Vietnam was the last new country on our two month trip around Southeast Asia, and after only four days, I decided it had a lot of potential to end up being my favorite. It has its own totally unique feel to it, and while certain things of course resemble other parts of Asia, I immediately picked up on some very key differences.
First of all, the roads in Ho Chi Minh City (otherwise known by its old name, Saigon) are insane. There is no sense to the traffic and it seems like no road laws. A hugely odd thing that I only realized after a few days as well was that there were no tuk tuks. Only cars and motorbikes. Taxi scams are very common and we made sure to only travel with the two bigger, more trustworthy companies, Vinasun and Mai Linh. Uber is also a popular way to travel, and my flatmates at our first hostel were always using it (unfortunately even if I hadn't left my phone on an Air Asia flight, I barely understand what apps are let alone how to get an Uber). Along with the absence of tuk tuks, I also noticed a real lack of stray animals which was a huge change from Thailand and Myanmar.
Because of the mental road situation, learning to cross the street is a whole new experience. You basically just have to wander out into a sea of oncoming bikes and make sure they see you and avoid you. As much as I like Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City is where I've been most wary of crime. Snatch thieves on bikes are apparently a lot more prevalent and so I always made sure my little backpack was over my shoulders and that if I was carrying something, it was on the side opposite the road. Bikers can easily reach out and just grab your phone or camera out of your hand as they drive by.
The currency was the hardest for me to figure out so far. You need to withdraw a few million dong at a time to get by for a few days. I finally decided the best measurement is to remember that 500,000 dong (the largest bill I've seen) equals about £20 or $25. Vietnam is the cheapest country I've been to.
A few other things of note were that the English here is about on par with or poorer than Thailand. Very few Vietnamese people I interacted with outside of hostels or tours spoke any English, including people at restaurants or on buses. As an annoying and difficult (but morally upstanding!) vegetarian, it was really hard for me to communicate enough to ask if dishes had meat in them, so we usually looked for places that had an English translation on the menu... also not always easy to find. One morning we went into a place for breakfast and after a lot of failed attempts to ask about vegetarian options, the girl finally understood when I asked for tofu. However, what I actually got was a large meal that did indeed have tofu but also had chicken and beef, so I had to do some trading with Lewis for his plain noodles so I could have a full meal.
But there's always fruit!
Speaking of food, some of the meals in Vietnam have been pretty great. I've had some amazing tofu, especially this salt and chili tofu on our first night, we ate at a great Japanese restaurant one day, and Lewis really liked his pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), although my veggie version was kind of plain.
I also need to mention the coffee. I NEED TO. Vietnamese coffee is potentially the best in the world. It's competing with France and Italy anyway, and it has the added bonus of always being optionally iced (an option I always take). They use condensed milk, but I don't know what else they do to make their coffee so amazingly delicious. It's extremely strong. The cafe culture is a cool one too. The typical local cafes (or "ca phe") are generally just a small shop open to the street with wooden fold-out chairs facing the road where old men are sitting sipping coffee. They often do not serve food, but the first one we went to gave us complimentary iced tea as soon as we sat down. I love it.
Crossing the Land Border
Once again, we took a bus to get to Vietnam from Phnom Penh. At the hostel's recommendation, we booked the slightly more expensive bus at $18, a Giant Ibis. It was seriously one of the best bus experiences I'd had... prior to using the Vietnamese sleeper buses, but that'll come in a later entry. They not only had on-board wifi, they also had plug outlets at each seat. They basically took care of everything for us too. They waited at the Cambodian exit while we were stamped out, collected our passports afterwards, stopped in between so we could get dinner and hopefully wait for the absolute monsoon happening outside to die down, and then when we reached Vietnam they just ushered us right through and all we had to do was put our bags through a scanner. They'd already gotten our stamps and everything! It was the quickest immigration check I've ever been to, and we didn't even have to talk to anyone. I love not having to talk to anyone.
