Oh Vietnam. What an interesting and magical place. It's a country where the street eats are better than the restaurant eats. Your meals are eaten on stools that look like they were made for toddlers sitting knee to knee with the person next to you. People work harder than anyone else I've ever met and family is regarded above all else. Markets are filled with fresh vegetables and non-refrigerated meat swarmed with flies. Soup is served for breakfast and honestly I never want it any other way. Your life flashes before your eyes every time you cross the street and you quickly understand that sidewalks are for any moving vehicle not just pedestrian traffic. It's a chaotic, hectic, beautiful and delicious country. And it's absolutely worth spending time here to explore.
I’ll be honest, we had a definite love / hate relationship with Vietnam, especially at first. On one hand, we had one of the best experiences of our entire trip driving multiple days around Northern Vietnam on the Ha Giang loop. And the food…oh the food. I could write poetry about it, it’s so delicious. On the other hand, it’s the only country that I felt, multiple times, that I wanted to throw in the towel and just head home on this trip.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why but generally I think it boils down to a persistent feeling that we were unwelcome in Vietnam. It was the first country (in the 11 we had visited so far) that we felt that people were actively trying to rip us off. We were handed the wrong change or given prices that were much higher just because they could. People are definitely not “warm” and will push, shove and / or cut you in line just because they can. No one is trying to help you if you look lost or confused and people showed outward frustration with a language barrier.
When trying to understand why this is, especially since we found the cultures in their neighboring countries to be very welcoming and helpful, we were forced to confront the fact that the Vietnam War (or American War as they call it) really was not that long ago. When we became much more educated on the War we could definitely understand why there would be a general distaste towards Americans, or really Westerners in general considering the French occupation prior to the War. But we also came to realize that it is just a culture of indifference. As our tour guide in Hoi An put it, after everything the country has been through, the Vietnamese people have learned to focus on themselves and their families and ignore what’s happening outside of that sphere. It’s not that they don’t like tourists, but there’s an indifference to if we were there or not.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to every Vietnamese person that we met. We had incredible experiences with extremely kind and welcoming Vietnamese people. We actually found the North to be more welcoming which is surprising given they were the Communist outpost during the War. And it’s not a reason to skip Vietnam. But it’s just something to keep in mind when visiting!
So now, on to the good! We spent just under 30 days in Vietnam and went South to North visiting many different areas and regions. Vietnam is such a diverse country with a ton to offer. It has beautiful landscapes and as I said delicious food, and I do think it should be on everyone’s bucket list. Below I will share our itinerary, some highlights and recommendations and what we would have done differently if we were to do it again!
Itinerary at a Glance
Ho Chi Minh (3 Days)
Da Lat (3 Days)
Hoi An (5 Days)
Ninh Binh (3 Days)
Ha Giang Loop (4 Days)
Hanoi (6 Days)
Ho Chi Minh (3 Days)
Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, as it was formally known, is the largest city in Vietnam with around 10 million residents. This city is vibrant, chaotic and steeped in history with excellent museums and even better street food. To be honest, we were skeptical about visiting Saigon and almost skipped it until a friend who studied abroad there said we had to at least stay a couple days. Our hesitancy came from what we read saying that it was way too hectic to even be enjoyable. But we are so glad our friend convinced us to add it to the itinerary.
Yes, it’s hectic. There are 10 million residents and over 8 million motorbikes registered here after all. But the chaos adds to the charm and gives the city such an incredible pulse making it feel impossibly alive. This city takes cafe culture to the next level with artful coffee served up at thousands of trendy cafes around town. Craft breweries are big on the scene making creative brews like passionfruit gose or hoppy IPA’s. And, while obviously one-sided, the museums chronicling events from the Vietnam (American) War were really well done and extremely informative. Overall, this is a great place to start any trip in Vietnam.
Where we stayed: Le Meridien Saigon - We were able to use points but either way this property is a great deal! Newly done with a lovely gym and pool, it’s a great place to stay in a very central location. I definitely recommend it!
