One month in Vietnam

We spent one month (December 2018) travelling from Hanoi in northern Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam. We used trains and buses to get around, supplemented by taxis, boats, bikes, scooters, ferries…Our trip saw us visit these places:

Hanoi
Cat Ba Island
Tam Coc
Phong Nha
Hue
Hoi An
An Bang
Bai Xep
Dalat
Cat Tien National Park
Ha Tien

Hai Tac

Ho Chi Minh City

Heather’s Vietnam likes:

• Homestays. Even though they were often the cheapest accommodation (5-10 euros a night) we got the best service (and night’s sleep) in homestays. After a couple of them we started noticing a pattern.
• The variety of food. Kim loved the phos to keep him warm in the north, I ordered them to rehydrate me in the south. We both loved the quirky cuisine in Hue and I would like to have lemongrass in all meals from now on. The fruit was fantastic too and this was often included in our homestay breakfasts. Tiny flavoursome bananas, juicy papaya, watermelon and pineapple. We also had huge passion fruits too.
• The iced coffee. It would be hard not to get addicted to this stuff – the amount of sugar (from the condensed milk) is nuts. I think I’m a borderline diabetic now.
• The price of everything. We were paying around 20,000d (1 EUR) for a beer. In some places it was more expensive of course. I think the lowest we saw was 12,0000d. The cost of buses, trains and taxis was also low for us. We didn’t have to change plans because a route was too expensive, and once we booked an 8-hour bus journey without even knowing the price because we’d never seen anything more than 300,000d (12 EUR).
• When you found someone who could speak some English. Yes, I know that sounds bad. But we struggled with a lot of things and a lot of people (hotel staff, tour guides) who claimed to speak English just couldn’t. So when we found people who spoke it well (the EAST conservation centre guide Dat, our Phong Na guide Long, and an iced coffee seller in Can Tho bus station), we were very happy to talk to them for a while. All of them came across as friendly, patient and easy-going people.
• Baolau – we booked pretty much all our buses and trains through this website because it was in English and easy to use (even on a mobile). They charge a 20,000d (1 EUR) fee per transaction but it was worth it as it saved us traipsing to bus station offices/train stations in advance to buy tickets for the next day.
• Having a 4G local SIM card. We picked up a 5.5GB one from a tourist shop in Hanoi and it cost us 7 USD. It was totally worth it as it allowed us to research and replan while on buses/trains and when we got dumped in locations we weren’t expecting.
• Aside from the food diversity, the natural (and unnatural) diversity we encountered – chic boutiques next to roadside cooking, limestone peaks, lakes, boat rides, rice fields, conical hats, water buffalo, caves, mountain-side rivers, pagodas, buddhas, incense, lanterns, champa ruins, Japanese houses, white sands, long/thin and round and dumpy fishing boats, palm trees, mountains, waterfalls, coffee beans, langurs, gibbons, kingfishers chameleons…

Heather’s Vietnam “I could have done withouts”:

• Scooters – Hanoi was of course a bit of a shocker because we’d just arrived, but I think the award for the most scootered town goes to Dalat.
• Beeping bus drivers. We noticed that they actually drive with one hand to steer and the other hand on the horn. They use it roughly every 2 seconds.
• Cheap hotels pretending to be fancy ones. These tended to have paper-thin walls and were full of noisy Asian tourists who think it’s ok to slam doors all night and shout at each other down the corridor.
• Mattresses so hard you may as well be on the floor
• Hot coffee. We were so excited about the coffee when we arrived in the cold north, but we really didn’t take to it. Even if you ask for it black with no sugar it still has this slightly sweet taste. We tried the egg and coconut coffees in the north which were nice enough but we’re hot-black-no-sugar coffee people and northern Vietnam isn’t.
• Arriving in places in the rain. We got very unlucky with the weather. Even in the south which is supposed to have their dry season in December, we got rained on in most places apart from Cat Tien. Everyone we met said they’d heard from someone who’d heard from someone that they were having a very atypical December, both in the north and the south.
• The lack of information, particular when trying to get from A to B on a bus. Not all routes are made available online so you really have to be in the A location before you know what B is.
• Vietnam’s attitude to the environment. They have stunning scenery in this country – see above – but they just don’t seem to know it, or seem to care. For our entire trip we looked one way and saw something beautiful, and looked another way and saw a pile of trash by the side of the road. From a distance little white ‘flowers’ dot the rivers and roadsides. But up close you realise it’s rubbish – plastic being the worst offender. They give you a totally unnecessary little plastic bag every time you buy an iced coffee or a banh mi (baguette), and a little bottle of water every time you board a bus. We of course have been throwing those in the bin when we arrive at one, but we’re not convinced that bins aren’t just emptied by the side of the road. We found it upsetting that the women that sit on the road selling the most delicious looking fruit and veg that’s come from nature don’t see that the plastic lying discarded around them will eventually stop them from their livelihood. The climate crises doesn’t seem to have hit Vietnam’s conscience yet, but we expect it will arrive eventually, just like it has in Europe.
• To get back to a more light-hearted note: the little bathroom kit that’s not only in homestays but hotels too. Without fail it will contain 2 toothbrushes. Now, who would travel without their own toothbrush? And if you forgot it/lost it, wouldn’t you just go and buy a new one? I wonder if anyone travelling around Vietnam has ever used the toothbrushes, and if so do they use a new one in each place they stay in? Better stop now before I go back to the plastic disposal topic. The kit also includes some ‘man’s shower gel’ and some ‘whitening shower gel’. What with the constant rain, we were scared we might become invisible if we started using that stuff.
• Carpets on dashboards in cars. We’re still wondering what the point is…