TLDR:
17-day unguided trip to Vietnam; starting and ending in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We visited Hoi An, Ba Na Hills, Trang An and Hanoi. The people are fantastic, the culture is vibrant, the food is amazing and the value proposition cannot be beat.
GETTING AROUND:
Vietnamese cities are “walkable” with some caveats. The sidewalks are usually cluttered with the ubiquitous scooters and crossing the street requires confidence and faith in drivers to swarm around you. That said, the GRAB app (Vietnamese Uber) is a cheap, reliable and convenient way to travel around cities. Intercity FLIGHTS are cheap, comfortable and reliable. Choose Vietnam Airlines over VietJet. Book early for best prices, even if you need to select the “flex” option as a premium. It’ll still be cheaper than booking in the final weeks. TRAINS are fine and cheap, if very basic. It’s absolutely something you should try to experience. We never did any overnight trains. SHUTTLE BUSSES and private drivers are a common way to get around between cities. We didn’t experience it. While expensive by Vietnam standards, PRIVATE CARS are a cheap way to get between cities, especially of your schedule is tight or you need to get to an inconvenient location. They are also great for private tours and experiences. Google Translate was helpful in some of these situations if we had questions or just wanted to make small talk w the driver who wasn’t comfortable w English.
GUIDED or SELF:
Vietnam travel may seem daunting until you experience it. Like me, you may worry about the Language, the infrastructure, etc. We wavered but ultimately chose our own and discovered that it was such an easy country to travel independently. Day trips and local guides are cheap, awesome and easy to arrange. Your hotel will help, or you can use something like AirBnB Experiences to search for guided activities.
LANGUAGE:
I chose to learn a bit of Vietnamese. It is a very difficult language since so much of it has to do with different vowel tones giving words completely different meanings. Learn a few courtesy words and don’t worry. Most everyone you meet speaks English and Google Translate has text to speech for sorting situations where you need to communicate.
FOOD:
In a word – Amazing! The best Banh Mi I ate on my trip cost about $.80. A dish of noodles, veg and meat might cost $2 and Vietnamese food beyond the usual Pho and Banh Mi is really world class and it’s ridiculously cheap. There are kinda three “levels” of dining. The lowest are random ubiquitous street vendors that set up on the sidewalk and sell noodle dishes, coffee, grilled pork, etc. These places don’t have running water so you dine at your own risk. Vietnamese folks eat at these places all the time, but their guts are used to the local microbes. The second level is a sidewalk place in front of a storefront. The garage door goes up, the little plastic stools go out and the proprietor pushed their one specialty to hungry diners. These places have running water and might be a bit safer for westerners’ stomachs. Finally, there are sit down restaurants with table service. They run the gamut in terms of expense and cuisine.
I recommend you try a variety of levels and stretch your comfort level. There are amazing cheap Michelin-type “splurges” and there are fantastic experiences with street food. Check out some of the old Anthony Bourdain episodes for more inspiration.
Cont'd in Part 2
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/beyond-europe/vietnam-trip-report-part-2