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Diving Vietnam

Nha Trang and the nearby islands offer the best diving in the South China Sea. The majority of the dive sites are within a one-hour boat ride from Nha Trang. Fish life includes some rare species such as frogfish, paperfish, devil scorpionfish, dragonettes, flying gunard, and cowfish.

Whale Island, north of Nha Trang offers diving for beginners and experienced divers. There is safe and simple diving from the beach to a maximum depth of 50 feet. A boat dive offers more exciting diving with wall dives down to 130 feet, coral gardens at 30 to 50 feet, drift dives, or reefs. Whales, sharks, and whale sharks are regularly seen, as are rays and some pelagics.

A new diving area, Phu Quoc Island, is off the southwest coast. The hard and soft corals are pristine, and the mass of small islands to the south of Phu Quoc is home to a huge variety of small colorful reef fish. Many of them are endemic to the Vietnamese waters.

Best time to dive

September to April

Visibility

Visibility ranges from 30 to 100 feet.

Water temperatures

Water temperature averages 72 to 86 °F.

Weather and climate

The climate varies greatly from north to south. The north has a cold and wet season from November to April and a hot season from May to October. The central coast north of Nha Trang has a similar climate with the winter monsoon bringing cool, wet weather between December and February. The south is hot and humid all year round, especially from February to May. The rainy season lasts from May to November. Travel in the south is best between November and February, avoiding the heat and the rain. The central highlands have a similar climate to the south, but it is cooler and temperatures can be freezing in winter. Temperatures range from 78 to 100 °F.

Language

Vietnamese, Russian, French, Chinese, and English

Passport/Visa requirements

All visitors are required to have a valid passport and visa to enter Vietnam. At present, one-month tourist visas and six-month business visas can only be obtained through Vietnamese embassies abroad. Visas are not issued upon arrival.

Currency

Dong – Get exchange rates at http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Electrical current

220 volts AC, 50 Hz

Capital

Hanoi

General information

Vietnam borders Cambodia, Laos, and China and stretches over 1,000 miles along the eastern coast of the Indochinese Peninsula. Three quarters of Vietnam’s territory consists of mountainous regions. Vietnam has two major deltas (the Red River delta and the Mekong delta) and for distinctive mountainous zones each having its own unique features. Vietnam is made up of equatorial lowlands, high, temperate plateaus and cooler mountainous areas. The country lies in the intertropical zone and local conditions vary from frosty winters in the far northern hills to the year-round subequatorial warmth of the Mekong Delta.

Map

Get a map of Vietnam from WorldAtlas.com.

 Diving Thailand

The islands of Thailand offer some excellent diving. Phuket, Phi Phi Islands, Similan Islands, Koh Tachai, Hin Daeng, Hin Muang, etc. all offer some excellent diving. The Andaman Sea, with the Similan Islands, Hin Daeng, and Burma as live-aboard centerpieces, offers the best diving in Thailand by far. Excellent visibility, superb underwater scenery, great marine diversity, fish life and corals, big drop-offs, swim-throughs, wall dives, caves, and caverns. This is all set around stunningly beautiful tropical islands. All of this makes Phuket or Ao Nang Beach – Krabi the best resort areas for a Thailand diving.

The picturesque Similan Islands with clear waters and white sand has huge deep water boulder formations, creating daring swim-throughs as well dramatic back-drops to its vibrant coral gardens and reef slopes. Choose to dive by live-aboard or dive on day tours.

Richelieu Rock rates as one of the best places in the world for diving with whale sharks.

Koh Bon and Koh Tachai are great for manta rays and white tip reef shark encounters.

Hin Daeng and Hin Muang are your best chances to see gray reef sharks patrolling the walls. It’s also the second home in the Andaman Sea for whale sharks and mantas. Dive in Hin Daeng to experience diving the highest vertical wall in the area.

Best time to dive

You can dive Thailand all year round. The best diving conditions exist from November to April, with whale sharks visiting from February to May and manta rays all year round.

Visibility

Visibility ranges from 15 to 130 feet depending on where and when you dive.

Water temperatures

Water temperature averages 84 °F.

