Vietnam: what things disappointed us vs. what made us want to come back for more!

Before going to Vietnam we kind of couldn’t wait for this experience counting the days until we got there. We heard a lot about Vietnamese cuisine considered to be one of the best in Asia, we heard about friendly and hospitable people we were going to meet there and we hoped that it would be less touristy than Thailand. We got a little disappointed by some situations and people and we thought that at some point Vietnam turned out to be jinxed in our case (especially we had the impression that we had bad luck with people that we were coming across during our journey). Later we changed our minds a little bit and found some pluses in regards to people, tourism and Vietnamese cuisine.

Starting with things that disappointed us during our stay in Vietnam, we should mention the following:

1. Dalat– a place that was recommended to us by many travelers and when we got there we were so disappointed that you cannot imagine… It was supposed to be a nice place near mountains and with a beautiful scenery with nice lakes where you could take a walk and rest. My God, it’s so touristy; a lot of Chinese people renting a swan boat fill up the lakes in which BTW you could see some dead fish floating on water. Moreover it’s the dirtiest city that we came across in Vietnam, you can see some beautiful flowers planted in parks and around the lakes but there is garbage everywhere, it was even difficult for us to find a clean place on the grass to sit on! Moreover, the nature which was to impress us let us down. When we went to Dalanta Falls we couldn’t make a picture of a sole waterfall – it was filled with tourists. We also went there to see the co called Waterfall 3 which was a popular place for ‘Canyoning Tour’. We were happy that we didn’t book the tour as they quoted 30-50USD for 3-4h tour which was not much than only going down a few steps hanging on a rope from a small waterfall and jumping to the water at the same spot.. The pictures in the travel agencies gave a different impression.. Besides, there was also a so called Easy Riders Tour including exploring the countryside, waterfalls and villages around Dalat which seemed very exciting for many tourists – but in our opinion paying 70USD per person per day for such a tour is simply too expensive for a backpacker’s wallet (but it doesn’t mean there weren’t volunteers to take this tour).

2. We had sometimes an impression that in Vietnam we met more tourists than in Thailand! It was really hard to find a quiet place and the Chinese were everywhere. It’s also the truth that we were visitting mostly touristy places but you cannot simply skip some of them.. you will not go somewhere where there is nothing to see because it doesn’t make sense.

3. We were ‘’lucky’’ to travel in sleeping buses with rude drivers. When travelling from Hanoi to Hoi An we were moved 3 times from one sleeping bus to the other on the way and we came across a very rude bus driver who was unwilling to make a stop for a toilet during 12-hour trip and literally the people were coming to his seat and demanded that he would finally stop somewhere. When he stopped at one place and there was a big queue to the toilet he got mad and started giving orders to us that we should piss anywhere and not only in the toilet (the funniest thing was that it wasn’t possible to do it outside as there was no green area at all, so nobody listened to him!) . Finally, when people were getting off the bus, their bags were literally thrown out of the bus! Later we heard from other people travelling on the same route that they also had some bad memories of it. In general if you book a bus at Sinh Tourist company you will probably be satisfied. Besides, the staff at their offices speaks really good English and they are helpful. You can also book a bus from them via the website: 12goasia.com. What’s more, when taking a public bus no. 152 twice to Ho Chi Minh City Airport(first when we went to Phu Quoc , and for the second time when we went to Australia) we were charged differently. For the first time they charged us 3.000dong only, but for the 2nd time they wanted us to pay 5.000dong per person + 5.000dong for the luggage (they claimed there was a fee for the luggage exceeding the weight of 10kg). It’s very little money, we know, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not right to modify prices each time you enter the same bus! We explained to them that it was not right what they were doing and avoided paying for the luggage.

4. When staying in Bai Chay in Four Seasons Backpackers Hostel (which was actually one of our best places where we stayed) we were approached on the first day by the hostel’s director who wanted to convince us to buy immediately Ha Long Bay 2day overnight cruise for around 100USD per person. He showed us a lot of catalogues with offers. We told him that we are backpackers and we cannot afford such an expensive tour, so he proposed the price 90USD and later lowered it to 85USD which was his last word. We repeated that we had to reconsider that and first needed to go to eat out. We reaffirmed him that we would come back in 1 hour with the answer. Can you imagine that the guy was following us? First he suggested the closest place that we should eat at and when we said that we didn’t like it and needed to look for something a bit further he got a bit nervous. He got on a motorbike and said ‘’see you’’. When we moved down the street we entered a few local bars to check what they have in their offers and upon going out of one of them we met the guy passing by close to us on his motorbike for the 2nd time. I got pissed and asked him why he was following us, and he answered that he was also looking for some place for him to eat something (sure…). Totally pissed off we went to 3 agencies to ask about the tour and it turned out that the same one was offered for 68-70USD. We went to eat out and came back to the hostel where the guy was waiting for us. We told him that we would not pay 85USD for this trip because it’s too expensive and we know that it can be arranged cheaper. Then he started telling us that many companies cheat on tourists who pay a lower price and get a different decrepit boat during the tour and are dissatisfied about the cruise. We told him that we saw the same offer for 65USD including the transport by a minivan to Hanoi. You could see that he wasn’t satisfied with our answer. We went back to our room and when we wanted to go out the guy was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs.. unbelievable… he said that he would sell us the tour for 65USD including the transport to Hanoi. Michal was fed up with the guy and he didn’t want to buy the tour from there as he thought the guy would revenge on us and would probably sell us a cruise on some damaged boat… But we finally agreed and luckily the cruise was a fantastic experience! But this guy was the weirdest person we have ever met.

