Vietnam

Posted July 19, 2016

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)/Saigon

I jumped onto the bus in Phnom Penh, Cambodia thinking this would be an easy trip with no hassle and for the most part it was. It was about 5 hours long and when we got to the Vietnam border we all got off the bus, walked into a building, the immigration officer stamped everyone’s passports and let us into the country. It was at the border I realized something was wrong. The wifi had been working up until the Cambodia/Vietnam border but as we entered into Vietnam, it no longer worked. I knew this would mean huge problems because I didn’t get a chance to download maps.me for Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Maps.me is a free map program that works on your phone when there is no Wi-Fi connection. I also didn’t know the exact area of the city the hostel was in, so I knew I would be at the mercy of a cab driver. We got to the city and the bus stopped letting everyone out. I asked the bus driver where we were in relation to HCMC but he spoke no English and brushed me off. I decided to get off as well. I later found out I should have stayed on and got off on the stop after. A cab driver pounced on me and asked me where I needed to go. I thought I was being smart and looked inside his cab asking him if he had a meter. He said yes of course I do. I said ok, and told him where I was going. He was acting very pleasant, asking me how his English was, and telling me a little bit about the city. When we arrived, I looked at the meter thinking it was incorrect and asking him how much the ride was. He said to me 470,000 dong ($21USD). I told him he must me joking, there is no way since it was a 10 minute cab ride. He told me cabs in Vietnam are very expensive and about $3/km. I knew he was full of it but there was no way for me to prove how far of a distance we just travelled was since I didn’t have data on my phone. I didn’t even have that much money in Vietnamese dong and gave him a $20 USD note. I realized after why he parked a few meters way from the hostel entrance, so the hostel staff wouldn’t see him. I checked into the hostel and immediately asked about the taxis. The girl at the front reception was really friendly and asked me why I didn’t come inside right away to get her. I said even if she had gone to the taxi driver there was no way we could prove where he picked me up. I’m sure he would have lied and said he got me from the airport, but even then the price was still far too high. She had told me there are cab companies all over the place here running scams and their meter runs much faster. She recommended two cab companies that don’t run scams (A green company and white company) and told me to always take them or use Uber. I was really upset but decided there was no point in dwelling over it.

At least sim cards in this country are cheap. I bought a 5 gig sim card for $5. The girl at receiption showed me to my room and I got settled in. I thought this would be a good hostel to meet people but it was just to opposite. There was no common area to socialize and everyone seemed to keep to him or herself. I went to the lobby to see what tours they offered from the hostel. I was interested in seeing a tour of the Cu Chi war tunnels. This is where the Vietnamese lived and hid while the Americans invaded. It was a large intricate 200km tunnel system. I signed up for the tour and sat down on a bench. I noticed another girl sitting down to tie her shoes so I struck up a conversation with her. Her name was Catherine Bautista and she lived in Singapore but was originally from the Philippines. We decided to walk together and found a nice and cheap street stall to each some tasty chicken and rice. After that we walked around the city and head to the large indoor market. It was closing time but Cat got some tea for her coworkers. After we grabbed a cab and went to a bar that was recommended by one of her friends to go to. We got to this building and then we realized it was a roof top bar in a fancy office type building. I was very underdressed in a dry fit t-shirt and hiking boots, but oh well, the show must go on. The prices at the bar/restaurant were ridiculously expensive but we decided the most economical thing to drink would be a tower of beer. So we gobbled one down and made friends with a couple next to us. They donated some beers to us, which was nice. Cat and I wanted to get our dance on so we walked around to the other side of the club where there was an outdoor area. We took some pics, danced our legs off, and decided to head back to the hostel. When we got to our street, Cat really wanted some bbq. She said that’s what she craves when she’s tipsy so off we went searching. The first place was a real rip off in price. I’m assuming they see tourists and jack up the price sometimes. We went to another place and had some skewers of various meats and seafood.

