so my fiance Lloyd and i have been travelling Vietnam for almost a month
now and there are a few things that we wish we knew before we came here
so here are our top 10 things we wish we knew before coming to Vietnam in 2022
in my opinion, i thought Vietnam would be a little bit more underdeveloped than what it is I guess i
it was sort of misrepresented to me maybe just as a Canadian but i thought it would be a lot
more rural not as built up as it is i've noticed that a lot of other people sort of felt the same
in the comments so that's a huge thing that took us by surprise and maybe something that not a lot
of other people would know as well ho chi Minh city was crazy all of the cities that we sort of
visited they're very developed and westernized and i was really pleasantly surprised but there
also is still that old school traditional aspect to it as well Hanoi is a lot more traditional
feel i guess to it but it still has that modern city feel to it which i was really surprised by
every major city really has what you would get in any western city which is a bit surprising yeah
so vietnam, in general, is a night place um i think that's mostly due to the hot weather
during the day uh the local people tend to prefer to stay out of the sun and even
the tourists as well but at night time everything lights up the city lights up
everybody comes out and hangs out there's lots to do at night there's always live music
markets the traffic gets a lot busier the streets are hectic it feels like everybody's sort of
tucked away in their hotel room or at home during the day and at night everything just comes alive
normally we are mourning people and so usually we plan our activities during the day
and usually are home by at the latest 10 o'clock but during our time in vietnam we've sort of
had to swap that so we could have the actual experience of being around all the other people
so it's something to keep in mind if you aren't a night person might not be your favourite place
that being said if you don't mind the heat you still can go out and do things as well
so getting around in vietnam is super easy and the main reason is there's a lot of sleeper buses
and sleeper trains you can also catch these buses and trains during the day
but you tend to save a bit of money when you're catching them overnight because you're not paying
for your accommodation and they're absolutely everywhere they're very cheap there's different
standards of sleeper buses where you can get like a more local price and then you can step
up to a vip price where it's a little bit more luxurious and then even go higher than that which
is a vip private cabin which we've done all three of those i probably would recommend spending the
extra money for the extra comfort it's like only about 30 bucks to go from
ho chi minh city to da nang which is like i think an eight hour drive and
there's also overnight sleeper trains which we haven't done yet we're doing that tonight but
getting around in vietnam sleeper buses and sleeper trains super easy it's a very easy
country to get around in yeah and it's nice to just be able to jump on a bus or a train and go
to sleep on it and wake up in a new city which is kind of the best way to travel i think yeah
so there's a huge coffee community and coffee is huge here in Vietnam so like we said during
the day there's not a whole lot going on and people like to hide away from the sun
but there are a lot of cafes here in Vietnam and that's usually what people do if they're up during
the day they're in a cafe drinking coffee our favourite is actually the peach ice teas that
they do here they're so good we've become addicted to them that's sort of what most people do during
the day here i think saying that there's a lot of cafes is an understatement like almost every
second building is a cafe and we don't drink coffee anymore but from what we're told the
vietnamese coffee is very strong and very good and you have to try the egg coffee which we actually
did try yeah a little bit sweet for us but i've heard some people get pretty addicted to it
so this actually took me completely by surprise when we landed at the airport
and were picked up by our grab driver he was driving on the other side of the road so they
drive on the right-hand side of the road here which was a complete shock to me i had no idea
i don't actually know why because the rest of south-east asia or asia countries in general
drive on the left as do english countries but yeah they drive on the right-hand side of the
road so be careful when you're crossing the road because a few times at night we'll be
looking the wrong way and a motorbike or a car will just come zooming past because you're not
expecting it it's on the opposite side of the road however if you're from america or europe
you're probably used to it anyway so yeah i'm all kinds of messed up i don't i don't ever know
so out of everywhere that we've traveled in southeast asia so far vietnam probably speaks
the least amount of english which is probably a good thing to note sometimes communication
can be a little bit difficult if you don't speak the language definitely yeah the least
amount of english spoken here in comparison to thailand and bali where we were previously for
sure but one thing i've noticed is they are more willing to use google translate with you in bali
and thailand i felt like they tended to try and just communicate rather than in vietnam they'll
actually just pull their phone out and type it out in google translate and you can get your
communication across so it isn't too hard but in general a lot less english-speaking people here
when you're coming to vietnam if you aren't sure exactly what you want to do while you're here