Just as a slightly funny story, we'd been hanging out with our friend Santiago, who we'd met in Koh Phi Phi, in Cambodia. He'd been in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh at the same time as us, and he was also heading to Ho Chi Minh City on the same day. However, he had booked a flight ages ago not at all realizing that the bus trip was only 6 hours long, so he ended up spending $120 plus cab fare to the airport to take a half hour flight while we arrived at our new hostel in Ho Chi Minh at the exact same time as him after a fairly comfortable bus ride. When I say funny, I mean funny for us and not so much for him. Always look into various transport options before you book!
Da Blend Hostel
Having put it off to the day before to book accommodation, the other hostels I had been considering were now full, so I went with this one which sounded nice but was a little out of the way. It was such a different but cool place to stay. It was actually a house with some long-term expats who were teaching or working in Vietnam as well as a dorm room for backpackers. It actually felt like having a flat for a few days with four floors, two living rooms, a kitchen with free water for everyone, pool table, beer pong table, a balcony area with hammock and weight machine, and accessible rooftop with couches. There was a even an electric massage chair outside of our dorm. We spent one day just chilling out in the second floor living room, watching movies, and planning out our trip. It was so relaxing.
The room was also unique. Each bunk was separated with cloth so that you felt like you had your own little personal space with your own light and outlet. I had one in the corner which was enclosed on three sides with just an opening to climb up, so it was like my own cocoon every night. A couple bunks were hidden around the sides on the bottom like secret nooks.
The only downsides of the hostel were the location, which was about a 15 minute cab ride from the backpacker area with bars, and the lack of tourist facilities. The guy who ran the place was really nice and would give advice, but he couldn't book tours for us and there was no information about buses or activities readily available. It was mostly because of this that we moved for our last night, but Da Blend was a much better hostel than the next one we went to, so I'm glad we spent our first three nights here.
War Remnants Museum
I'll admit I'm not an expert on the Vietnam War, but my impression has always been that most of America was against it. You had draft dodging, protests, the Kent State shootings, and the hippie era. In that way, it wasn't too weird for me to see it from the Vietnamese point of view, because I always viewed that war as horrible and unnecessary.
It's still contains a lot of insight though, and it only costs 15,000 dong... that is literally less than 70 cents. Outside are old fighter jets, helicopters, and tanks. There's also an exhibit on the terrible jail conditions and torture methods used on Vietnamese prisoners, from tiny tiger cages where they couldn't sit up to piercing them with nails to blinding them to burying them alive... and that's just the start of it. It was seriously horrific.
Inside, the bottom floor has plenty of photos and propaganda posters from the war. There was even the iconic Kent State photo- weird to see my school's history on display across the world! What I found most interesting were the walls and walls full of photos of protests from different countries all opposing the US being in Vietnam... from the countries of Africa to all of Asia and the Middle East down to New Zealand and Australia, as well as Europe, South America, and North America, including the United States itself. It was basically the entire world.
The top floors contained photos that were a bit more graphic. There was a brief history of the war, then a room full of photos taken by journalists that were over there for it. The worst were the dozens of photos of Agent Orange victims. There were so many pictures of kids with deformities- enlarged body parts, extra joints, mental retardation, Siamese twins, dwarfism, missing arms, legs, and eyeballs, and so much more, as well as adults with severe skin conditions. Most of those kids weren't even born until after the war was over, but their parents or even grandparents were exposed and it poisoned the whole family. There was a photo of one healthy child playing in a barren forest that had just been destroyed by Agent Orange in the 70s, and then there were two more photos of him as an adult unable to walk or talk anymore. He's since died.
It's honestly unthinkable that anyone could spray such a deadly chemical on a country with no regard for civilians or life in general. When I left, I bought a few beaded souvenirs from an Agent Orange charity, and all of the staff at the desk were affected themselves.
There were also some pretty tragic photos that photographers snapped of civilians literally seconds before they were shot and killed. There was one of a family rounded up crying. The photographer asked the soldiers to wait so he could take his picture, and as he walked away he heard M16s open up.
Another showed an old man sitting on the ground looking absolutely terrified. It was labeled with a quote from the photographer: "The old man was old and trembling so that he could hardly walk. He looked like he wanted to cry. When I left him I heard two rifle shots." Unbelievably heartbreaking.
It's hard to see pictures of people in their last moments of life before senselessly dying due to a war that should have never existed that they weren't even involved in.
