How many Holidays in Vietnam? What time are they? As a country with thousands years culture, Hanoi is the capital of the country with 88 millions people (2012). This is the country that 70 % of the people consider themselves as Buddhists (only about 5% of them are the true Buddhists). The 10% are Christans and the rest follow some other religions: Hinduism, Muslim, Caodaism… With the rich history and culture characters, Vietnamese have many holidays. In these days, most of people will not work and they travel instead. Thus, it will effect your Vietnam Package tours during these holidays in term of quality of services or satisfactions of the land tours in Vietnam.

 1. Vietnamese Tet (same time with Chinese New Year) – app end of Jan to beginning of Feb.

This is the longest and most important holiday to Vietnamese people. The New Year festival actually starts in the 23rd of 12th month Lunar Calendar with the special Tao Quan Tet (Tet for the Gods of the house); It is not be surprised to see any Vietnamese in a  hurry to be back home with 3 alive karps on a plastic bag in this day.

The official Tet holiday starts from 28th or 29th of 12th month and last till 4th or 5th of the next month (1 week holidays). Sometimes, for the 2 weekends, it can reach to 9 days.

Moreover, the feeling of TET is around 1 week before the holiday and lasting to another week after the holiday. Thus, people in Vietnam have a sentence: "Jan is the month of enjoying". People will spend time visiting pagodas, temples and relatives during this moment. Nowadays, traveling is a new way of life to young people. People who live in the big cities in Vietnam will go back to their hometown and the city will be strangely empty.

Most of the shops and restaurants will be closed in these days. Every services seems to be slow in this moment and do not get surprised if you get your tour quotation with a Tet extra Charge. 

2. Vietnamese Ancestor Ceremony – Hung King Festival

As it is said from a legend that all Vietnamese were born from a nest which was given birth by a mother who is a fairy and the father who is a dragon. The nest hatched out 100 men and coming to different places creating 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam. Since then all the Vietnamese worship the same Ancestor that is actually the oldest kid from the siblings who created the first country of Vietnam named Au Lac with the capital stay 20 km from Hanoi named Co Loa around 4000 years ago.

The festival is on the 10th of 3rd month lunar calendar which is around middle of April and lasts only for 1 day (April of solar calendar). It is now recognized by UNESCO as a intangible World heritage. For this day, your car rental may be effected quite a bit if you are traveling with Hanoi Package Tours.

3. Unification day and May Day

30th of April 1975, Vietnamese marked the victory over American imperialist out of the country and call that: Unification day. This is the day of the end of the American – Vietnam war.

May Day is also an important celebration for Vietnamese as a socialist country. These 2 days will combine to make out the second longest holiday in Vietnam in a year. Normally, it will come to 3 or 4 days altogether as the 2 days of weekend off or the government will try to make it a longer holiday so that people can come back to their hometown.

4. Vietnam Independence Day 

Sep 2nd, 1945, at Ba Dinh Square, Ho Chi Minh read the declaration of Independence to give birth to our country firstly called Vietnam Democratic Republic. This is the day we mark as the birth day of Vietnam and there will be a big march every 5 years in the Ba Dinh Square – the heart of Hanoi political city.

So far, these are the public holidays of Hanoi people. All the tour services in these days would be added up from 5 to 25%. Vietnam Tour company - VTT always try the best to minimize the effect of these events to your Vietnam Package Tours. Please also kindly sympathize for any of inconveniences that these days will bring to you as sometimes it will be very crowded for the time!

Have a good time in Vietnam!