Vietnam tips & what to do in Vietnam

Thomas Frenkiel
Jul 27, 2017 · 11 min read

What you’ll read here is tips from my own experience backpacking through Vietnam. My friend and I went from North Vietnam to South Vietnam in 17 days, starting in February 2017. Besides tips on what to do, you will also read about what not to do or to avoid. Below this travel report, you can find some more general tips and information on how to prepare for your trip to Vietnam.

The Temple of Literature, Hanoi

Hanoi

As one of the biggest cities in Vietnam, a lot of airlines offer flights to Hanoi. This city in the North of Vietnam offers a lot of activities both in and around town. Expect very busy traffic, hawkers selling all kinds of stuff and beautiful Asian buildings.

Vietnam Womens Museum

Very nice museum about the role of women in Vietnam’s culture. It was the only museum we visited while in Hanoi, and we really liked it.

Literature temple

This is a very beautiful old temple in Vietnam. It is over 1000 years old and is dedicated to wisdom. If you are into Asian architecture, make sure to visit this place when you are in Hanoi.

Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh

One of the strangest experiences I has when I was in Vietnam, was when visiting this place. It’s basically a big park where the body of Ho Chi Minh lays in a mausoleum. There are some rules that become stricter as you get closer to the mausoleum itself, like you are not allowed to take photo’s.

Evening market

Buy cheap stuff, like Nike shoes and The Northface backpacks, at the evening market in Hanoi.

Central lake by night

Central lake in Hanoi

In the middle of Hanoi is a small but beautiful lake with an island in it. On the island is a temple. And if you visit Hanoi during the weekend, there’s a lot of people on the streets around the lake playing all kind of games, making music, and having fun in general. Very nice atmosphere.

Trip to SaPa (and trek with Shosho)

From Hanoi you can travel further north to SaPa. This village near the border with China is famous for the many rice fields and the different local tribes/communities that live there, like the Black Hmong tribe. A real cool thing to do there is do a hike with the local guide Shosho. She is a young woman who lives in a tribe near Sa Pa. She will show you around the nature and tell you about her culture. It was very cool to hang out with her and the group (we didn’t book a private tour, so other people were in our group as well). Make sure to contact her beforehand at: https://www.facebook.com/shoshosapa/.

Ha Long Bay by night

Trip to HaLong Bay

From your hotel in Hanoi, book a cruise in HaLong Bay. This is one of the most beautiful places you’ll visit when you travel Vietnam. Ha Long Bay is also one of the ‘New Wonders of Nature’, so you really have something to tell your friends when you are there. From Hanoi there are 1 day, 2 days and 1 night and 3 days + 2 nights trips. We chose for 2days/1night and it was perfect.

Most standard tours go from Ha Long Bay back to Hanoi, but if you want you can ask the travel agency to bring you to the south after the cruise.

Halong Bay

Phong Nha (Ke Bang National park)

After the busy city life of Hanoi, I suggest you go to Phong Nha. This is a very beautiful place in the middle of the jungle. We stayed in Gecko Hostel, a nice place with cheap beds. When you are in Phong Nha, you can take a guided tour or just rent scooters. Of course, with a scooter it’s much easier to explore the region around town yourself. We rented scooters and went to the following places:

Bamboo Café

When you are in Bamboo Café, ask them for a map of the region. They will show you a map and help you getting around. Just tell them you wan to go to the Paradise Cave and the Botanical Garden. The place also has nice food!

Watchtower @ Dark Cave

If you take the route to the Paradise Cave, you will pass a watchtower. The watchtower is actually the starting point of the zipline to the dark cave, at the other side of the water. We just climbed on the watchtower and enjoyed the view, then continued our trip to the Paradise Cave. If you do want to do a guided tour, you can take the zipline across the river to the Dark Cave and do various activities there.

On the road nearby Phong Nha

Paradise cave

The Paradise Cave is located in the National Park near Phong Nha. You must pay access to enter the National Park. Then it is a walk of about 20 minutes to the cave itself. You have to leave your scooter in the parking lot. The cave itself is very, very big. You see many beautiful natural shapes in the stalactites and stalacmites. Nice at this cave is that it is still shaping: In different places, water drips down, creating new shapes.

