Back from Vietnam

Posted on December 28, 2007
Tags: Asia, Leisure |

I’m back in Bangkok from the trip to Hanoi. It was a very interesting vacation. Quite unexpectedly. I thought it’ll be similar to other Asian countries I’ve been to but it wasn’t. I was especially surprised to see it isn’t really a South-East Asian country in many ways. The closest place I can compare it to is a developing city in China, maybe a place like Guangzhou. Some random observations:

1. The place is developing at break-neck speed with lots of construction everywhere and people streaming in from the villages to the city.
2. The Vietnamese food I had is different from what you get in the Vietnamese restaurants around Asia.
3. Most people you deal with as a tourist will try to cheat you out of your money.
4. There’s very little left from the French occupation era, signs and baguettes aside.
5. People drive like crazy, even more than other places in Asia. It seems everyone is in a mega rush all the time and they use the horn continuously whether needed or not.
6. The place is becoming very touristy but 99% of the locals can’t speak English yet.
7. The weather in the winter can get quite cold.
8. Pollution is a problem, as well as general dirtyness of everywhere other than monuments and government run places like Ho Chi Minh mausoleum.
9. Outside of the city (we took a trip to Halong Bay) people live in utter poverty.
10. You don’t see middle and upper class people in the main city area and no shopping malls. This is quite unlike Bangkok where you get huge shopping malls with some of the fanciest brands (loads of) money can buy and rich Thais living it up.
11. When dealing with the locals you need to triple and quadruple check everything from change, to booked trip details to hotel arrangements. “Mistakes” and “misunderstandings” are very common.
12. Shopping is great for knock offs and generally low ticket items, you can find everything in Hanoi.
13. Most travelers I met were older than the typical 20 something year old backpackers you get in places like India. Many of the people I met were very friendly. Quite a number of foreigners who are living elsewhere in Asia.
14. You can pay for most things either in VND or USD, which makes it convenient to not have to convert too much money and then convert it back again. I used up the million Dong I had to the very last Dong.
15. There is no ETF covering Vietnam (had to go and look the minute I got a chance lol).

If anyone has any specific questions feel free to post in the comments.

Overall it was a great experience and I really enjoyed it. It’s nice to see new things and get out of routine. I would probably visit again in the future.

Next week I’m in Chiang Rai and following that back home for a couple of weeks. I’ll resume trading around mid January I think.

Comments

3 Responses to “Back from Vietnam”

Carlton on December 29th, 2007 4:36 pm

Frankly, it sounds like a nightmare… :-)
eyal on December 30th, 2007 10:16 pm

Carlton - probably it is for many people. I think I enjoyed mainly the newness and challenge of the place.

Have you been to any part of Vietnam?
Carlton on December 31st, 2007 1:11 am

No, for some reason or another I never had any desire to go there. Having said that, I am flying tomorrow to a 4-days business trip in Germany, if I could trade it with Vietnam, or any location in SE Asia, I wouldn’t think twice :-)