still the best. Sawfish is prepared carefully, and its intestines rinsed thoroughly and then soaked in salt water or alcohol to remove fishiness.

Fish will be chopped into medium pieces, cartilage chopped into small pieces as well, then we stew them with low heat in order to have the sweet broth. After that, add some spices to be well-seasoned: some tamarind juice, sour bamboo shoots, cilantro and coriander finely chopped. The hot pot is often served with fresh bun (a kind of Vietnamese noodle), green banana, flowers of banana tree, and a small bowl of fish sauce with some slices of chili. Sawfish hot pot has its unique taste: sourness and lightness of tamarind and young bamboo shoots, sweetness from pieces of chewy saw fish and crispiness from cartilage. All these taste will absolutely please diners when trying this dish.

Khot cake

Banh Khot is one of the most favorite dishes in Vung Tau. The locals can eat banh Khot as their daily meals. Especially, the brand “Banh Khot Goc Cay Vu Sua” is very popular to not only locals but also tourists. This restaurant is always crowded with diners. These round small Khot cakes with its white surface, red layer made from shrimp roe, green topping of chopped onions. Banh Khot Vung Tau is similiar to Banh Can of the Central. Yet, Banh Khot is crispy, not tender like Banh Can. A combo of Banh Khot has 8 – 10 units which are well-cooked, hot, arranged in pairs and served with some fried minced shrimp and onions. Every time you take a plate of Banh Khot, it’s hard to stop eating.

Vung Tau pancakes

Pancakes in Vung Tau are also famous for its taste which cannot be found in anywhere. Ingredients include rice flour, shrimp, pork, bean sprouts but its taste is more significant thanks to the crust made from fresh chicken eggs, and the filling full of onions and mushrooms. Taste of pancakes in Vung Tau makes diners always impressed by many reasons, from the fragrant crispy crust, the smell of eggs to the fillings full of shrimp and pork. The sauce of this dish also has its special way to make. At first glance, the sauce might not be complicated, but once you try it, it will definitely make you feel full of spices from the lightness of fish sauce to the sourness of fermented vegetables.

Oyster Porridge

yster Porridge is an extremely popular food in Vung Tau. It’s difficult to find a bowl of delicious dish when all the shops serve it.The food seems to be easy to cook; however, it’s hard to make a mouth-watering oyster porridge. You need to put a reasonable amount of seasoning to balance the taste of the porridge.

Porridge cooked from aromatic good rice with natural sweetness of fresh oysters, sprinkling a little cilantro, a little pepper. Served with the porridge is a prime bowl of fish sauce withvegetables, herbs and banana flowers. That’s all we need for this dish but delicious oyster porridge brings to us a very strangely good taste. A bowl of oyster porridge brings you a fragrant taste like sea, which make diners find it hard to resist the appeal of this simple dish. It’s not only nutritious but also tasty and deserved to be the most impressive food to all travellers.

Salt egg pound cakes

Not everyone knows, Vung Tau is home to the salt egg pound cakes. And if you are not too familiar with the tours of Vung Tau, it would be difficult to know where to buy this special cakes as a gift. Unlike other normal cakes, salt egg pound cakes stored longer than other cakes you usually buy in bakeries. For many people, making pound cakes might not be hard but you need to be a skillful cook to make the best quality dish. A special feature of this cake is that the cake is often baked in iron mold on a charcoal.

 

 

NGHINH PHONG CAPE

Nghinh Phong cape is located at the South of Vung Tau city. This beach is narrow, clean water with impressive surrounded mountain Nghinh Phong cape juts out into the East sea as a giant crocodile with plenty of strange – looking rocks around the cape. This is the excellent place for tourist to fish and to adventure.

Along with Ha Long highway and passing Bai Dua, Visitor will come to Nghinh Phong means “to welcome the wind”. In this area, it is windy all year. This cape divides the sea in to two beaches towards the West and towards the East, namely Vong Nguyet and Huong Phong. Nghinh Phong beach welcomes tourist with its blue sky and harmonious wind which is suitable to the people who are active and like the strong feeling from strong waves. This place is also suitable for fishing and water skiing.

SUOI NGHE SHEEP FARM – SHEEP FIELD

Suoi Nghe sheep farm – sheep field in Ba Ria – Vung Tau is one of the best photography destinations rated by the Vietnamese. Suoi Nghe sheep field is the residence of 3 herds of sheep, 150 sheep each. At first, the sheep were raised here just for meat and fiber. However, since more and more people visit the herds for sightseeing and photo-taking, they then raise the sheep to serve as a photography spot for the tourists.

PIG HILL

The name is strange, but there is no pig in the hill! Not far from the Statue of Kito, just ask the local people a little bit that you can run to the hill to the wind. Here is cool, ultra comfortable, ultra-standard view and especially the beautiful shot! Anyone going to Vung Tau must also come here and take some new pictures there! Moreover, you can also invite friends to spread the barbecue banquet or something funny or happy singing east or east, the tent burning fire on the hill one day to know the feeling is also! Make sure to remember forever.

VUNG TAU LIGHTHOUSE

On top of Small Mountain. First built in 1907 on the lower peak of Small Mount, it burned kerosene in its lamp. In 1911, it was rebuilt to 3 meters in diameter and 18 meters in height, and moved to the higher peak where it stands today.The Vũng Tàu Lighthouse projects light as far as 35 sea miles (64.75 km) and is equipped with telescopes to follow and direct ships at sea.

STATUE OF KITO

Christ the King, of Vung Tau (Vietnamese: Tượng Chúa Kitô Vua) is a statue of Jesus, standing on Mount Nho in Vũng Tàu, Vietnam. The Vietnam Catholic Association built the statue in 1974 and it was completed in 1993. It is 32 metres (105 ft) high, standing on a 4 metres (13 ft) high platform, for a 36 metres (118 ft) total monument height with two outstretched arms spanning 18.3 metres (60 ft). There is a 133-step staircase inside the statue.

It is not as famous as Rio’s Christ the Redeemer, but climbing up to Vung Tau’s giant Christ the King Statue is a highlight for many Vietnamese vacationers. The statue is treated like a church and there is a long list of do-nots. The dress code is strict; Shoes must be removed, knees and shoulders covered.

WHITE PALACE

Bach Dinh, or the White Palace of Vung Tau City is located at 4 Tran Phu Street, on the slop of Big Mountain. Standing 50 meter above the sea level, White Palace has its French name which is La Villa Blanche. Tracing back to the year of 1898, it was considered as a summer holiday villa of French Governor General Paul Doumer. This palace was named after his lovely daughter.

Standing in front of the building, you would fall in love with its antique and glamorous structure since the outside walls were decorated with beading and the Hellenic statues. Porcelain enamel colors are the main raw materials, making you feel fresh and peaceful

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