Vietnam - Holiday Snaps!

[thomas]

Having just spent 3 weeks in Vietnam and a week in Bangkok I thought I'd upload some of my photos. If you ever get a chance, definitely go to Vietnam as it's fantastic. I already want to go back (do the whole country on a motorbike, rather than horrible buses/trains).

As I took a digital camera, I do have about 234324324 billion photos, but here are a few to whet your appetites. Not everything and every place we visited is in these photos as we managed to do so much.

Here's the view out of our hostel's window in Hanoi.

The hostel's kebab van

A B52 shot down over Hanoi...which the locals have just left. Took us a while to find, thankfully I'd bought a pirate version of a phrasebook and every minute we were saying "plane pond" in Vietnamese to find out directions .

Spent a night on one of these 'junks' in Ha Long Bay. It's a lovely location but is sort of ruined by tourism.

Ha Long Bay's floating villages, where people live.

A view across the bay

Maybe a stretch

Went treking in Sa Pa...which is in the Northern Mountains. Had a fantastic time here with great people, some who we travelled with till the end of 'nam.

Hué, the old capital

Made to measure shoes, made over night for about £12

Da lat easy rider. A day tour of Da Lat, one of my favourite parts.

Traffic in Saigon/HCMC

Bangkok...anyone spot the funny shop name?

 

[ColinJ]

Super.

Hmmm - I really fancy a Phat Phuc!!!

 

[Melvil]

Can I have a Phat Phuc with extra hot sauce please?!?

Great snaps, the first for ages that have genuinely made me want to go to a place. Looks like you had a fab time.

 

[hackbike 666]

Awesome.Im off to Bangkok soon.How did you get from Vietnam to Bangkok?

 

[thomas]

Awesome.Im off to Bangkok soon.How did you get from Vietnam to Bangkok?

We had return flights to Bangkok with Eva Air (from LHR) and we got air asia flights to Hanoi, then from HCMC to BKK again. Flights were cheap...maybe £50 for both! I loved Hanoi and we met some great people. As a tourist you do get a bit of hassel with people trying to sell you stuff (legal and not so) but it is easy to ignore and just appreciate the place...plus the people are fantastic and friendly when you meet "real people" not just those few wanting your money. PM me if you think about going and I can give you a few tips for places to visit

I'm already feeling home sick being away and I want to go back. Thinking about doing some language lessons and staying a bit longer at some point. Already got some basic phrases and can even make the odd joke but it'd be nice to actually have a proper conversation.

 

[Davywalnuts]

Great pics.... Great times..

But it does not help me in my dilemma! lol!

Some of those pics I reckognise from the Top Gear special... not fair... I want to be there..

How much did you budget for/spend when you was away?

 

[thomas]

Great pics.... Great times..

But it does not help me in my dilemma! lol!

Some of those pics I reckognise from the Top Gear special... not fair... I want to be there..

How much did you budget for/spend when you was away?

Yep, I need to rewatch the top gear special (which inspired the trip) to see how many places I recognise. We spent roughly £1200 - 1300 for everything, but we budgeted between £1500 and £2000. I think you could possibly do it for nearer the £1000 if you went without doing certain things, but it's a holiday so why would you want to do that!

£500 of that was flights to Bangkok and over to Vietnam and back. When you get there everything is cheap, get a beer for about 10-50p, dinner for under a quid, or a posh, 3 course dinner with drinks for less than a fiver....

Before the top gear special we looked at a month around Europe...that would of cost more and we would of had to have gone without beers every night and we would have had to have cooked for ourselves every night.

It is a lot of money, but I've saved and worked hard over the past few years and the trip was worth every penny (I'd go back tomorrow if I had tickets and a visa). For what we paid I think it was incredibly good value.

 

[snapper_37]

Great pics Thomas. Got a link to any others?

 

[thomas]

Great pics Thomas. Got a link to any others?

Got some videos:

Some clips from our easy rider ride (saw so much this day!)


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKCgGHmGPco


How to cross the road (this was an easy road, wish I'd recorded some of the roads we managed to cross without issues - manic!!)


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9VJuqKkMRU


And a video of some of the traffic:


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6n6XcWdK0U


My friend gave me his photos yesterday so I'll upload some of his photos and some more of mine at some point to try and help the Vietnamese tourist board

 

[Davywalnuts]

So about £1000 spending money, and as you say, your there to enjoy it!