Botanical Garden

The last nice thing to see on here is the Botanical Gardens. Don’t expect too much fancy stuff here, it’s basically just walking in nature. There’s a waterfall which is nice and you can have (cheap) food there.

If you go from Phong Nha village to the different places mentioned here, and then back to Phong Nha, this is the route you will take.

Hoi An

After our quick visit to Phong Nha (we stayed there only 1 day), we traveled to Hoi An. This is surely one of the most beautiful places I ever visited in my life. It’s a quite place, since cars are not allowed in a lot of the central streets. Also, there’s a river in the middle of the town, the beach is nearby and there are lots of bars in the city. I think Hoi An is a ‘must see’ if you are traveling in Vietnam and you can definitly spend multiple days here.

Lantarns

But what makes it such a beautiful and special place? The answer to that question are the lantarns. The whole town if filled with beautifully colored lantarns, which gives the place a unique feel. The city centre is quiet small, so you can do everything by foot. When you walk around, you will experience how beautiful it is yourself, especially at night.

Sunset in Hoi An

Beach

As said, there is a nice beach not too far away from the touristic city centre. We hired bicycles to get from our hotel to the beach, which was a 15 minute bike-ride or so. Don’t expect too much of the beach: it’s nice, but not as nice as some of the beaches in The Philipines or Mexico.

Food and nightlife

Hoi An is a very touristic destination. This means that there’s lots of souvenir shops and lots of tourists, but also that there are quite some bars around. If you like to go out, Hoi An is the right place to do it. Also important: off all places we went to during our trip, the Hoi An cuisine was the one I most enjoyed.

Mui ne

As Phong Nha was quiet after visiting Hanoi, Mui Ne was our quiet getaway after visiting Hoi An. Mui Ne is a small beachtown. There’s not too much to do, but the nice hotels/resorts plus the warm weather make it a great destination anyway. (We stayed in Mui Ne Hills Villa Hotel, which was a great hotel with amazing facilities.)

Sand dunes

There are 2 ‘sand dunes’ places to visit in Mui Ne: Red Sand Dunes and White Sand Dunes. We only went to the Red Sand Dunes and watched sunset there. It’s a beautiful place and if you are in Mui Ne, I definitaly recommend renting a scooter and going there. The White Sand Dunes should be beautiful too, but are a bit further out of town.

Mui Ne ocean view

Fairy Stream

It’s called ‘fairy stream’, but I must say that this place wasn’t fairytale-like. It’s smelled bad and you had to wade through this very small river, on the way seeing some beautifull nature, but nothing too spectacular. If you don’t have much time, I would suggest skipping this one. There’s a very, very nice cafe with a big garden nearby the fairy stream do, so if you go, make sure you find it.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Previously called Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city of Vietnam. Over 8 million people live here. Due to its location in the south of the country, it can be very hot in HCMC. It’s also one of the more ‘Westernized’ cities of Vietnam, with a lot of high-rise buildings, expensive bars and fancy shops.

Mekong Delta

I think that a trip to the Mekong Delta is one of the most popular tourist attractions in HCMC. We did a one day tour, but you can also book a multiple day tour and sleep in the Mekong (either a so called ‘homestay’ or in a hotel). (I am not sure if you can go to the Mekong without a guide.) So what is the Mekong Delta? It basically is a very large river (the Mekong) and a lot of smaller rivers around the Mekong, plus some villages around these rivers. If you take a tour, you’ll experience the nature, listen to traditional Vietnamese music, and learn how the locals make candy from rice. We had fun this day, but I also believe 1 day is enough here, so I wouldn’t recommend booking the multiple-day tour.

Nature in the Mekong Delta

Rooftop bars and nightlife

Ho Chi Minh City is known for it’s many rooftop bars. Just Google ‘best rooftop bars in HCMC’ and visit a couple that are nearby. Another thing you can do is go out in HCMC. We went to Cafe La Fenetre Soleil (a place with only tourists and expats), Chu bar (a very nice place with live music and locals), and Blanchy’s Tash (a small club with a DJ playing bad house music).