5. People tend to be vengeful if you have a small argument with them and if you don’t want to do something they want from you. In general in Vietnam everywhere they ask you to leave them your passport which is quite inconvenient as you need it to book bus/train tickets or when you rent a motorbike or even a bicycle, so practically without a passport you are not able to do anything. I had an argument with an owner of a hostel and told him that everywhere during the last 2 weeks of travel in Vietnam people understood the fact that I needed my passport and they just took a photo of my document and gave it back to me. This time the owner didn’t agree and told me that I can go to a xerox company, pay there and bring him the photocopy of my passport because he is not going to do it himself. I asked him what if I left my passport and I needed it for motorbike rental. Suddenly he said that then I should come to him and he would give my passport back for the whole day – what an insane person! And we did so. Because of the fact that we were upset and discontented he didn’t even mention to us that there was free breakfast and free dinner on the first night, while he was inviting everyone for it – but we used that opportunity having this info passed on to us from other people. Besides, we weren’t allowed to pay by credit card and the guy was claiming that it’s because we payed less than 50USD for our stay. A few moments later we saw 2 girls paying with the credit card for the same amount of days spent in the hostel…

6. The people lack good manners. They don’r respect queues, it’s not Bangkok where you stand in a queue before you get on a subway train. Here you can see savage people pushing one another when getting on a bus or trying to get something first not looking at other people standing around, the same in the toilet or in any ticket office: you stand in a queue and you suddenly see someone trying to ‘’overtake’’ you – and it seems that these are not only Vietnamese people that behave like that, the Chinese nation seems to be even worse, and there are a lot of Chinese tourists coming to Vietnam.

7. What was a bit shocking for us we saw that Vietnamese children are allowed by their parents to pee in the street and when sitting with the whole family eating out, the whole family is gathered sititng on chairs in the city square and there is a child just making a pee in front of them in the street where other people are passing by; in Dalanta Falls in the toilet one child instead of being taken to the toilet cabin was allowed by her parent to pee close to the wash basin on the ground…! In Ho Chi Minh City some mother was literally holding her child’s willy (who was about 7-8 years old) and making him pee in the street – we were passing by and couldn’t believe it!

8. People are cheating on tourists constantly with the prices they mention, when selling their products or tours especially – they will not tell you directly the price, there is a pause in the speech and you can see them overlooking you to estimate the price you can pay. Moreover, we had a really unpleasant situation with one of the walking traders who approached us in Ho Chi Minh City near the Main Market. We haggled the price for a lighter that we needed, and we demanded a far too low price for it. The woman wanted to charge us 80.000 dong, but we said we wouldn’t buy it for more than 20.000 dong. She was shocked but couldn’t say ‘no’ because she wanted to sell something. When we were taking the money from the wallet she swapped quickly the lighters and wanted to give us the used one that she was utilising for demonstration and swiftly walked away. When we realized what she did we stopped her and demanded a new lighter. She got terribly pissed off that we found out what she had done.

9. If you travel to Vietnam during the Tet holidays be prepared for the prices being doubled or even trippled and this doesn’t only concern the buses, motorbike rental or tours but even when you want to buy some food in the market! What’s the most irritating the Vietnamese people are making up the prices of fruit and vegetables. When you ask them why it’s so expensive, they will reply to you: ‘’It’s New Year!’’. You can learn different prices for the transport to Vietnam’s big cities depending on a travel agency that’s why from our experience it’s better to buy tickets online on 12goeasia.com. The prices are fair there and you will not end up wondering if someone scammed on you and trippled the price. As for the food, unfortunately, you need to take a walk to a few places and check the prices, you can pay for a kilo of strawberries about 200.000 dong if you agree but we paid 50.000 dong (2,25USD) as we spent some time on checking some other market stalls. It’s also recommendable to check the availability and prices of hostels, homestays and guesthouses well in advance as the most popular places are full and don’t be surprised if you end up without the accommodation. Finally, you can pay 300.000dong for motorbike rental in Dalat during this time instead of the regular 70-80.000dong, or not even manage to rent them as in many places they run out of them very quickly, there are so many people willing to rent them and explore the area themselves.

