Visiting Ho Thuy Tien – Vietnam’s Abandoned Water Park

Last Updated: December 6 2020

When it came to travelling through Vietnam, we knew there was one place for sure we wanted to visit. We had seen Vietnam’s abandoned water park so many times on Instagram, and on multiple blogs. If you are planning to travel through Vietnam, definitely pay Ho Thuy Tien a visit! Ho Thuy Tien is also known as Thuy Tien lake, or Thuy Tien lake water park. It is genuinely one of the coolest places we have ever visited!

Where is Ho Thuy Tien?

Ho Thuy Tien is located just outside of Hue; roughly 8km away.

What is Ho Thuy Tien?

Ho Thuy Tien was first opened to the public in 2004, and was originally a water park. It was then abandoned shortly after, due to a lack of financial funds. In 2013 the area was transferred to another company, who wanted to open the site as an eco – tourism site. However, this plan also failed and now the park is left abandoned.

The must view spots of Thuy Tien Lake:

Ho Thuy Tien consists of different areas and paths including the grandstands, water slides and the dragon aquarium. There are plenty of hidden spots to explore here, and it is definitely worth taking your time. We will go through the sites of interest you will want to visit at Ho Thuy Tien!

The dragon aquarium:

The popular face of Vietnam’s abandoned water park is the famous dragon aquarium. It is located on the lake, and is a large complex that you can walk around. As it is so big, people often pay to take their scooters in so they can drive around. If you are wanting more of this area, we would definitely recommend this! However, we weren’t driving scooters so chose to just walk around.

Inside the dragon aquarium, there is plenty to explore. On the bottom floor, there are old broken exhibits which used to house fish and other aquatic animals. This part of the aquarium is very eerie, and you must be careful as there is a lot of broken glass found here.

We saw so many reports that crocodiles were actually left in the aquarium when the place closed down. Apparently it was actually backpackers that found them, which would have been so scary! Luckily they were relocated to a wildlife park as they weren’t in good condition, although it is still creepy to think there were crocodiles lurking around.

You can walk straight up into the dragons mouth, but be careful of their stairs. They aren’t in the best of condition haha! From the dragons mouth, you can see right out onto the lake and to the other parts of Ho Thuy Tien.

The water slides:

We didn’t get a chance to see the water slides in the end, as the guard told us to be back in 40 minutes and we didn’t have a scooter. You will want to keep this in mind, when exploring this abandoned water park. However, out of the blog posts we have read, the guards don’t usually give a time limit but our guard did.

The Grandstands:

The quirky car:

How to get to Vietnam’s abandoned water park: 

People often visit by Scooter, bicycle or Taxi. Getting here by motorbike seemed to be the most popular option, however we weren’t brave enough to rent a scooter in Asia!

Another thing to note, is that there are apparently multiple entrances. We don’t know how many entrances there are, but we have heard stories about people trying to get in through different ones. We had previously learnt that some taxi’s didn’t even know the way, so make sure you ask before you agree a price.

Due to this we decided to go with our hotels private driver. He drove us there and back, and waited whilst we explored the water park. The hotel manager informed us that if we were refused entry, our driver knew another entry point that he could take us to. The price to hire the driver was 350,000 VND (about £12). He will also take you to other destinations if you wish!

The entry fee for Ho Thuy Tien:

After Ho Thuy Tien was shut down, tourists used to visit it all the time until it was ‘closed’ due to safety concerns. However, quite often the security guards will happily let you in for a ‘small fee’. If somebody approaches you and tells you its unsafe, don’t panic! All we had to do was get a bit of money out of our pocket, and he happily changed his mind!

The man told us to be back at the entrance in 40 minutes and took a “fee” of 20,000 VND each (about 70p). We have heard stories of security guards point blank refusing to let tourists in though. I suppose it is luck who you are dealing with on the day and whether they decide to let you in or not. We have heard that going early can be a good option, but we went around 11am and had no problems!

Where did we stay in Hue?

To visit this awesome spot, the best place to stay is Hue. The Water Park is only around 7km away from the city centre so it only takes a short time to get there.

We stayed at the Nice Hue Hotel and we could not recommend it enough! The rooms are lovely and cheap; and the staff will do anything for you! The morning we checked out we had a train to catch at 5am that morning. The manager was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get a taxi that early in the morning, so drove us to the train station at 4:30am himself! He refused to take any money from us, and that was just one example of the many acts of kindness we experienced here.

Thank you so much for reading this post! We hope this has inspired you to give this unique place a visit when planning your Vietnam travel itinerary! There is definitely something cool about visiting Vietnam’s abandoned waterpark.

Have you ever visited Vietnam? We would love to hear about your experiences in the comments below if you have!

P.S If you want to follow our travels, like our Facebook here.

Thanks,
Jack & Abbie.

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