Shopping

HCMC is a perfect place to buy souvenirs for your friends and family, if you didn’t do it already before coming here. For instance the large indoor ‘Ben Than Market’ offers lots of different things. Other nice shops we went to were L’Usine Le Loi, Saigon Kitch, M2C café, Gingko Concept Store and the super nice Art Book.

Bin Tay Market (Chinatown)

We walked very far to get to this part of the town, but in the end we were not too impressed. It’s a super busy part of town. Locals are selling everything you can imagine, but for us it wasn’t too interisting.

War remnants museum

One of the last things we did during our stay in Vietnam, was visiting this museum. It’s a nice museum about the war between the South (supported by the USA) and the North (supported by communist countries such as the Sovjet Union). Most remarkable about this museum were the photos of the war.

9 Vietnam travel tips

Make sure to read these travel tips before you go and travel Vietnam!

  1. Backpacker? You’ll need a backpack
    Before you leave, buy a good backpack. It should fit everything you need, but if the backpack is too big, it will be hard to carry it around with you. Choose wisely. Another tip on this topic is to keep some space in the backpack when you go, so you can buy nice things along the way and add them.
  2. Get to know the Vietnamese money
    Vietnamese money (Vietnamese ‘Dong’) isn’t worth much. I once bought sunscreen for 170.000 Dong. A smart thing to do before you leave, is make a cheatsheet that showns the value of 10.000 Dong (€ 0,73), 50.000 Dong (€ 1,88) and so on, untill a million Dong (around € 37,70). If you do this and keep it in your wallet, it will be an easy reference for when you are haggling for something.
  3. Get your visum
    Make sure you get your Visum sorted out before going to Vietnam. The easiest thing to do is Google for a ‘Visum on arrival’. For this you will need a ‘Visa approval letter’, which is basically a letter from the ambassy stating that you may enter the country. Then keep around 25 dollars with you, so you can pay for the visum itself upon entering the country. There are visa for 30 days, and for 90 days.
  4. Meet the locals
    Vietnamese people are super friendly. If you treat the local Vietnamese people you will meet during your trip with respect, they will be very friendly back to you.
  5. Use hotel apps to save on hotels
    A good tip to save some money: install Hotel apps, like booking.com, Trivago and Hotel.com, but also Tripadvisor, can give you great last-minute deals. Just check the apps a day before you go, and check out the different options you have. With multiple different hotel apps, you are sure to get a great deal.
  6. Getting around the country
    Most tourists use night busses to travel from destination to destination in Vietnam. These night busses are also called sleeper busses and actually have little beds in them. Although not too comfortable, it’s a cheap and relatively fast way to travel. Another advantage is that when you travel at night, you’ll have more time for fun things during the day. Other means of traveling are trains (more expensive than the night bus) and renting a motorcycle (if you have an Internationals Driving Permit and a local travel insurance). Pro tip for when traveling with the sleeper busses: you can get great sleeping medicine in all pharmacies throughout Vietnam.
  7. Visit during the right time of the year
    Because Vietnam is so large, the weather can differ greatly between Hanoi in the North, and HCMC in the South. In Hanoi & the north, May to October is hot and humid with a lot of rain; November to April is cooler and dry. In the far north, December, January and February can be particularly cold. Central Vietnam experiences hot, dry weather between January & August when temperatures can hit the mid-30°C’s; whilst high levels of rainfall can occur in September, October & November. Southern Vietnam is generally dry and hot from November to April, and warm and wet between May & October, with the highest rainfall in June, July & August. So to answer the question, parhaps March would be the ideal time to visit the country.
  8. Travel from North to South
    Because the South of Vietnam has a warmer climate than the North, I would recommend going from North to South. That way, the weather only gets better during your trip. Another reason is that the middle and South have more nice beaches, whereas the North has more adventure, culture and other activities. So when you start in the North by doing a lot of activities, you can relax more when you go South.
  9. Eat the street food
    Don’t be afraid for the street food. If locals are eating it, you can probably eat it too. And be aware that the food in Hanoi really is different from the food in Hoi An or Saigon. Vietnam is a very large country with cultural differences between it’s different regions.

That’s it! I hope you’ll have an amazing time when in Vietnam.

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