Generally, you want to stay in District 1 especially on your first visit to Vietnam
Where we ate:
While you can find staple delicacies like Pho and Banh Mi in every part of Vietnam, each region has their own flare to the dishes. The South tends to like things bigger, bolder and spicier. If you’ve ever had Pho in the US, it’s likely most similar to the style in Southern Vietnam. Clear salty broth, lots of chicken or beef and served with hoisin and hot chili sauce. The Banh Mi’s tend to be overly stuffed with patê and pork while the Central and South are more focused on the perfect balance between ingredients and bread.
Secret Garden - mixed spring roll platter
L’Usine cafe - coconut water with chia seeds
Padma De Fluer - coffee shop with great juice florist
Banh Mi Huynh Hoa - insanely good Banh mi
Pizza 4 P’s - honestly some of the best pizza we’ve had. Period. And they’re all over Vietnam!
What we did:
As mentioned, Saigon is a great place to immerse yourself in the history of Vietnam especially surrounding the Vietnam (American) War. We also enjoyed a motorbike food tour and just exploring and eating our way thorugh the city!
Saigon After Dark Vespa Food Tour - this was a super fun way to do a food tour and experience Saigon’s night life while on the back of a vintage Vespa, thankfully driven by someone else! Super exhilerating and delicious!
Independence Palace
War Remnants Museum
Craft Breweries - Our favorite was Pasteur Street Brewing but this article has other great recommendations
Ben Thanh Market
What we do differently: We would honestly consider allocating more time to Saigon! We only had 3 days and we wished that we had more time to explore. It’s a big city with tons to explore and tons to eat!
Da Lat (3 Days)
Next up for us was Da Lat, what the locals call the “City of External Spring” because of its year round temperate climate. And after the clothes-drenching, 3 showers a day heat that we experienced in Saigon we were very happy to get some cooler weather. You can take a train here but it isn’t super convenient so we opted to take a 45-minute Vietnam Airlines flight that was only about $70 USD per ticket. As a side note, we found Vietnam Airlines to be really nice, efficient and very well priced so we opted to fly over train a couple times throughout Vietnam.
Da Lat is a very popular vacation spot for local Vietnamese people, especially wealthy Saigonese hoping to escape from the summer heat. We actually didn’t run into many other foreign tourists while we were there. The town is situated right next
to a gorgeous lake that we found perfect for leisurely walks in the morning. They have some local cuisine like banh can that you can only find here which are sweet cakes filled with savory fillings like beef and quail egg dipped into a savory sweet broth with green onions. They were delicious!
Where we stayed: This Airbnb was the perfect home base for seeing the city and having a space of our own. We especially loved the projector and the washer and dryer. We actually were here for the Super Bowl and managed to deep fry some wings and watch the game!
Where we ate:
Quan Pho Thung -Na - great pho
GÀ NƯỚNG CƠM LAM ĐÀ LẠT LỬA HỒNG - order the half chicken skin so delicious
420 Sunset Cocktail Bar - hilarious name but honestly really great cocktails and view
Banh Can Le - best place to try the famous banh can
Still Cafe - Japanese inspired cafe with delicious coffee, food stalls and cats running around (my favorite)
Here’s our host’s guidebook with a ton of local recommendations!
What we did: We were a bit lazy in Da Lat and didn’t do too much “touristy” stuff. We enjoyed walking around the lake every day and sitting there with some beers for sunset. Although we didn’t partake there are a couple main attractions like the Crazy House or the Alpine Coaster outside of the main city.
What we would do differently: Honestly, we might skip Da Lat altogether. It was a unique place to experience but it was the least favorite of all the places that we visited and felt less “Vietnamese” than anywhere else, if that makes sense. I can understand why it’s a good destination for Vietnamese tourists (swan boats on the river, horse drawn carriage rides around the town, more temperate climate, etc.) but it wasn’t anything incredibly special for a foreigner and there are more unique places in Vietnam to go!
