Travels in Viet Nam

Of all the places I have been so far in the world, Viet Nam was the most different and interesting.  This is the only place I have been in Asia.

We were there in April of 2012.  We had decided to go somewhere in Asia.  We chose Viet Nam because the weather was good there at the time of year that worked best for us to travel, it had a reputation for being very friendly to Americans, and it was very inexpensive after you got there on the very long flight.

This was the first time we traveled somewhere that required a visa.  The process was easily completed online in advance of our trip.  When we arrived after a very long travel day, immigration at the airport had our visas ready and it was a simple and short process to get them and enter the country.  We received a 30-day visa; we were there for approximately three weeks (the amount of annual vacation time I had) so that was plenty long for our planned trip.

We started our trip in Ha Noi.  A beautifully chaotic city with more motor bikes than people.  Friendly people.  Extremely inexpensive.  Interesting mix of old and new architecture.  Fabulous food; interesting mix of Asian and French cuisine because of its history as French Indochina.  Daily “bia hoi” – literally beer of the day, fresh beer made daily because of limited refrigeration; a lite refreshing Pilsner courtesy of the Czechs if I recall.  Thought provoking museum depicting their view of the various occupations of their country by others (France and the US specifically).

We then traveled by train to Sapa, in the mountains.  While there, we visited a few Hmong villages, one on our own and two with a guide.  The Hmong in the area spoke excellent English, but also were very very persistent in trying to sell us things every time we were in town or in their villages.  We hiked through rice paddies to get to the villages we visited with a guide; there is no way we would have found them any other way.

After returning to Ha Noi for a few days, we visited Cat Ba Island.  Our primary purpose in being there was to take a boat trip in Ha Long Bay.  The boat trip was incredibly beautiful.  It was allegedly run by an “English speaking guide.”  He did speak maybe 5-10 words of English, but we figured everything out with hand signals.  We unexpectedly ended up kayaking during the boat trip (“kayak” was one of the words he knew).  We also visited a national park with some caves, something that I have a phobia of.  I could not make myself go through the cave, so I found a way around it and back to our boat; basically, I followed several local people walking along the shore.

While on Cat Ba, I ate some leaves at a street stand of questionable cleanliness; I was getting bolder and bolder in my eating.  I paid for it by spending about 24-hours in our room near the toilet.  Fortunately, our room had a great view.  Also, I can report that Vietnamese TV is fairly similar to Mexican TV and some US TV; lots of soap operas, slapstick comedy and movies, ads for shampoo and other products, etc.

We finished our trip back in Ha Noi, our travel hub.

At the time we visited, Viet Nam was an excellent place to visit for more adventurous travelers that do not need to always understand the language or know what is going on.  For us, that is part of what made it interesting.  For those that are not comfortable without knowing what is happening at every moment, it probably wouldn’t be the best choice.  It may have changed and become more “tourist friendly” since we were there, but honestly that would ruin the best of it in my opinion.  For me, travel is a chance to see and learn about things that are different than what you have at home; why else go?