The following afternoon, I decided to go to visit the War Remnants museum but when the cab driver dropped me off, we noticed it was closed during the hours of 12-1:30pm. I was irritated since I had asked the hostel staff about it and told them I was heading there now but they gave me no warning of it’s closure. I decided to walk around and explore. I was irritated by the amount of people who were asking me if I wanted a cab, or if they could shine my shoes, or sell me things. I just wanted some peace and quiet. I ran into some girls from Australia who had a spare city walking tour map to give me so I went and visited the main sites of the city which included the cathedral and post office. I was meeting Cat on the other side of town for a late lunch at a street stall called the, “Lunch Lady.” She was feature on Anthony Bourdain’s show and has become quite popular. She has a different soup featured everyday and brings out whatever she has made. We enjoyed some spring rolls and Pho noodle soup with seafood and pork balls. She also charges tourists 4 times the amount compared to locals and we definitely should have asked for the price before she gave it to us. Oh well, another lesson learned. After lunch, we took a cab to a Japanese pagoda that Cat wanted to look at. Then we head to the War Remnants Museum. Wow, what a great place to visit. I highly recommend it to anyone going to HCMC. In the museum is detailed 3 level history of the war, pictures of what happened to people, and an entire section about Agent Orange. Agent Orange was a substance that the Americans would spray onto the lands of Vietnam via airplane. Every thing in site would become contaminated and soon the babies who were born to the Vietnamese people would be severely mutated. The pictures of the affected children are heart breaking and devastating. We left the museum a lot more educated on the war then when we had entered and I was happy to be a bit more informed on the subject. That night we went to a famous water puppet show that playing at a local theatre. This was an ancient art form that was used to entertain royalty in the past. The show was delightful and only in the Vietnamese language. The puppets were elaborate and the puppeteers were masterful in their art. There was live singers playing instruments and narrating the storyline. At the end a dragon even came out of the water breathing fire, it was really something to see. After the show, Cat knew of a place where we could get a bite to eat. Another famous bun mi place called Huynh Hoa which had cheap and excellent Bun Mi sandwiches. We ate them while visiting another local street stall and drinking some Saigon beer.

In the morning Cat and I were both on the tour of the Cu Chi war tunnels. It was a 2.5 hour bus ride there and I met a lovely family of 5 from the U.S. I sat next to their daughter who told me how she was adopted from Africa when she was young. It was a great story and reminded me of how one day I’d like to adopt children. We all got off the bus and our guide began the tour. The learned that since so much agent orange had been dropped in the area, the ground is now hard and the soil doesn’t return back to normal. We got to see the traps that the Vietnamese made in the grounds to kill American soldiers and then learned about the tactics they used to avoid capture inside the tunnels. It started to pour really badly and the rains were flooding the pathways everywhere. Our group had to run for shelter near the gun range. I would have liked to fire a gun since I’ve never done it before but the gun range was closed because of all the rain. We hung out until the rains cleared up a little bit and then finished up the rest of the tour. We head back into the city and that evening we head back to our chicken and rice place for dinner, grabbed some local beers, and got much-needed pedicures.

Dalat

In the morning I decided to take the bus to Dalat. A small town in the mountains where I heard I could stay with a Vietnamese family in a homestay while exploring the area. I met a girl named Melanie from Montreal at breakfast. She didn’t have any plans today so we decided to go and visit the “Crazy House”. When we were ready to leave she said that she had made a mistake and promised her friend Olivier that she would go with him. Since he was riding a motorbike, she would go with him on it. I said no problem and I would walk and meet her at the house. I arrived at the crazy house not knowing much about it but I was in awe. The house was built by an architect who is a daughter of a former communist leader. She began constructing the house in 1990 and while I was there the project was still not completed. It is estimated to complete in 2020. I can only describe that the house looks like something out of a Tim Burton film. The rooms were all curved with winding staircases. The house has a lot of nature elements like trees, animals, and out of this world patterns. I thought the house was beautiful and spent a few hours just touring around trying to get lost in the maze of design. At the house I did run into Olivier and Melanie. Melanie was surprised that I had made it to the house so quickly. I told them I’d meet up with them back at the hostel and walked towards the famous cathedral in the city. The gates of the cathedral were closed so I walked back towards the hostel and asked the owner where there was a cheap place to eat. He told me a location and since I couldn’t find it as I walked, I stopped into a popular café instead. I ordered an amazing pho soup and lovely lemon honey tea. At night we had family style dinner back at the homestay for only $3 and everyone at the homestay joined. It was amazing and delicious. It probably was the cause of a few pound weight gain ha ha. Olivier, Melanie, and a few of us went off searching for a club to dance at. We ended up at local bar and it was pretty high end. We went and had 1 drink that that was included in the price of our admission and then after a couple of hours we decided to head back. I had originally messed up my booking at the hostel and they didn’t have room for me. The owner was so nice he negotiated a cheap rate for me at a hotel nearby so for one night I slept there. The problem with the Dalat is that at night all the store fronts/hotel fronts have a garage door that locks. Melanie was so nice to walk back with me cause I couldn’t recognize the hotel front now that there was a gate over it. I finally found the hotel and started banging on the metal garage door for a few minutes. Finally the door opened automatically. I was surprised because it was only 11:30pm, not too late. The owner had hit the open button but looked looked a bit irritated. Oh well, no rules for coming back to the hotel at that hour.

