Staying safe

If something goes wrong

Free to call, 24 hours, from any phone.

After a road accident, call 113 first, then 115. The police have to attend a traffic accident. Doing it the other way round slows everything down.

Not every operator speaks English. If anyone nearby speaks Vietnamese, put them on the phone. Say where you are before you say anything else.

• Write down where you are staying, in Vietnamese.
• Save your accommodation's phone number.
• Save your embassy's number.
• Save your travel insurance emergency line and policy number.
• Save one person at home.

Kiểm chứng 2026-08-02

The law nobody tells you about: registering where you live

Every foreigner in Vietnam has to be registered with the local police, at the address where they are staying. Within 12 hours of arriving in a city.

Hotels do this automatically. It is why they take your passport at check in. Private landlords often do not, and that is where the trouble starts.

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• When you sign for a place, ask your landlord directly: have you registered my temporary residence with the ward police?
• Ask for a photo of the confirmation. It is a normal thing to ask for.
• If they have not done it, or they get vague, go yourself. Take your passport, your visa and your rental agreement to the ward police office. They fill in a form and issue a certificate, usually within 12 hours.
• Do it again every time you move, and after you leave and re-enter the country.

It takes an hour. And it removes a problem that turns up months later at the worst moment, like when you are extending a visa.

Swimming, and the one thing to know about the currents

The beach is the best thing about this city and you will swim here constantly. There is one thing worth understanding before you do, and almost no guide explains it.

These beaches get rip currents. A rip current is a channel of water moving fast away from the shore. It does not pull you under, it pulls you out. People get into trouble because they panic and try to swim straight back to the beach against it, which nobody can do for long.

• Do not fight it. You will not win and you will exhaust yourself.
• Stay calm and float if you need to.
• Swim sideways, parallel to the beach, until you are out of the pull.
• Then swim back in at an angle.

The flags mean something. Green means safe. Red means do not go in, and red goes up because of currents and rough water, not because someone is being careful. Swim between the flags where the lifeguards can see you.

The water is roughest from late August through November, and swimming gets banned outright on bad days. From October through February the waves are bigger generally.

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The road

Of everything you will worry about here, the traffic is the one actually worth your attention. Not crime, not the food, not the sea.

The roads are busy, and 94 percent of the vehicles on them are two-wheelers. The traffic moves in a way that takes getting used to. Official figures put road deaths in the thousands each year and the World Health Organization believes the real number is higher. The trend is going the right way. Deaths in the first half of 2025 were down on the year before, and early 2026 was down again.

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Millions of people ride here every day and are completely fine, and you will be too. It just rewards a bit of respect.

• A proper helmet, fastened. The cheap souvenir helmets sold on the street protect almost nothing.
• Nothing to drink if you are riding.
• Cover up. In a fall at 30km/h, jeans and a jacket are the difference between a bruise and months of skin grafts. It is hot. Do it anyway.
• Avoid riding at night on the coast roads, and avoid it in the rain.
• Assume nobody has seen you.

Water, ice and eating

Can you drink the tap water?

No. Not in Da Nang, not anywhere in Vietnam. Vietnamese people do not drink it either. Drink bottled, filtered or boiled water. Most apartments have a filter or a dispenser, and having big bottles delivered is cheap and normal. Brushing your teeth with tap water is fine and everybody does it.

Is the ice safe?

Almost always, yes, and this is where the internet scares people for no reason. The ice in cafes and restaurants is tube ice, the cylinders with a hole through the middle. It is made in a factory from treated water and delivered in sealed bags. The one to be slightly careful about is crushed or irregular ice at a very small roadside stall.

Is street food safe?

Generally yes, and it is one of the best things about being here. Heat is what makes it safe. Cooking sterilises the water in the pot. So broths, rice, boiled vegetables and anything cooked in front of you are fine.

• Go where the queue is. Busy means high turnover, which means nothing is sitting around. This one rule does most of the work.
• Eat at busy times, not at the dead end of the afternoon.
• Watch it get cooked, and eat it hot.
• Be a bit more careful with raw herbs, cut fruit left sitting out, and shellfish.
• If a place is empty at lunchtime on a weekday, there is usually a reason.

Kiểm chứng 2026-08-02