 

10. Regarding the food, we were expecting a big ‘wow’, something unique, different… We cannot say we didn’t like the food because it wouldn’t be true. The food is tasty but the most unsual things that we wanted to try like meat of rat (now you’re gonna think that there’s something wrong with us :P) were simply not available. What’s more, in some places (especially where you got a menu card written only in Vietnamese) if you didn’t see what exactly you would get on a plate they cheated on you, and e.g. in Ho Chi Minh one guy proposed to us a hot pot for 100.000dong (for 2 people, so quite cheap) and pointed to pictures in the menu that we would get some meat and seafood there as well . Instead what we got was a pot with a soup and some awful intestines floating on its surface. When we said that it was not what we had ordered, they changed the pot and put some even more awful things there. We said that we wouldn’t eat it and would pay only for the beer. Later when I realized what some words in Vietnamese mean it turned out that they gave us a cheaper beer but charged us for the one which was more expensive! Besides, in many places in Ho Chi Minh City waiters in bars and restaurants were vanishing from our sight when they saw we were interested in sitting and ordering something there. We can understand that the language is a barier but you cannot treat your customers like that. Some people were just saying ‘no, no’ and didn’t want to serve us. Can you believe that? In the jinxed Dalat we found a place with nice Japanese food (the prices there were amazingly cheap and the place was really crowded because of that) but it was only the food that was nice.. It was difficult for us to find a place that wasn’t dirty, serviettes were scattered everywhere on the floor, and not only them: the food, some other rubbish – it’s really disgusting how people behave and don’t respect any place they find themselves in. What’s more, although a few tables were free they were not cleaned and it’s like that almost everywhere, we must say. They clean only when they see some new customer coming to the table but even with this they actually have a problem, we actually moved someone’s plates to another table nearby because we were fed up with waiting so long for the only waitress that was there in the local bar.

So, as you can see, our experince on travelling in Vietnam was a little bit spoilt by the above points. Not sure if we weren’t simply lucky enough in those particular moments or is it something every person travelling there experiences? Probably not, we met some foreign people who were overjoyed and said that the Vietnamese people are extremely friendly and hospitable. E.g. one guy was invited for a free lunch by a family that he met in a park in Dalat.

We have some good memories as well, we can’t deny it. What enchanted and made our stay in Vietnam so special?

1. We were extremely satisfied with our stay at a homestay in Hoi An where we spent the first days of the Lunar New Year/Tet holidays. The family was very friendly and warm and shared with us the food they prepared for this occasion. Besides, we must admit that breakfasts there were really nice and of various kind – including traditional Vietnamese dishes (and not only Western continental breakfast which was everywhere and we were fed up with that).

2. The people we met when eating at local food bars seemed very friendly, wanted to chat with us and looked with curiosity at how we were eating their meals using chopsticks and if we enjoyed the Vietnamese food 😉

3. One woman in a shop in Dalat opened a bottle of wine for us unpacking the corkscrew that she had for sale and giving us some ice to a plastic cup not making us to pay for this – that was quite nice of her 🙂 A small thing, but it was really pleasant.

4. A huge motivation for us was also the support of local people passing us by on motorbikes and in cars screaming: ‘’You’re gonna make it! Amazing!’’ when we were going up a steep 6km road on bikes in Dalat. The road was so steep that in some points we had to get off the bikes and walk. Nobody was going that way on bikes and everybody was extremely shocked and impressed when seeing us there like that 🙂

5. When staying in An Thoi on Phu Quoc island we met some really nice and sociable people. We were eating fresh spring rolls and drinking beer with some local family spending a day in Cua Can beach. They were also singing karaoke 🙂 Moreover, when eating some nice grilled food in An Thoi (an enormous fish for 100.000dong-5USD with fresh springrolls you were preparing yourself (the Vietnamese eat them like that forming the rolls from the vegetables and rice noodles and immersing them in a soya sauce)) the host invited us /or rather Michał for the local vodka (only men drink vodka there) and was taking pictures with us 🙂

6. In An Thoi you could buy fresh seafood in the market and bring it to the hotel (e.g. Lieng Hotel) and the host was cooking it for you for 50.000 dong (2,25USD)! It was a very nice solution to some people.

7. We were totally enchanted by the city of Hoi An with the French colonial style, Chinese temples and myriads of lampions illuminating in the streets. Besides, the people there were really friendly too and in some small shops you could see that they were not making up the prices, they were fair in charging you and the price label was on almost all the goods.