The next morning I had booked myself in for a tour of Dalat. Some people from the hostel came along as well. We went to Dalat’s greenhouses which produced gerberasand many other flowers. Dalat is the highest producers for flowers in Vietnam. After we went to visit a local village and learn about coffee beans. We went to a weasel coffee farm after. Apparently weasel coffee is one of the most expensive coffees in the world selling for $35 for a cup in Europe. The weasel eats the coffee bean and as it digests the bean, the enzymes enhance the flavor of the bean. Workers then sort through the weasle’s poo, clean the beans, process them, and sell them to customers. I split a cup between me and another girl for around $3. To me, it wasn’t a good cup of coffee but then again I’m not a regular coffee drinker so I wouldn’t know much about good tasting coffee. After we visiting a silkworm factory. We got to see the silkworm cocoons and how they spin them into thread. It’s quite the process and it explains why silk is so expensive. Then we went to visit Elephant falls in the area. There was a lot of rain during this time so the waterfall was in full effect. We went to the bottom of the falls but it was far to dangerous to walk because there were no safety rails and it was very slippery. We went to a Buddhist temple after and saw the big happy Buddha. I really liked the dragons outside of the temple, they were very intricate in detail. We went to a cricket and wine farm after and saw how they harvest crickets and make rice wine. I had the crickets before in Thailand so I knew what they would taste like but some people in our group were scared to try. The rice wine was pretty cheap and strong so I could see how it was a regularly consumed drink amongst village men. Our final stop was the old train station where we took a few pics. Another girl and I walked around the city for a bit before returning back to the homestay and having family dinner. At dinner we discovered it was Claire’s birthday, a lovely girl who I became friends with from the U.S. I also met Morgan from New Zealand who was super friendly too. I met Vladimir who was so nice and gave me the House of Cards series and countless other shows/movies that I can take with me while travelling. Cindy, Tiffany, and Blake were friends from the U.S. who were travelling together stayed at the hostel too. Daniel from the UK told me all about his cannoning experience in Dalat and that’s when I realized, I really didn’t want to go cannoning. Pretty much everyone in the homestay hostel went cannoning which is repelling down waterfalls on cables with guides. I realized that I don’t enjoy situations where my adrenaline is pumping, I’m panicking, and wishing I didn’t choose to do this activity. That’s when I realized, if I don’t feel comfortable doing something, then don’t do it. Just cause everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean you have to. Big lesson I learned during my trip and I’m happy to admit when I don’t want to do something cause I don’t feel comfortable. The next day Claire, Morgan, and I headed to the next city called Hoi An.

Hoi An

We arrived in Hoi An and stayed in a guesthouse/hostel. I didn’t really like the set up there because there wasn’t much of a common space and no indoor area to socialize. Morgan was staying at an Irish hostel which seemed like a lot more fun so the next day Claire and I transferred over there. We all went and got clothing made since Hoi An is known for getting clothes tailored and customized for cheap. I had a dress on me that I wanted a copy of in a different print. They did it for me in two days and it was a perfect replica in a new fabric. I also got a few tops made and some sandals. Yes, they even make shoes! We weren’t so impressed with the shoe quality since they make them so fast but I would highly recommend getting a suit or something else made. I even got my backpack sewed up there which had ripped in Laos. We went to the beach one day which was really pretty. We walked around the city, which was beautiful with bright yellow/mustard painted buildings. After hanging around in Hoi An for a few days we head to Phong Nha.

