A Final Word On Vietnam

Having both never been to Vietnam, we were extremely surprised by the country’s diversity in landscape and topography--no two places were even remotely alike.  And the variety of activities on offer, especially for a family with young children, kept everyone busy and entertained yet was extremely light on the wallet.  As with all of our other destinations so far on this trip, we’ve enjoyed ourselves in Vietnam, although some aspects more than others.  Here’s our recap of our likes and dislikes from our 29 days there:

Liked:

· The variety in the landscape throughout the country.  We experienced sand dunes, canyons, beautiful while sand beaches, marble mountains, limestone karsts, caves, rice paddies, rivers, ocean, busy cities, and quiet villages.

Strawberry Fields, Dalat

Tam Coc

·  Big range of activities on offer, especially for families with young kids.  In most towns, there were nightly amusement parks suitable for kids aged 18mo+ and the rides were very cheap (starting around 0.10 cents per ride/1,000 VND).  In some places they turned a central square into a children’s area to ride rented bicycles and electric motorized cars, again for a very nominal fee.  We were told that this is quite popular and common in Russia as well.  

  We also partook in alpine coaster rides, island boat trips, and indoor entertainment such as the circus and water puppet theatre.  For adults, lots of water sports like jet ski and parasailing rentals were available, as well as snorkelling, diving, and trekking.  Nha Trang also had a big water amusement theme park (Vinipark) for an all day experience.  Vietnam had activities for everyone, and affordable too. 

Roller Coaster in Hue

Water Park in Nha Trang

Nightly at Dalat Square

·  Soaked in history, ancient as well as recent.  Loads of cultural attractions to take in, from temples, to ancient palaces, and to locations relevant in the 20thC from the Vietnam war.  Abundant good quality museums too.  What was best about all of this is that about 5yrs ago, the government standardised all entry fees to national attractions to be the same for locals as well as for foreigners so now entry fees were the same low price for all. 

At Chu Chi Tunnel

· Great quality budget accommodation.  We usually paid between $15-20.00 USD for a room with either 2 double beds or 1 queen bed and 1 single bed, satellite tv, air conditioning, attached bathroom with hot water, and usually free wifi in the room, or in the lobby at least and sometimes we even had a pool. 

  Quite often the places that we stayed in, known as mini-hotels as they wouldn’t have as many rooms as a larger hotel, were quite new too and very well finished in the latest plumbing and electrical fittings; a few even had plasma televisions.  

Sea of Memory Hotel, Mui Ne, $22 US

· Legacies from the French colonialism days.  We especially enjoyed having fresh baguettes and eggs for breakfast, for usually no more than $1.00 US per serving.  And the French inspired gardens were evident in most public spaces, particularly in ‘South Vietnam’ (south of Hue), where intricate topiaries shaped as dragons, boats, and letters depicting the town’s name, would grace the median strips leading into and out of the central tourist district as well as adorn most round-abouts. 

Disliked:

· ATMs only allowed a maximum withdrawals of equivalent to $95.00 USD/2,000,000 VND per transaction.  Almost all bank machines had this limit, although through a bit of research on the internet, we discovered that a couple of the banks did allow a higher $235.00 USD/5,000,000 VND per transaction limit, so we really had to make sure we used one of these machines (Agribank, DongA Bank; HSBC and ANZ allowed 5.6m VND but charged 2x the ATM fee)

·  Censorship on the internet.  For some reason, access to Facebook was restricted, although Twitter was allowed.  Also access to certain internet sites were also blocked, as well as to web browsers outside of Vietnam (ie only Google Vietnam and Mozilla Vietnam were available, and in Vietnamese!).  Use of a proxy server bypass site could sometimes get you access, and most Vietnamese seemed to use them anyway.

· Rude, dishonest and petty merchants.  From the moment we entered Vietnam from Cambodia, we noticed this.  Bus drivers and their assistants were the worst, followed by hoteliers and restaurant workers/owners and small grocery store keepers (where you don’t normally have to bargain for staples like water and ice cream bars)—the very people whose livelihood involve working with the public and depending on their location, working with tourists specifically.  

Sometimes it went beyond rude and to plain trying to rip you off just because you are a ‘dumb tourist’, like trying to charge us 2x the normal amount for ice cream bars from a small grocery store because it was in a 'tourist area'.  Pettiness really got to us, like our hotelier in Hanoi wanted to charge 0.10 cents USD/5,000 VND to make a phone call to book a taxi to take us to the airport (when others have told us that mobile phone calls are practically free for everyone on a plan).

 

   More so than in Cambodia (which is a poorer country) and in Thailand, we found that the Vietnamese were really out to ‘make a buck’ from you however they could.  Even if you paid extra to be on a ‘premuim’ tourist bus, they would make you squeeze in like sardines at the back of the bus so that they could make extra money by picking up Vietnamese friends/relatives/random people wanting a ride along the way.  Nothing was for nothing and you being a tourist was not sacred to them. 

 

   We met so many other tourists who also felt this way.  Basically, if you have spent more than 2 weeks in the country and were travelling independently and not with a tour, then you would notice it.  It really took away from your good feeling about the country.  Of course, we only had these experiences about 50% of the time, but they did tended to overshadow the good ones.

The Nitty Gritty.

So how did we do on our budget in Vietnam?  By our calculations, we averaged about $61.00 USD per day for all of us, this goes up to $67 if you include the cost of our visas too ($45.00 USD x 4).   

This pretty much accounts for everything that we spent in the 29 days that we were there, including all transportation (taxis, buses), all food, all activities/excursions/tours (including Halong Bay), purchases and gifts, even bottled water.  

The extra tours and excursions were probably what drove up our daily average compared to Cambodia and Thailand, but it was well worth it.  

On the whole, Vietnam is a very inexpensive destination for tourists especially long term travellers and families.  Great country; shame about the attitude of some of its people.