by Sandeep Johar

Created on: February 18, 2009

Vietnam, the name of the country evokes many a thought, from the delicious food, to the ancient cultures, the infamous Vietnam-America war and the struggle with the French and the legacy they left in the culture. Now Vietnam is a popular tourist destination with a well developed infrastructure from the Mekong delta to the far north. Not many people, however, think of Vietnam as a dive spot. But it indeed is one and in many ways a very good place to dive.

While a number of places in Vietnam are available to dive, the most popular destination is the bay city of Nha Trang. A bus or train ride north from Ho Chi Minh City, Nha Trang boasts a beautiful bay, good weather for most of the year and of course is the premier dive spot in Vietnam.

A wide selection of dive shops offer guided trips and courses for beginning and advanced divers. Experienced Vietnam divers and instructors know that Vietnam is a good place to learn and expand dive skills. The level of competition in the dive industry makes for very good prices (but the experience of the instructor is more important than a few dollars) and a high level of personal attention from the instructors. Unlike some locales you never have an instructor with six or eight students. Two is the norm and often there is only one student to an instructor.

Vietnam dive shops also offer a level of service hard to find elsewhere. From carrying your dive equipment to washing it after the dive, lunch and soft drinks on the dive board they do all the hard work. The dive shops will pick you up and drop you off at the hotel and in between everything is taken care of. Be prepared to be pampered aboard the comfortable dive boats of the better shops and just enjoy the diving.

The main underwater attractions of the diving in Vietnam are the moray eels and the nudibranchs. The latter are small, very colorful "sea slugs". The color is their principle form of defense as they can be toxic to the touch. In addition to the eels and the nudibranchs look for large groupers, octopus, and cuttlefish and of course a large variety of coral fish. Short swim throughs attract large groups of colorful fish along with the occaisonal lobster. Ask to dive with a Vietnamese dive master as they generally know the dive sites best.

The coral is a quite a bit worse for the wear and tear of the many divers. Broken coral can be found in some spots and you maysee soft drink cans and empty bags of chips. Even so, the coral structures in Vietnam are extensive with many species of hard and soft corals. Good sea currents have helped maintain the vitality of the corals. Vietnam boasts one of the largest selections of coral species anywhere.

There are some special dives available by request from some of the dive shops. These are accessible only by speed boats and only when the bay conditions are acceptable. These include exciting wall dives further out in the South China Seas. Some of these walls boast non-stop nudibranchs, schools of passing groupers and other fish. The walls can be very deep and these dives are strictly for experienced divers.

Very few people travel to Vietnam strictly for the diving, but if you are in Vietnam take advantage of the opportunity to learn diving, expand your skills or just jump in and swim with the fish.

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