To some, it's merely another developing country full of poor people. For others, it's something more.
Most visitors spend their time in Hanoi, the busy capital, where the traffic never stops.
But if there's time, venture out into the countryside. Your tour operator can arrange a stay at a hill tribe village where you'll see how people live beyond the urban area of Hanoi. Foreigners must have government approval to stay with a Vietnamese family. Travelling west beyond the Red River delta region, the flat farmland gradually rises. Along the highway, buffalo-drawn carts deposit harvested rice at the side of the highway where it's threshed, then spread to dry on the edge of the pavement.