Vietnam’s first university goes multilingual to cater for foreign visitors

Hanoi’s renowned Temple of Literature is trying to connect with foreign visitors by offering audio guides in eight different languages.

Those fluent in French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Thai, English, Chinese, and of course, Vietnamese, should now be able to explore the temple, Vietnam’s first university built in 1070, with confidence.

With a ticket costing VND30,000 ($1.32), visitors are equipped with headphones and players for tours around the temple.

Hanoi received almost 4.95 million foreign visitors in 2017, up 23 percent from the previous year.

Hanoi is an affordable city, a great place for people to immerse themselves in, and a great place for food, said Australian travel writer Phoebe Lee, who visited Hanoi to star in two commercials aired by U.S. television network CNN as part of a $2 million tourism deal inked with the city last year.

Lee said the best time to visit Hanoi is in January, which is when she visited the city for a second time.

“The temperatures are perfect. Lovely cool evenings mean you can sit outside at restaurants in the evening and stroll around during the day without breaking a sweat,” she said.