8. We liked the fact that depending on Vietnam’s region the food varied and you could try something a bit different. In colder Sapa you could drink mulled wine for 50.000dong/4,50USD and eat small birds, chicken and pork skeweres with sweet potatoes or sticky rice for 10-20.000dong each prepared on barbecue, in Dalat similar street food was available but you could also have a cup of soya milk for 10.000dong/0,45USD or buy a bottle of Vietnamese wine named ‘Dalat’ for 75.000dong/3USD.

In Hoi An you could try Cau Lau (pasta with pork and herbs served with the stock/demi-glace sauce) for 35.000-50.000dong/around 2USD, fried wanton dumplings with duck, chicken or pork meat for 40.000dong/below 2USD, wanton soup served sometime with rice noodles, fried baguette a la francaise (with prawn pate), a deep-fried pancake with prawns and vegetables for 10-20.000dong/below 2USD and lots of sweet rolls.

Moreover, there is a fantastic place close to the Japanese bridge which is run by a Pole. Yellow Bird Food & Drinks serves Polish and Vietamese food. Out of Polish dishes you can try: ‘kaszanka’/black pudding, pierogi/dumplings, zapiekankas/casseroles, cottage cheese, Polish smoked ham and sausages, etc.

In Ho Chi Minh City you could finally encounter some cheese and mushrooms incorporated to many dishes (e.g. you could eat oysters in melted cheese) and various types of dumplings stuffed with different ingredients: e.g. scallops, meat, prawns and more ( we came across them in the vicinity of the Main Market in one Chinese restaurant – unfortunately we don’t remember the name of it).

 

In An Thoi on Phu Quoc Island you could find local bars only, no restaurants and that was what made this place more appealing to us, more local and hence more interesting (as opposed to Duong Dong which was touristy and there was nothing special in there) 😉 There wasn’t much to choose from there but the limited food that was available there was simply delicious and so extremely cheap!: there was one place near the church with excellent noodle soups for 40,000-50.000dong/2USD, one local bar in the center of the town served just a crispy chicken leg with broken rice and vegetables for 25.000dong/1USD and there was one guy standing in the street when entering the town who had a stall with enormous fish prepared on barbecue served with fresh spring rolls (we mentioned them before in this post) for 100.000dong/4,50USD. Yummy! Moreover, Phu Quoc has its own brewery and produces quite good beer, there is a bar with the local draught beer in An Thoi where you can buy 3litres of beer for 100.000dong.

Generally everywhere you could order so called hot pots for about 160-200.000dong which were supposed to be for 2 people. In Hanoi city center we paid 199.000dong /9USD for the same with 2 bottles of beer for free:

9.We must admit that we were really lucky when visiting Ho Chi Minh City’s highest building, Bitexco Financial Tower. Normally you have to pay 200.000dong/9USD for the ticket to get to the 49th floor to see the view of the whole city from there or go to a skybar in the evening and buy some drink. We went there at 9 o’clock so the sky bar was closed and we wanted to pay for the entrance with VISA card but it turned out that the card terminal wasn’t working properly and we didn’t have enough cash + that was our last day in Vietnam so we didn’t want to change money. They let us in and told us that we would pay after the visit but when we came back thete they weren’t able to fix the devise and we didn’t have time to wait for the person who was to come to repair it, so in fact they let us visit the building for free! 🙂

10.Vietnam has so many interesting places to see and although there are so many tourists in its every nook and cranny, if you only want to find a quiet place for yourself and you really look for it, you will find it. Examples: an idyllic Khem Beach or Cua Can Beach in Phu Quoc (as opposed to Sao Beach or Long Beach), rural areas around Hoi An, northern part of the country with marvellous mountainous views.

11.Vietnam suffered a lot during the Vietnam war and it has a lot of historical and cultural sights available to the public which are organized in a riveting way and give you food for thought when you visit them: e.g. Coconut Tree Prison in Phu Quoc (known from atrocities executed on Vietnamese prisoners), Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi (named ‘Hanoi Hilton’), War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (showing the Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective), Women’s Museum in Hanoi and many more.

It seems every country has its pros and cons. In Vietnam we had sometimes the impression that it is the most touristy place in Asia. Maybe we felt like that because of Tet Holidays, we don’t know…but we weren’t there only during that time. It would be good if the people there changed a little bit their attitude towards tourists regarding especially overrating everything. That would really make a difference! We guess it would be difficult to teach them good manners but anyway, the Chinese are also there on our dark list (we’re wondering how we’re going to survive in China for one month in May hehe!).. Hope that in the future we will come back to Vietnam to check if any progress has been made hehe! And for sure we would love to discover some other places that we haven’t visited (e.g. Son Doong Cave, the biggest cave in the world – it was so costy to get there and visit it during Tet holidays…) and come back to Phu Quoc, a paradise on Earth with its pristine beaches and sociable local people 😉 See you again, Vietnam!