Vietnam - Love it or Hate it?

Everyone who has been to Vietnam has a strong opinion of the country - they either can't wait to leave or call it their favorite country in Asia. So many posts like this one had us expecting the worst but the very positive reviews from fellow travelers that we met kept us optimistic. In the end, true to form, we each left Vietnam feeling differently about the country - though not quite as extreme on either side.

Perhaps the most contrast we experienced was between the southern vibrant streets of Saigon where we started and the hard, commercial northern city of Hanoi where we ended.

Southern Vietnam

We stayed in Ho Chi Minh, formerly called Saigon. During our stay we visited the Chu Chi tunnels from the Vietnam War and War Remnants Museum. It was fascinating to learn about how the tunnels were used during war time and sad to see the Agent Orange atrocities that followed the US involvement in the Vietnam war, or the "American war" as it is called there. It was also entertaining to see all of the anti-US propaganda.

Chu Chi tunnels

The highlight of our time here was leaving the touristy District 1 and taking motorbikes to Ton That Thuyet street in District 4. It started off rough when Jan got a second degree burn from the exhaust pipe of the ancient motorbike she rode on. The rest of the morning was spent sipping Vietnamese coffee with some very inviting locals along the street and eating $0.75 meals from the various street food carts. We aren't normally coffee drinkers, but Vietnamese coffee is incredible! We didn't see another tourist all morning, which is a consistent factor of the highlights of each country we visit.

The shopping at Saigon Square was also fantastic. Legit brand name clothing and designer purses are sold for pennies on the dollar. Unfortunately, our bags are full to capacity so we couldn't indulge too much.

As we expected, we were occasionally charged the inflated prices that Westerners often complain about.  In all fairness, this happenned in a couple of other SE Asian countries as well.  It's been explained that Vietnamese feel Westerns caused many of their problems and "owe" them for the troubles, which is understandable but only accepted to a certain degree by tourists.

The traffic was crazy. When it came to crossing the street you might as well have been invisible as there is no such thing as yielding on these crazy roads. As our friends put it, you really need to develop a survival strategy to cross each intersection!

Yemi waiting to cross the street in Ho Chi Minh

Central Vietnam

Hoi An waterfront

We visited Hoi An, a UNESCO Heritage site with a lot of character, bright colors & traditional markets. It's touristy, but we loved riding bicycles around this city. The laid back vibe and incredible $1 meals at the Central Market food stalls made this town one of our favorite Asian places. We are still dreaming about the flavorful soups at food stall E034...

Hoi An Central Market

Hoi An is known for its hundreds of cheap tailor shops. However, the quality isn't up to par with what other parts of Asia produces. The town also has a beautiful beach that caught us by surprise, but it was too cold to enjoy it during our stay.

Buying lychee and mango at the fruit market

We had a mini reunion with Ben & Allie while we were here and they joined us for Jan's birthday dinner. We enjoyed catching up with them. Familiar faces are awesome to see when you are traveling.

Northern Vietnam

Hanoi was our least favorite city visited in Vietnam. Aside from the fried spring rolls & bo bia ngot desert, Jan has a hard time finding anything positive to say about this town. She thought the people were cold, the food was often bad & the city was...just a big city. Yemi accepted it for the big city it was and likened it to other big concrete cities like KL in Malaysia. We didn't get a chance to explore the countryside, but we would recommend taking one of the countless day trips available to get outside of Old Town.

Hoa Lo Prison where John McCain was a POW during the Vietnam War

So how do we feel?

We both feel differently about Vietnam. This is the first country we can't agree about from our travels.  Yemi thinks the Vietnamese have a strong sense of self and a deep connection with their history. He agrees that they don't swoon over Western tourists and do tend to be somewhat transactional, especially when compared to their neighbors, but they have so much more to offer in terms of their cuisine, culture and heritage. Yemi still had his exotic celebrity status and admits that maybe his experience was just unique but he didn't get what the fuss was about. After visiting warm, welcoming countries like Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines Jan felt it was a hard adjustment to be in a country where the people were indifferent at best to you being there.

In both Hoi An and Hanoi the locals would get angry and demand money when Jan asked to take their picture if she wasn't buying something from them. Yemi wrote this off to them being scammers trying to make a living and not representative of the whole country. If someone didn't sell what you needed, they wouldn't recommend another store or assist you after they knew they were not going to make a sale. We had actually expected much worse after reading stories, so Vietnam didn't seem so bad but it didn't give Jan good vibes.

Jan's highlight of Hanoi - locating a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

At the end of the day, we agreed we may revisit Hoi An and other parts of the country we didn't have time to see but most definitely won't come back to Northern Vietnam. Jan would rather soak up the sun in a culture a bit more welcoming of Westerners.