National Geographic, Lonely Planet spot Vietnam

The US magazine National Geographic has put Vietnam in the top 13 “Best Tours in Asia ”. The magazine introduced Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as a private family excursion, which is action-packed with quintessential Vietnamese experiences.
“Trek in bio-diverse Hoang Lien National Park, meet members of the Zay hill tribes in the Black Hmong villages, cruise through the limestone peaks of Halong Bay, and dine with descendants of the royal family in Hue”, the National Geographic said in its website.
Tour to Vietnam was in the sixth place. Other tours are to Sri Lanka, India, China, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Russia, Mongolia, Indonesia, Lebanon and Syria.
Meanwhile, the resort town of Sa Pa in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai has stood in the world’s top ten spots for walking by popular travel guide Lonely Planet.
According to Lonely Planet, walking can be the best way to experience a place.
Lying 1.600m higher than the sea level, Sa Pa has a mild temperature of 15 to 18 Celsius degree.
Though this town welcomes visitors all year around, it is generally agreed to be most beautiful in April and May, when it is blooming with green pastures and flowers, many of which can’t be found anywhere else in the country, and few visitors fail to marvel at the beauty of the cloudy valleys here every summer morning.
Sa Pa is also home to many breathtaking spots such as Ham Rong Mountain, Silver Waterfall, Rattan Bridge, Bamboo Forest and Ta Phin Cave.
And this is here that adventurers can climb to Vietnam ’s rooftop on Fansipan Mountain at 3.143m above the sea level.
During the week-long Culture-Tourism event from April 30, Sa Pa welcomed over 11,000 visitors, 2.5 times over the same period of 2010.
The other greatest places as rated by Lonely Planet for walkers are the Grand Canyon in the US, Aoraki/Mount Cook Village in New Zealand, Lake District and Dartmoor in England, Torres del Paine in Chile, Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, Brecon Beacons in Wales, Kakadu National Park in Australia, and Taman Negara in Malaysia.