Weather and climate

Thailand’s climate is tropical, high both in temperature and humidity and dominated by monsoons. April and May are the hottest months of the year. June is the beginning of the Southwest Monsoon and brings with it the rainy season, which continues intermittently until the end of October. From November to the end of February the climate is much less trying with a cooling Northeast breeze and a reduction in the humidity level. The north and northeast are generally cooler than Bangkok in winter and hotter in summer.

Language

Thai

Passport/Visa requirements

All nationalities require valid passports; it is recommended that they are valid for six months beyond period of intended stay. Travelers entering Thailand are required to prove they have sufficient funds to cover the length of their stay, and should hold documentation for return/onward travel. Visas are not required for travel by U.S., UK, Canadian, or Australian Passport holders for periods of 30 days or less. Other nationalities should check for requirements before traveling.

Currency

Baht – Get exchange rates at http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Electrical current

220 volts AC, 50 Hz

Capital

Bangkok

General information

Thailand shares borders with Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Laos and Cambodia. The country’s east coast borders the Gulf of Thailand and the west coast abuts the Andaman Sea. Thailand is divided into 76 provinces and is divided into four main zones: the fertile, central plains of the Chao Phraya River; the poorer region of the high northeast plateau; the fertile valley and mountains of Northern Thailand; and the rainforested southern peninsula.

Map

Get a map of Thailand from WorldAtlas.com.

Diving Singapore

Don’t be put off by what you may hear from some divers! Diving in Singapore can be great fun and make you a much better diver. Although the visibility is not often that good, the water is warm and Singapore has a great deal of interesting marine life and an incredible variety of coral. Divers enjoy regular sightings of seahorses, small sharks, and turtles. Dive sites include Pulau Hantu, which provides comfortable conditions for beginners. Other dive sites visited include Pulau Salu, Pulau Jong, Pempang wrecks, Raffles Lighthouse and Pulau Biola.

Best time to dive

Conditions are typically the same most of the year.

Visibility

Visibility ranges from 5 to 20 feet depending on where and when you dive.

Water temperatures

Water temperature averages 84 °F.

Weather and climate

Singapore’s climate is mostly hot and humid with average temperatures ranging between 78 and 86°F during the day and cooler temperatures at night. The wettest months are between November and January (monsoon period); however rainfall occurs throughout the year.

Language

Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English

Passport/Visa requirements

Passports are required and must be valid for at least six months from date of arrival. Travelers should hold confirmed documents and tickets for onward or return travel and enough funds to cover their stay. Male travelers with long hair are advised to tie their hair back on arrival. Women who are six months pregnant or more may be refused entry. All nationals, regardless of visa requirements, may be issued with a social visitor’s pass on arrival allowing for a stay of 14 or 30 days provided their visit is for tourist or business purposes.

Currency

Singapore Dollar – Get exchange rates at http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Electrical current

220 to 240 volts AC, 50 Hz. On request, most hotels will provide transformers to visitors with electrical appliances of a different voltage.

Capital

Singapore

General information

Singapore is located in southeastern Asia between Malaysia and Indonesia. Consisting of the main island and over 50 islets, Singapore’s resort island, Sentosa, is situated a short distance south of the main island accessible by aerial cable car, ferry or a bridge.

Dining in Singapore is a gastronomic experience. Choices are bewildering, ranging widely from inexpensive local dishes (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Nonya) found at food courts/hawker centers to sophisticated restaurants serving international cuisine. There are nearly 35,000 hotel rooms of all categories to suit each traveler’s price range.

Map

Get a map of Singapore from WorldAtlas.com.

 Diving Philippines

Diving in the Philippines offers spectacular drop-offs, deep dives, caves, wrecks, and a richly varied marine life. The variety of hard and soft corals is amazing with more than 500 species. You can commonly see sharks, rays, moray eels, octopus, and sea snakes, along with innumerable species of fish, including groupers, jack, tuna, surgeonfish, parrot fish, sweetlips and lionfish, to name a few. Of the 100,000 known species of shellfish, over 21,000 are found here, including many that are unique to the Philippines. The Philippines is a diver’s paradise!

Best time to dive

The best diving conditions can be from April to September.

Visibility

Visibility ranges from 30 to 100 feet.