Phong Nha

I was so excited to be going to Phong Nha. It was the only reason why I really wanted to come to Vietnam. To see the caves. They have the biggest cave systems in the world. One cave even costs $3000 to get into and has about a 2-3 year wait list. We stayed at Easy Tiger hostel which was a massive hostel. They organized cave tours daily. I went to check out the cave talk but realized I missed it by half an hour. There I ran into Abbey who we met in Hoi An briefly. Abbey is a lovely girl from the UK and she spends a lot of time volunteering in Fiji. Abbey asked if I wanted to join her group on a cave tour and I said yes immediately. I went back to the room and asked Claire to join in too. About 15 of us head to the riverfront where we got onto boats operated by a family. They brought us into the first cave and rowed for about 1 mile inside. It was stunning, what a magnificent piece of Mother Nature. The boat docked on a beach inside the cave where we were free to roam around and see the formations up close. I loved it! After we finished with this cave, we did a small hike up the mountain to another wonderful cave. It was stunning, definitely one of my highlights of Vietnam. The next day I was lounging around for a bit and I met a new roommate named Kai. Kai was from the UK and was such a sweet guy. He had a motorbike and I told him about this “Chicken And Cold Beer” experience at this chicken farm that was far way which I wanted to do. He said that I could hop onto his bike and we could go together. It was a very long way but Kai was an amazing driver even through the rough terrain. I always get worried being on motorbikes. I’ve seen too many injuries. This chicken farm is where you can kill your own chicken. I thought it was important that if you’re going to eat an animal, you should know how to kill it to. We feasted on the chicken that was marinated in amazing spices, herbs, and we could dip it into a peanut sauce. It came with a side of rice and vegetables. We were in heaven, definitely good chicken. The next day Kai and I signed up for a tour in the Paradise and Dark caves. We first went to see a Buddhist temple and a site where an American dropped bomb had exploded. It created rocks to fall and trapped around 30 Vietnamese people to their death inside a cave. After we head to Paradise cave, which is one of the largest caves I’ve ever seen. Just massive. When we finished exploring that cave we had a family style lunch, then did a small zip line followed by a swim in the river. Then we entered the dark cave with headlamps and helmets. It was so slippery and we had to do it barefoot. We got to the natural mud baths inside the cave and played around the mud a little bit. It made us really buoyant so we could float around with ease. We got out of the cave and got into kayaks. We made our way to the water adventure park where you could climb on ropes, do a water treadmill, or do a gladiator type challenge over the water. The girls in the group were really encouraging me to do this race over the water where you grab onto the zip line and hang on and drop yourself into the river at the end. My hands were really went and slippery and I should have known better but I didn’t. I grabbed on and on the count of three jumped off the dock. I thought I was going down the line but instead I dropped instantly and had a very painful plunge into the water. It hurt. Thank god the water wasn’t too shallow where I dropped or I definitely would have had serious injuries. That’s the thing in all of these countries, there’s no real safety standard so it is easy to get injured. After that, I swam back to the shore and took it easy until it was time to go home. I left the next day to go to Hanoi, which was about 8 hours away.

Hanoi

A group of us got into Hanoi at around 4am. The worst time to get into any city because it’s dark and can be dangerous. Some of the people who I went on the Paradise cave tour were on the bus but weren’t too friendly at that hour. I met a girl named Katie who was at my hostel in Phong Nha and together we decided to go to the next hostel together. We hailed a cab down but I warned Katie that these cab drivers here couldn’t be trusted. She said it would be fine if they had a meter and then I told her my story when I first got into HCMC and how I got scammed. We got in and said we’d watch the meter. The driver put her luggage in the front seat and after a minute of going in the wrong direction and not listening to my instructions I asked Katie how much the cab fare was. She said she couldn’t see it. I got up and moved her luggage out of the way and guess what? He was scamming us. How did a few minute drive turn out to be $15 already? We told him to pull over and then told him to drive us to the police station. That changed his tune immediately and he said $10. Then we said no, he would drive us for $5 or take us to the police station. We ended up getting out and walking 1.5 hours to get the hostel. A lovely 4am in the morning stroll across town. I was happy Kate was with me because it was pretty dark before the sun came up. We got to our hostel and slept on the couches in the common area until we could check in at noon. Claire and Abbey were in town so that night I met up with them at Abbey’s hostel and we went to dinner.

Halong Bay

I asked Katie if she wanted to do a Halong Bay tour with me and she was down with it. The next day we were picked up by the tour company to go on a one-day tour. The funny thing is there are so many tour options that are very pricey and we knew better not to book with the hostel that was charging us $40 for a tour that next door cost $22. The Cast Away tour is the most popular and costs $300 for 2 nights on a boat and doesn’t include the booze. Everyone who’s in their early 20’s jumps on this tour and blows through their Vietnam budget quickly. I thought a one day tour of these beautiful floating islands would be good enough. We met Derrick from Singapore on the tour and did a few of the activities there with him. We came back from the tour and head out drinking with a few people from the hostel. I learned what helium balloons were thanks to Katie and had a great time with her and everyone else at the hostel. The next day I wanted to head to Sapa in North Vietnam so I got up early to take a bus.