Despite the depressing content, the museum is really a must-visit if you're in Saigon.
Rocky Horror Picture Show
I went to the absolute best live Rocky Horror show while in Ho Chi Minh. It was actually a very fortunate decision to stay at Da Blend, and even more fortunate that Lewis talked me into coming out for dinner with some of our roommates on the first night while I was trying to upload photos. While we were out, an Aussie girl named Claire mentioned that she was planning to go to a show the following day. I was so excited I could hardly handle it and immediately invited myself along. Of course she was super cool and we had a blast!
The show was put on at Outcast Saigon, a surprisingly long cab ride about 40 minutes from our hostel. It was in District 2 but apparently districts in Ho Chi Minh make no sense, because our hostel was in District 3 but District 1 where the bars are was far closer to us. The venue was really awesome. It was a large concrete outdoor area with a bar. The show was hosted by a group of expats called the Saigon Players. We had done our best to dress up despite only having a backpack full of traveling clothes. See, you never know when you'll need that sexy lingerie and pair of fishnets! Damn my sensible packing this time around. A lot of people came in Halloween costumes as well.
If you've never been to a Rocky Horror show, first of all you're so missing out, and second it would do no good to try to explain it here. I'll just say that the audience and shadow cast were both fantastic. Claire and I split two beer towers, did the time warp, and yelled a lot. At one point the prompt screen suggested we fondle our seatmate. I was next to an old Kiwi woman. She was into it. We took photos afterwards with Tasmanian birthday boy Frankenfurter (48 that day and still rocking a corset!) who was so nice as well as the ridiculously sexy Riff Raff who had the most amazing cheekbones. Honestly phenomenal night.
Afterwards we hit up the bars along with our French roomie Kenji who had turned up to the show to lose his Rocky Horror virginity. The bar scene in Ho Chi Minh is pretty nuts. Not so much the bars themselves which are usually two to three stories with balconies, but the street that the bars are on. If you thought the roads were insane already, try maneuvering your way down the nightlife area where even the cars can barely fit through the throngs of people (see top photo).
Mekong Delta
We took a day trip on our last day down to the Mekong Delta where people live and work on the river. I love cultural activities so really enjoyed this. From reading online reviews, I lot of people seem to consider the delta an optional activity, but I really think you shouldn't miss it if you're in Saigon.
We had moved our things to our new hostel in the backpacker area first thing in the morning so that the shuttle could pick us up at 7:30. We went with Viet Fun Travel who I booked with online. Our guide was named Shang (or Chang? Or his Western name- Andy) and he was very friendly. The ride down to the delta took about an hour and a half with one stop on the way for a Vietnamese coffee (always happy to stop for coffee).
When we arrived, we hopped on a midsize riverboat to cross to the opposite bank and depart at Unicorn Island. We hit all the cultural stops there. First, we sat down at a honeybee farm right off the pier where a lady came to the table and mixed us all delicious honey tea.
The only downside of this stop were all of the bees which I tried very hard to keep my cool about and mostly failed. I got stung by a wasp a few months back at a Highland Games in Scotland and have been jumpy ever since. At one point though two of the little honeybees landed on my teaspoon and started drinking the honey and it was actually so adorable I got over my fear a little bit. You could even go over to the wooden box where all of the bees hung onto the screens and hold it up. They weren't quite cute enough to convince me to do that.
Next we walked down the path a few minutes and sat down at a place where they brought us exotic fresh fruit and more (sadly normal) tea. The fruit included pineapple, papaya, something like a lychee but not (same same but different!), mango, and dragonfruit. I've always been interested to try dragonfruit since it's so badass looking with all of its spikes, but it was sadly the most flavorless of them all. The locals also played traditional music for us while we ate.
Finally we were ready for the highlight- the Mekong Delta cruise. Just as we walked to the pier over the little canal and saw all of the longboats, the skies opened and it started pouring down rain. This was pretty disheartening as Lewis had unpacked our umbrellas, and the whole group just stood under a wooden covering for over five minutes waiting to see if it would stop. It didn't. After we'd waited long enough, Shang went to buy ponchos for those of us who didn't have them, so we got to dress real cute for our cruise in polka dot plastic bags.