Hoi An (5 Days)
Next was Hoi An which was a short 45 minute plane flight from Da Lat. You fly into Da Nang and it’s a short cab ride to Hoi An
Hoi An is a place not to be missed on any trip to Vietnam. Right in the middle of the country you can consider Hoi An the cultural capital of the country. The main town is actually a World Heritage site. Picture lantern-lined rivers and lush rice paddies. Foreigners are cycling around the streets and locals are hawking souvenirs, food and everything in between. Women wear traditional rice paddy hats and the charming streets are dotted with shops boasting the best crafts in all of Vietnam (from what I could find!). We may have bought a painting or two…or three.
At night the main town is completely illuminated by the beautiful lanterns and the river is filled with rowed boats gliding along the inky black water. You can buy a small candle-lit lantern to let go on the river along with a wish. We found a wine bar, The Haoanian, with decent wine (a miracle in SE Asia!) right on the riverside and enjoyed watching the lanterns and people float by. We really enjoyed our time in Hoi An and would definitely love to go back.
Where we stayed: Villa De Campagne Hoi An - really beautiful room and the breakfasts were delicious! We stayed in the Cẩm Châu neighborhood which is a little quieter and away from the craziness of Old Town but still a short bike ride away.
Where we ate:
The famous local dish of Hoi An is Cao Lau which is a soup made up of sliced roast pork, squares of crispy pork fat, bean sprouts, herbs and greens. Then it’s paired with the famous Lau noodles which are traditionally made from well water, sourced from a few remaining wells in the Old Town, making cao lau unique to Hoi An. This is a must try. We were lucky that our hotel served this for breakfast daily so we only tried it at our place but there are tons of other restaurants around to try. The Pho is Hoi An is much sweeter than the South and traditionally only served with beef and is topped with peanuts. It might sound weird, but it was my favorite in all the regions of Vietnam. The Banh Mi here is much smaller and the fillings are more “sparse” than the South, but they were balanced just right and delicious.
Chickpea Eatery - delicious vegan restaurant
The Hoianian Wine Bar - happy hour until 7 buy one get one free wine - 2 for $7.50
The Shamrock Irish Pub - live music at night
Nourish Eatery - trendy cafe a bit outside of Old Town
The Hill Station - 50% off wine for happy hour
Pho 323 - super local Pho spot. My favorite Pho in all of Vietnam
Bánh mì Lành & Bánh mì Phượng Mập (Banh Mi Big Mom)
What we did: We decided to do a couple Airbnb experiences in Hoi An to really experience a lot of the culture. We also enjoyed just walking around the shops or getting as many massages as possible (well more Jordan).
I highly, highly recommend this AirBnB experience. It’s an early wake up but it’s an incredible way to get to experience the real life of people in Hoi An. We saw how Cau Lau noodles are made, the life of a fisherman and their wives, how to make tatami mats and much more. Mostly I took away how challenging life can be for Vietnamese and how hard they work to provide a good life!
We did this cooking class which combined a beautiful bike ride through the countryside, a farm visit and making delicious Vietnamese food (plus a massage because of course!).
If you’re adventurous you can rent a motorbike and ride from Hoi An to Hue and go through the Hai Van Pass which is a beautiful curving mountain road. The ride goes through cool cities like Da Nang where you can stop for some coffee by the beach. The total trip was around 4 hours and the company that we rented through, Motorvina, took our luggage to Hue so we could do the pass without our big bags.
What we would do differently: While I loved our accommodations and the woman that ran the hotel, I would have loved to stay a little further out in the rice paddies to feel even further disconnected from the hustle and bustle of town. These are a couple of good options that we might pick the next time: Savanna Hoi An Villas or Maison Fleur Hội An
Ninh Binh (3 Days)
Our next journey was the most interesting and definitely very memorable. We boarded a sleeper train from Hue in the afternoon that arrived in Ninh Binh around 2 am the next morning. The best website to get schedules and book trains (or buses) for Vietnam is 12GO. Trains in Vietnam are notoriously slow and honestly not the cleanest but we actually had a fine experience. My biggest piece of advice: book all 4 beds in the VIP Sleeper cabin. It’s obviously more expensive but if you can afford it it’s worth it. This way we had the whole locking cabin to ourselves and could enjoy our time on the train. Beers and cards made it actually very fun! Also, bring your own toilet paper. And girls, master the art of squatting while holding your breath and working VERY hard to not touch any surroundings in the toilet (and pray you don’t get splashed with pee backed up in the toilet…). But enough of that!