where you should splurge your money our absolute favorite thing that we did while we were here that
was the most probably the most touristy thing we did was a cruise in halong bay uh we did a luxury
cruise it was absolutely amazing yeah this was something that i was told by a lot of people to do
i usually when i get told by many people to do something my first reaction is oh
it's really touristy it's going to be expensive there's going to be heaps of
people there and it's not going to be worth it i'm going to feel like i got ripped off
but we did it we spent some money doing it and i don't regret any minute of it because
along bay is probably the most beautiful place in vietnam yeah the best scenery it is a little
bit still touristy like there's a lot of boats out there but you're on your individual boat so
it's not like it feels crowded and the one we got which we'll put the link in the description was
amazing yeah there's cheaper options there's more expensive options this was pretty top of
the line pretty luxury but definitely recommend going to ha long bay if you're coming to vietnam
so one of the first things that we noticed when we arrived in vietnam was the french influence
which was pretty surprising but it was very predominant in saigon that was like the first
thing that we noticed as usual i didn't do much research before coming here i had no idea that
the french actually controlled vietnam for so long so what you see here is a lot of bakeries
a lot of cafes as we mentioned earlier and just a lot of french style buildings and hotels which
it's actually really cool because it feels like a european city especially saigon has
been dropped into southeast asia and it was just completely unexpected but had i've known
that before coming here probably would have been even more excited to come here because
it's such a culture change than everywhere else we've been in south east asia so far
so this is sort of a funny thing that we learned we did one of the best food tours while we
were in saigon we will link it above if you're interested in watching it was through xo tours
and our tour guide actually taught us i while we were eating the food i was often saying yum
but she said not to say yum but to say yummy because yum in vietnamese means horny mandy
kept saying it and she kept laughing and saying no no no don't say it so if you are indulging in food
say yummy don't say yum and you won't make a fool of yourself like i did many times if your waiter
comes over and says how is your food and you say yum you're probably gonna get a funny look yeah
and finally we've come to number one which is lloyd's favorite and probably my favorite as
well so beer in vietnam not only is it pronounced beer which is good for me because i'm australian
and that's how i say it so when i order it's super easy it's so cheap even if you're eating out at a
nice restaurant the most you're gonna pay i reckon is a dollar fifty two dollars australian if you go
to a store and buy it you're looking at like 80 cents it's honestly as cheap as soft drinks or
water it's way cheaper than coffee and there is a really big beer drinking culture we're actually
here in hanoi and there's a place here called beer corner where it's basically just chairs set up
across this intersection and everyone's drinking beer there's about four or five different local
beers to try they're all good but it's super cheap i would say this is a good thing and a bad thing
because there hasn't been many days we've been here without having a beer yeah like we love
sitting at the local faux stations just on the side of the road on the little plastic chairs and
even you know the older women are drinking beer as well and everyone's drinking beer around you
and it feels like you're not amongst it if you're not having a beer i i just really love in canada i
don't feel like older women um would sit down on a little plastic chair and drink a beer with ice
i just i love that it's just so different than anything i've ever grown up knowing um but yeah
it's been really hard saying no when everyone else is doing it around you so it's a blessing and a
curse but we have loved it uh we've loved every minute of it and just as a little bonus they do
sometimes serve beer pretty warm here but it's very normal to have beer with ice we found the
same thing in thailand i'm actually used to it now and i like it it dilutes it a little bit
but maybe that's a good thing because you're not going to get us drunk and you just reminded
me about one other thing if you're a big guy like me be prepared to sit on very very small
stools double up because they do break actually i actually broke one you haven't broke one yeah so
yeah yeah that hurt my self-esteem a bit yeah but the ice thing if you're not into it
i don't know i just don't like drinking warm beer so i'd rather drink ice yeah honestly we
have really really really loved our time here in vietnam um we're really sad that our time here is
coming to a close but if we can give any bit of advice and if you are looking for somewhere that
you want to go you're trying to plan a trip at the moment maybe you're tight on budget or you just
want to go on an adventure vietnam is the place yeah actually we didn't mention that it's probably
cheaper than thailand and indonesia as well in general yeah and it feels like it kind of has
the most culture to it out of all three but we're going to do a separate video comparing the three
so yeah we'll leave that to later we hope you guys have found this video helpful in some way if you
have any questions fire them down in the comments section if you did find it helpful don't forget to
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our travels even deeper thank you guys so much for watching and we will see you in the next one
you