Sapa

I only heard good things about how beautiful Sapa is so I really wanted to do some hiking there. I went by myself since Katie was heading to Thailand to meet up with friends. The bus ride was 5 hours and was so beautiful. The scenery was breath taking with these giant green hills. It looked like something out of Dr. Zeus’ book, “The Lorax.” I got there and I was surrounded by older ladies asking me if I wanted to stay in their homestay or they could arrange a hiking tour for me. I already picked out a guest house on hostel world so I declined. I looked for a cab asking them how much it would cost, making sure they weren’t scamming me and taking pictures of their i.d. badges. I mean, by this point, I was really fed up by getting scammed by cabbies. It took about 30 minutes to get the village and the owners were really friendly at first. Their homestay was absolutely disgusting so I didn’t understand why it had such a high review on hostel world. Their family dinners at night were great but their place was super dirty. I met a Norwegian girl Anita there and a couple from the U.S. Yev and Whitney. We went on a day hike the next day and our tour guide was lovely. She was a young 20-year-old girl who already had two kids. She got married at 14, was pregnant at 15, and gave birth at 16. We were shocked. She said it’s the most common thing in Vietnam and everyone is married and has children before 20. Her English was great and she said she learned from her guests. She was really smart and said she doesn’t want more kids cause she wants to have enough money to pay for her kids to go to high school. She even has an IUD put in to stop having more kids and says other Vietnamese women know about this but because it’s free but don’t want to use it. Her mother in law says she’s lazy because she doesn’t want more kids but I would beg to differ. She’s very smart and so quick to pick up things like the importance of education. The hike was beautiful and we really enjoyed it even though it was really hot. I gave the tour guide some tips on how she can make more money daily because she makes about $10 USD/day. We paid the hostel $15 each x 4= $60. The hostel/homestay makes most of the money which I didn’t really think was fair. The guie is the highest paid tour guide in the area because her English is so good but she could make even more money if she sold cookies or water to tourists. I told her how to do it so that she could make an extra few dollars a day and she was so thankful for the advice and said she would start doing it. She told us a huge problem they have in the area is their men drinking too much rice wine and being drunk. She showed us a plant that Vietnamese woman eat to commit suicide. It was a pretty sad situation.

After Sapa, Anita the girl from the Netherlands had convinced me to go even further north with her to Ha Giang which is close to the Chinese border. It was apparently the most beautiful place in Vietnam with stunning scenery. The problem was you had to ride a motorbike to see it all. Anita said she would maybe try to let me ride on the back of her bike or we could rent a motorbike taxi driver for $50 USD/day which she read in a blog post that was about a year old. I thought it was a pretty high price but if it was worth it, why not? Our homestay in Sapa had scammed us and got their friend to charge us 4x the amount to get the bus to this area. They obviously got a cut out of the deal. We were promised a sleeper bus and were crammed into a small passenger van. I took care of that issue on hostelworld and trip advisor reviews so their ratings plummeted. We got to Ha Giang and checked into the only hostel there. We went to see “Johnny” the famous motorcycle guy on the blog Anita read. We sat down with him for about an hour discussing my options but any plan we picked would cost me $120 USD/day. I thought it was ridiculous that the prices skyrocketed in one year. It was a waste of time and money to come all the way here and not do a tour. I would have gone with Anita on the back of her bike but it was too dangerous of a road in case we fell. When we got back, the owner of the hostel was pretty rude and tried to force me to learn how to ride a motorbike right then and there or rent her taxi for 5x the amount. If this was one of the most dangerous roads in Vietnam, why would I try to learn to ride a motorbike then? No way. Not going to happen. The next day I packed my stuff and head back to Hanoi.

Hanoi Again

The next week I spent my time hanging out in Hanoi in a new hostel compared to the last time I was there. I participated in a cooking class, which wasn’t as good as the one in Thailand. Our instructor had pretty much prepped everything for us and we didn’t even stir-fry our meal. We focused on making our food look more “pretty” then learning about how flavours went together. One night in my hostel, I went downstairs to the common room and met a group from India. They were having a bachelorette part for two girls and I got to crash the party as their photographer. We had so much fun that night and I was happy to have been included in their special day. The next day I was heading off to the Philippines and I was happy to meet my friend Hussam.