I’m years behind on my trip reports, but I have always wanted to start getting into the habit of doing flight and hotel reviews, since I’ve found other bloggers’ reviews and especially their photos to be very helpful when planning my own travel. The problem is when you have like 10 flights and 6 hotels in a trip, and when you get back you’re really behind on everything and too tired… #excuses

I’m leaving Vietnam today and from my initial enthusiasm from 2 days in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in November, I now have more mixed feelings that I want to flesh out here. You may or may not agree, I’m just sharing how I felt personally. A lot of this is coming from the privileged position of being an Asian-American, but I’ll try to keep it real and maybe it’ll resonate with some people.

Cleanliness

This is a third world country, so I realize that it sounds very entitled and judgmental to call Vietnam “dirty” and rundown. I mean, what do you expect? However, I think it’s worth addressing because I have many friends who are clean freaks and germophobes and even the slightest trash on the ground and rust and dirt on the walls would disgust them. Let’s not even mention the rats you see darting between stalls at the market.

I spent several years of my life in Taiwan (also many considerably “dirty” cities) and sitting on little plastic stools on the pavement eating pho out of bowls washed in questionable water doesn’t really bother me, and neither does drinking a raw egg coffee sitting on stools in a rundown, dirty hole-in-the-wall where the floor is littered with empty sunflower seed shells. But I figured I should mention this so that readers who know that such experiences would bother them will know how to manage. My thoughts? A few germs and dirt can only make you stronger. I try to look past the big picture and dirtiness and not be so judgmental.

Crossing the Street

Everyone knows Vietnam has crazy streets filled with cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and trucks that often drive within 1 inch of each other, drive the wrong way on a street into oncoming traffic, and make turns into rapidly oncoming traffic. You’ll be hard-pressed to find traffic lights, and even if you do, a popular T-shirt print says it all:

Thanks to http://4laffs.com/vietnam-impressions-and-costs/, which is a great post too.

So how do you cross the street? This is a common problem in Asia (pedestrians do not have the right of way), so I usually follow the same tip as I do while in China. Look for a local that is about to cross the street too, and stand right next to them and cross exactly when they cross, staying within inches of them. The drivers adjust their speed and swerve to avoid you based on their prediction of where you will be next, and they usually assume that you are going to keep walking, so try not to stop.

Another tip I learned from Deal Mommy was to just take Uber (or Grab) everywhere if you feel overwhelmed, even if it’s a totally walkable distance. Besides, if you take Uber, you can earn Ibotta cash and SYWR too (maybe triple dip with Acorns too). 😀 Uber is cheaper and safer than local taxis too.

I am usually a walker, but when we arrived in Hanoi and found an utter lack of sidewalks in Old Quarter and Westlake (interestingly, this was not a problem in the other cities we visited), we found ourselves constantly being forced into the street and getting honked at and nearly swiped by vehicles, so we took Uber the rest of the day. If you do walk where there are no sidewalks, stay to the side as much as possible, watch your step because there are a lot of obstacles, potholes, trash, and puddles of dirty washing water, and clutch your bag so that they can’t be grabbed by motorists speeding by.

Costs

I love the cheap food and shopping – if you know where to go and what to expect. It always pays to do your research in advance so you know how much things cost and not just how much you’re willing to pay for it. A common scam is that vendors will purposely give you incorrect change back and hope you don’t notice or get confused. This happened to me literally every single transaction in Hoi An…

Don’t get the 10,000 dong and 100,000 dong bills mixed up. Make sure bills aren’t sticking together; take your time to separate and count the money carefully. Clarify prices in advance, and if you’re shopping, they do expect you to bargain (I’ve heard you should start with 50%).

A good rule of thumb for quick currency conversions in your head is to remove 4 zeroes (move the decimal over 4 places) and divide the remaining number by 2.

For example: 10000 dong, remove 4 zeroes = 1, divided by 2 = approx $0.50 USD. It’s actually slightly less, but this is good for making quick estimates.

Vendors often quote prices in USD and in VND, so be sure to clarify which one they mean. “Five” could be either 5000 dong ($0.25) or $5 USD.

For budgeting purposes, I spent less than $30 USD of cash for 2 people over 9 days. My hotels, flights, scuba diving course, and cruise were pre-paid by credit card, I used Uber for rides, and credit card at one sit-down restaurant in Hoi An. The cash was mainly for small restaurants and street food, and I didn’t do any shopping. Tips are often appreciated in service-type places like the cruise. Things like the cruise and luxury hotels will often have American prices or higher at the property for food and beverage and services.

Cities Visited

I have now been to Saigon, Hoi An, Da Nang, Hanoi, and Halong Bay. Here are my thoughts on each:

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) – slightly more modern feel, great cheap shopping, relatively clean compared to the other cities. I really liked it except for the hot weather. (P.S. Le Meridien is really nice, I recommend it!)

Hoi An – small town, tailors galore, best seen at night with the lanterns and bridges, small night market, fairly pedestrian-friendly streets, very touristy. Pretty dirty streets and buildings are falling apart, but it has character. Kinda like the Kyoto of Vietnam.

Da Nang – definitely our favorite; impressive resorts (we stayed at Hyatt Regency Danang, which is now in my Top 5 favorite hotels in the world) with stunning CLEAN, powdery white sand beaches, good weather, lots of fun stuff to do between eating such as Marble Mountains (highly recommend, will try to do a separate post on this), Ba Na Hills, Hai Van Pass, Son Tra Peninsula, and day trips to nearby sights. Nice bridges, great night viewing. Relatively clean. Great for ex-pats and partiers apparently, too.

Hanoi – we did not really enjoy this city much at all. Many streets in the “interesting” parts of town lack sidewalks, making it very pedestrian-unfriendly in many parts. It wasn’t hot, but the air pollution was pretty bad. Good food options, but not many interesting things to do otherwise, and my stomach could only handle so much back-to-back-to-back food and coffee. The common touristy sights were pretty unimpressive. I particularly do not recommend Westlake, the lake is big but smelly and dirty and mosquito-infested, the streets adjacent to it have no sidewalks so you can’t just wander around and explore unless you stay right by the lakeside, and there isn’t much to do. The shopping in Hanoi (Old Quarter) is decent but I honestly enjoyed it more in Saigon. The hotels are pretty old here (we stayed at Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake and Hilton Hanoi Opera).

Halong Bay – see my post on choosing a cruise. I will write a new dedicated post to the experience, but in general I would sum it up as: your experience will greatly vary depending on how much you pay/how nice the boat is. If you’re someone that prefers a cleaner environment, I strongly suggest that you pay a little more for a nice boat like Azalea Cruises that takes the Lan Ha Bay/Bai Tu Long Bay route (significantly cleaner, clearer waters). With that said, it was a beautiful experience that I would recommend. On the other hand, my husband wouldn’t recommend it, so take my word with a grain of salt. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Another interesting thing I noticed about the tourist demographic is that it is overrun with Korean tourists. I was surprised because in other Asia cities I often see a lot of mainland Chinese tourists, but not in Vietnam. We often heard Korean more than even Vietnamese in the touristy areas and hotels. Quite a few French tourists too, and not many American tourists.

We did not go to some other popular sites like Hue, My Son, Sapa, Phu Quoc, Nha Truong, etc, but I would’ve liked to. They are on my future travel list for sure! My husband is very much over Vietnam so I’ll need a new travel buddy for the next time. 🙂