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.
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.