Water temperatures

Water temperatures are 80 to 88 °F all the year round.

Weather and climate

The Philippines is hot and humid year-round. The weather pattern across the archipelago is complex, but can be roughly divided into the dry season (September to May) and the wet season (June to September). The average annual temperature is 77 °F.

Language

Pilipino (Tagalog) and English plus numerous widely spoken indigenous languages and some Spanish

Passport/Visa requirements

Everyone entering the Philippines must have a passport valid for at least six months beyond the intended period of stay. If there is an embassy of country of nationality in the Philippines, then entry is allowed if passport is valid for less than six months. All visitors must have return or onward tickets and documents necessary for further travel, as well as sufficient funds. A visa is not required for a stay of up to 21 days, but is obligatory for longer stays. Visas allow for a stay of up to 59 days.

Currency

Philippines Peso – Get exchange rates at http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Electrical current

220 volts AC, 60 Hz

Capital

Manila

General information

The Philippines consists of 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, only 2,000 of which are inhabited. Luzon and Mindanao are the largest, and comprise roughly 66% of the country’s area. The archipelago has a volcanic topography and experiences frequent seismic activity. There are 37 volcanoes in the archipelago and the highest peak is Mt. Apo at 9,689 feet in Mindanao.

Most of the Philippines are laidback, stable, and relatively safe. The locals are mostly friendly and helpful. Transportation is cheap, the food is good, and accommodations are plentiful.

Map

Get a map of the Philippines from WorldAtlas.com.

Diving Maldives

Maldives is one of the great diving areas in the world. Diving is such a priority in the Maldives that the independent Republic of Maldives was founded expressly for diving purposes. At least three-quarters of the world’s reef fish can be found in Maldives. There are well over a thousand species of fish, more than half of which are seen regularly on the reefs. Maldives is one of the world’s richest coral areas, comparable only with the Philippines and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. There are more than 200 different species of hard coral alone, but it is the shapes that they form which make them so amazing: caverns, fans, shafts, canyons, and boulders. Maldives is truly a divers dream location. Almost every resort has diving operations that can accommodate every skill level of diver. So beautiful is this underwater area that at first it’s difficult to know where to dive and what to look at. Many divers are inclined to drift or swim from patch to patch on a reef, looking at increasingly more breathtaking shapes and colors.

Because Maldives is so popular, the reefs can be congested. If you prefer solitary diving at remote locations, the best thing to do is to hire a Yacht Dhoni and head off with an experienced skipper, “keyolhu” to the outer deserted atolls. There you’ll find coral reefs that have remained undisturbed for centuries.

Best time to dive

November through February

Visibility

Visibility varies greatly with the season and the rainfall between 30 to 100 feet.

Water temperatures

Water temperature averages 85 °F.

Weather and climate

Maldives weather is divided into two monsoon periods: the north-east monsoon or ruvai lasts from December to March, which are the drier months; the south-west monsoon or ulhangu lasts from April to November, and is wetter, with more storms and occasional strong winds. Daytime temperatures are about 82°F all year. The humidity is slightly lower in the dry season but most days there’s a cooling sea breeze.

Language

Divehi and English

Passport/Visa requirements

Passport valid for the duration of stay required by all. Tourist visas for 30 days will be issued on arrival only and are free of charge to all visitors in possession of valid travel documents. Foreign visitors who enter the Maldives must be in possession of return or onward tickets and sufficient funds to cover duration of stay.

Currency

Rufiyaa – Get exchange rates at http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Electrical current

230 volts AC, 50 Hz

Capital

Male

General information

The Maldives is a chain of 26 coral atolls southwest of Sri Lanka, extending across the equator in a north-south strip 468 miles long and 73 miles wide. Most of the inhabited islands are covered by lush tropical vegetation and palm trees, while the numerous uninhabited islands, some of which are mere sand spits or coral tips, are covered in shrubs. Each island is surrounded by a reef enclosing a shallow lagoon. Hundreds of these islands together with other coral growth form an atoll, surrounding a lagoon. The majority of the indigenous population does not mix with the tourist visitors, with the exception of those involved with tourism in the resorts and Male.

Map

Get a map of the Maldives from WorldAtlas.com