10p-50p a beer! OMFG!! Ill be repatriated in a hessium bag!

I was working out, that if I was away the whole of January, then what I would spend for a normal month at home, I would spend there instead... what would be well more than half the spending money needed.. I have to budget for these wild parties as well.. not sure if your budget included that... hehehe!

Am not big on fish, would I be limited on food?

Yes, there's odd's already on who isnt coming home! lol!

 

[thomas]

So about £1000 spending money, and as you say, your there to enjoy it!

10p-50p a beer! OMFG!! Ill be repatriated in a hessium bag!

I was working out, that if I was away the whole of January, then what I would spend for a normal month at home, I would spend there instead... what would be well more than half the spending money needed.. I have to budget for these wild parties as well.. not sure if your budget included that... hehehe!

Am not big on fish, would I be limited on food?

Yes, there's odd's already on who isnt coming home! lol!

£1000 might be pushing it, but if I were to go again I think I could do it for that. I wouldn't do some of the trips which, though aren't expensive, add up, such as Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa. They are worth doing once though.

The cheapest beer (home brew) is about 4000 Vietnam Dong a glass (about 28,000-30,000VND to the £1), we were getting bottles of nice beers in our hostel for about 20,000, or 2 for that in happy hour.

Fish is popular, but I think you could avoid it. I'm going to try cooking a Banh Xeo tonight which has shrimp/prawns in, but is fantastic! I'm trying to think about how much fish we had. Most of the places we went had small little restaurants (mostly catering to tourists) which have very extesive menus of international and local foods.

Street food is immense though, even if it can be a bit confussing at first. We ended up getting our food take away one day, obviously because we didn't do it correctly for 'eating in', but we weren't sure if we'd actually ordered so we didn't mind.

Some people are worried about getting ill from street food. Me & my mate didn't have any food posioning problems at all. If a stall is busy then it should be safe....if no one is eating there, maybe there's a reason why.

You can try all sorts of weird foods when you're out there such as, snake, dog, snails, frogs, possibly rat and things like that. We did have some frogs legs, but nothing else that 'weird'. I don't think many people actually eat dog (the few people we asked were all dog lovers), and the snake seems to be a tourist attraction more than anything.

Feel free to PM me if you do decide to go & have any questions.

 

[bagpuss]

Looks like you had a fanstic holiday.

 

[hackbike 666]

We had return flights to Bangkok with Eva Air (from LHR) and we got air asia flights to Hanoi, then from HCMC to BKK again. Flights were cheap...maybe £50 for both! I loved Hanoi and we met some great people. As a tourist you do get a bit of hassel with people trying to sell you stuff (legal and not so) but it is easy to ignore and just appreciate the place...plus the people are fantastic and friendly when you meet "real people" not just those few wanting your money. PM me if you think about going and I can give you a few tips for places to visit

I'm already feeling home sick being away and I want to go back. Thinking about doing some language lessons and staying a bit longer at some point. Already got some basic phrases and can even make the odd joke but it'd be nice to actually have a proper conversation.

Thanks,im going to have to look into this as I have 27 days in Thailand.

 

[thomas]

Thanks,im going to have to look into this as I have 27 days in Thailand.

We had 3 weeks in Vietnam, which I think is just enough time to see all the main places.

We did.

Hanoi
ha long bay
Sa Pa
Hue
Hoi An
Nha Trang
Da Lat
HCMC/Saigon

How long would you think about staying there? If you wanted a week I'd say go to Hanoi, from which you can do Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa. We stayed in hanoi backpackers hostel, which is brilliant and they run some of the trips really well.

If you are going to Vietnam, don't bother getting laundry done there - no where seemed to get stuff properly clean.

 

[Davywalnuts]

Great up date, thanks Thomas!

I can budget for a few more hundred quid spending money. I know how bad us lads are going to be... drinking that is...

Shrimps!! Prawns!! Yuk!! But enjoy!! I think ill just be living on rice and beer there! hehehe!

It does seem like one can actually just chill and not worry when there...

And, i've decieded am going! The Spesh S-works is just tooooo good a frame for me for now! Plus, I saw a frame on ebay that took my fancy so I won it! What leaves a nice budget for all that Dong! Best of both worlds!