Right before the rain.
We hopped into the longboats, three of us in each along with the two Vietnamese paddlers at the front and back. The delta was beautiful and I'm really annoyed that I could barely take photos. I tried to hold my camera under my poncho and managed a few, but it was still getting very wet and I wasn't ready to break my second camera in two weeks.
Anyway, the canal was bordered on both sides by gorgeous green palms. Boats were heading both ways up and down, most people wearing straw hats. In a way, the rain made it even more atmospheric because it felt like being in a jungle.
We got off a little further down and had to walk a ways through the mud on a small path that took us to a coconut candy factory. By factory, of course, I mean a one room open sided structure where they had a machine to churn the candy but then were chopping and hand-wrapping it themselves. We got to try the coconut peanut flavor and it was pretty good, like chewy taffy.
We left the island afterwards and took the larger boat again back up the river where we stopped somewhere else for lunch. They really came through with my veggie option and made me two different types of tofu with my rice as well as an entirely separate soup. I spent most of the time trying not to look at the table next to us where they'd ordered the "deluxe lunch option" for $5 extra and there was just a huge dead fish sitting there.
This is the only part of the tour I feel could have been better. We sat for around 20 minutes after we'd finished eating just watching the little mudskippers by the river and waiting to go. Finally, Shang told us we'd be staying another half hour to chill out in the hammocks. I mean, it was alright. Everyone likes hammocks. Mine was placed quite precariously over the muddy river, so I was careful not to move too much, but it was relaxing. I guess I just feel that if I'm on a tour I'd rather have a more memorable final activity than napping.
We got back to Ho Chi Minh around 4 or 5... just in time to get ready for Halloween!
Halloween
This is such an anticlimax. I don't even know why I'm making it a topic. I always try to do up Halloween really big in foreign countries and always fail. To be fair, all the bars were celebrating. There were decorations and advertising around the city. We even moved to a party hostel for our last night that was near the bars.
That might have been the first issue. We went to stay at Hideout which is apparently one of the most popular hostels in Ho Chi Minh. I didn't expect much from the facilities. The room was fine, basic but big enough for 10 people... but it felt crowded because three of those people were loud Canadian girls, one was a British girl who couldn't hold her alcohol and spent all night throwing up, and there was only one bathroom.
Hideout has a bar next door though and they were hosting a Halloween party. I even brought a costume... yes, I dragged around a costume for a two month backpacking trip. I take Halloween seriously and had bought an extra one the year before because it was cute.
Cute bat! (But not the cutest photo.)
They even had a table with free face paint. Actually, probably the best part of the night was that I sat down at that table because one of the girls in my room had wanted to use the paint, but everyone in the bar saw my own makeup and started just sitting down thinking I was the makeup artist. I hadn't even used the paint for myself! My makeup was done with black lipstick, purple eye shadow, and liquid liner. Despite telling people that, I had a queue of people waiting for me to paint their faces. I probably did about seven before I took an opportunity to run away. I got one free drink out of it though!
After that, we didn't really know what to do. The bar was way too small to host a big party, I mean like tiny with five tables and the bar taking up most of the room. The majority of people were standing out front. Lewis and I went up to the chill out room on the second floor with beanbags, couches, and movies which was thankfully air-conditioned.
Eventually we walked to the bar street, but you could hardly move. I was burning up in my costume (of course this is the year I DIDN'T have a skimpy outfit) and none of the bars looked that appealing. We finally went up to the Sky Bar on the second floor balcony of some place on the corner. Lewis was now tired, I had to go into the bathroom to literally take my costume off and pour water over myself, and I just had one margarita there before we headed back.
Basically, I have had a string of disappointing Halloweens since I left home, and this one was no different. Nobody does it like you, America!
As one final note, we missed the Cu Chi Tunnels due to time, but we absolutely would have gone if we had an extra day. Tours will take you out of the city to see the actual underground tunnels the Viet Cong used during the war, and you can walk through the narrow passages if you aren't claustrophobic. It sounds really cool and informational, so I'd definitely catch it if I went back!
We left the following morning to head up to Dalat, but it was good to have a few days in the city to settle into a new country. Vietnam has only gotten much better from there!