Seasons
Central Vietnam in the autumn rains, and what they mean for a tour
When Hanoi is at its loveliest and the south is drying out, Hue and Hoi An are having their wettest weeks of the year. An autumn tour of Vietnam is still worth taking, as long as you know what the middle of the country is doing.
By Walter Pellow20 October 20265 min read
Ask when to go to Vietnam and you will often hear "October to April", which is good advice for two-thirds of the country and poor advice for the other third. In October the north is at its best, warm and drier, with the summer storms behind it. The south is coming out of its wet season. And in the middle, around Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An, the rain has just set in for the year.
Most tours of Vietnam pass straight through that middle. It is where the imperial city and the old trading port are, and where the road and the railway squeeze between the mountains and the sea. So anyone booking a whole-country tour between September and December is, knowingly or not, booking a few days in central Vietnam's rainy season.
Why the middle keeps a different calendar
The north and south of Vietnam get most of their rain in summer, from the south-west monsoon. The central coast is sheltered from that by the Annamite mountains, which run down the country's spine, and it stays largely dry and very hot through the summer months. Its turn comes later. From about September, the winds swing round to blow from the north-east, off the South China Sea and straight against the mountains, and the clouds drop their rain on the narrow coastal strip before they can cross. Hue, tucked under the hills, has the highest rainfall of the central cities.
The same months are the season for typhoons, which form over the western Pacific and the South China Sea and often make landfall on this stretch of coast. October and November are the likeliest months. Most weeks pass without one, but when a storm does come ashore, the rain that follows it can be extraordinary, and the rivers that run down from the mountains to the sea rise fast.
What happens in Hoi An
Hoi An is built on the bank of the Thu Bon River, a few kilometres from its mouth, and its old town is low-lying. The UK government's travel advice warns of seasonal flooding in central Vietnam in October and November, and when it comes, the river spills into the old town's streets, sometimes to ankle depth, occasionally much higher. In the Tan Ky house, one of the old merchants' houses, the heights of past floods are marked and dated, the oldest from 1964. During the worst floods, boats take over streets that were for walking the week before.
It is worth keeping this in proportion. Many visits in October and November see nothing worse than heavy showers. But it is not the brief tropical downpour that some descriptions suggest, and a tour that arrives on the wrong day may find the old town closed to visitors, its riverside restaurants shut, and its hotels outside the centre a better place to be.
When the flood comes, the river spills into the old town's streets, sometimes to ankle depth, occasionally much higher.
Hue copes in the same way. The citadel and the royal tombs along the Perfume River can be visited in rain, and the tombs in particular, set among pines and lotus ponds, have an atmosphere in mist that the summer glare does not give them. A typhoon warning is a different matter, and boat trips on the river may be cancelled.
What a tour does about it
A tour's advantage in the wet season is that somebody else is watching the forecast. When a storm is coming, an operator and its local team can swap the order of days, stay an extra night in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, move a group to a hotel on higher ground, or replace a boat trip with something on land. What they cannot do is promise a dry day, and booking conditions set out how changes are handled when the weather forces them. It is worth reading that page, and having travel insurance that covers disruption, before an autumn departure.
Explore Worldwide's Inside Vietnam, thirteen nights, runs from Hanoi and Lan Ha Bay through Hue, the Hai Van Pass, Hoi An and My Son to the Mekong Delta, and has departures in September, October and November as well as through the spring.
For a more active version, Explore Worldwide's Cycle Vietnam, thirteen nights, rides through Ninh Binh and Hoa Lu in the north before reaching Hue and Hoi An, with departures in October and November. Simply Vietnam, nine nights, covers Ho Chi Minh City, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi and Lan Ha Bay at a quicker pace, with departures from October to December.
Choosing your weeks
If the centre matters most to you, the surest months there are February to August: dry, with spring the most comfortable and the summer months hot. If you want the whole country in reasonable weather, March and April are the most reliable months for a tour that runs the full length.
Autumn has its own case. October and November are when the north is at its finest, and the south is turning dry by the end of the period. A tour in those weeks gets Hanoi and the bay at their best, the delta green after the rains, and two or three days in the middle that may be grey, wet or, with luck, perfectly fine. December is calmer, though showers linger in Hue and Hoi An.
Pack accordingly: a light waterproof rather than an umbrella, which is little use in wind, shoes that dry overnight, and a bag that can sit on a damp floor. Then keep the plans loose. Hue in the rain is still Hue, and an empty citadel in a fine drizzle is not the worst way to see it.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