They call Ninh Binh the inland Ha Long Bay because of its similar landscape. It’s a gorgeous area with tons of large rock formations protruding from the green ground and rivers running through. We stayed in a town called Tam Coc that’s a little outside of the larger Ninh Binh city and has tons of homestays with pools and views for days. It’s a nice place to relax, rent bikes and explore. We were lucky to meet up with friends here (hi Katie and Micheal!) and enjoyed doing the river tour around the Bay and some motorbiking around. We also had one of our most memorable meals at a nondescript Pho place in Ninh Binh where the owner, clad in an old US Army fatigue, insisted on giving us more and more shots of homemade rice wine that he was pouring out of an old gasoline jug, which may or may not have been flavoring the liquor. It was actually delicious and he was so kind!
We ended up cutting our time in Ninh Binh a little short, we were planning on spending 4 days, but decided to cut out a day earlier for the Ha Giang Loop, which we are glad we did to have more time there! But I would definitely recommend a few days in Ninh Binh.
Where we stayed: Tam Coc Mountain Bungalow - the family that ran this is super nice. Don’t expect anything fancy, but it was a nice home base and had lovely views.
I would recommend Tam Coc over Ninh Binh. It has better views and homestay options!
Where we ate:
Banh Mi Hanoi - actually great salads and smoothies plus Banh Mi of course
Coffee Brick - great coffee spot
What we did:
Ninh Binh River Tour - A rowed boat tour through the Ninh Binh River. You can choose between three tours that differ between more temples or more caves or more landscape. We went with more landscape. Super beautiful landscape!
Mua Cave Viewpoint - This is a short hike up around 100 steps to two beautiful viewpoints - one is a pagoda and the other is a dragon sculpture. Both are worth the trek and have gorgeous views back down to Tam Coc and Ninh Binh.
What we would do differently: Nothing really - although a bit challenging to get to this was a great stop and a beautiful place in Vietnam. I would say 3 days here is enough!
Ha Giang Loop (4 Days)
Now on to our favorite experience in Vietnam! The Ha Giang Loop is a motorbike loop in Northern Vietnam that starts in Ha Giang and loops all the way up to the China border and back around. You pass through extremely rural villages and get a very up close glimpse into the lives of the Northern Vietnamese villagers that exist very simply. The scenery is absolutely stunning and you get to stop at local homestays along the way.
You do need to be comfortable driving a motorbike to attempt the loop because the roads are not easy. You’re driving along extremely winding cliffsides, on unpaved roads and sometimes with heavy traffic in both directions. If you don’t want to brave it yourself, you do have an option with companies like QT Motorbikes to rent an easyrider where you can ride on the back of a guides bike. You can also do this with bigger groups that typically start from hostels. From what I saw, I would be weary of these groups as they seemed dangerous. There are sometimes upwards of 50 bikes in a line with people that don’t know how to drive trying to keep up with one another, and maybe show off by passing at inopportune moments. We were lucky to not see any accidents but we had heard of many. So best to do it with a small group, either driving yourself or getting an easyrider.
But keeping the above in mind, it’s an absolutely worthwhile experience and something that we will think of as one of our favorite parts of our trip. Although popular, it still feels off the beaten path enough to not have massive crowds and you get to see such interesting things like villagers motorbiking up a cliff with a massive live pig strapped on or barefoot women hauling hundreds of sticks on their backs up the hills. And again…the views. Just trust me, it’s worth it.
Here are our tips for the best possible trip:
Rent your bike from Ha Giang Hostel. We rented from QT Motorbikes because of the rave reviews, but we found the bikes to be in bad condition and the workers were very unorganized. While we didn’t rent from them, we checked out the bikes next door at Ha Giang Hostel and they seemed in much better condition
Do the Clockwise route (map here)! This will allow you to be driving on the inner side for the majority of the time. Plus you get to end on the most beautiful view. Our route was: Ha Giang (night at Ha Giang Hostel) → Yen Minh (night at Milk Milk Homestay) Yen Minh → Dong Van (don’t remember where we stayed) Dong Van → Du Gia (night at Du Gia View Homestay) Du Gia → Ha Giang (night at the Phoenix Hotel for some “luxury”)
Don’t be afraid to go slow!! Let people pass you and just enjoy. We pulled off dozens of times for photo ops, got lost on the most beautiful roads and constantly let others pass and still had plenty of time arriving to the homestays at night
Book accommodations ahead of time! We used Agoda.com for booking everything. All the other blogs said we can just show up and get a place the night of but we looked, just for fun, a couple days before and almost everything was booked up. We’re glad we booked ahead of time because we met people that were SOL when they arrived in the town and had to keep going to another one
Skip the trip up to Long Cu on Day 2. Long Cu is the spot of a famous flagpole that is the Northern-most part of Vietnam. Because of this it’s really touristy and there are tons of bikes, cars and buses along this winding road (which made it sketchy). And honestly the flagpole was very anticlimactic. I don’t think it was worth it!
I can write a whole separate post about this but overall it was just a unique and fantastic experience. Don’t miss it in Vietnam!!
Hanoi (6 Days)
We ended our Vietnam trip in the Northern capital of Hanoi. There are tons of buses that go from Ha Giang to Hanoi every day so this was an easy trip. We booked one off of 12Go that fit our schedule best. Hanoi is smaller than Saigon and although it was heavily bombed in the War it has more old architecture and charm than the larger city in the South. The best area to stay is The Old Quarter which has charming streets packed with delicious food and is near a beautiful lake.
The most famous local delicacy in Hanoi is Bun Cha and honestly it might be our favorite Vietnamese food. It’s a delicious slightly sweet broth packed with different cuts of beef and meatballs served with a side of noodles and vegetables. It’s savory, sweet, fresh and delicious. And it’s even better when served with Nem Cua Bể which are crab fried spring rolls.
Where we stayed: We based ourselves in this AirBnB and loved it. It was spacious, had a washer and lovely balcony, plus it’s in a great location. Highly recommend it!
Where we ate:
Bún Chả Đắc Kim - the best spot for Bun Cha
Floral & Book Cafe - great coffee and cake in a cute setting
L’s Place - technically not a restaurant but this store literally just re-sold Costco goods and we were able to find so many good American products which was a real treat for us!
Banh Mi Pate - delicious Banh Mi
Leo’s - Cocktails & Co. - super great cocktails with live music on Wednesday and Sunday’s
What we did: We were exhausted after the Ha Giang loop so we took it pretty easy in Hanoi. We enjoyed just wandering around and exploring and walks around Hoàn Kiếm Lake.
Another food tour because of course! This one was great
Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum
What we would do differently: Skip the famous train street! I have never felt more accosted in my life. It is insane and not worth it.
If you’re still reading, you’ve come to the end of our 30 days in Vietnam! Overall, I think this was a great itinerary and we saw a huge variation of what Vietnam has to offer. We did skip some famous sites like Halong Bay and Sapa which we heard is very beautiful but sadly you do have to make some cuts, even if you have a month! If I had to narrow it down to 2 weeks, I would suggest flying into Hanoi, spending a few days there and then heading to Ha Giang for the Ha Giang loop. I might fit in Sapa, then head to Ninh Binh and end in Hoi An. Overall we liked Central / Northern Vietnam better than the South! I hope this helps in some trip planning. I know we will be back to Vietnam one day :)
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