we finally made it to vietnam so in this
video i'm going to share with you guys
my top things you need to know when
first coming to da nang
so we've traveled outside of japan and
we've made it to vietnam
specifically da nang and i wanted to
take you around this city and kind of
show you
the things that i've learned on this
short trip that have you been here
there's a lot of things that i didn't
know about when first coming here but
along the way and after a lot of
research and just some trial and error
i figured out some things that i thought
that might be useful for you guys if
you're coming to vietnam or the da nang
area and this video is capping off our
vietnam series there's more videos to
come
about street food places luxury hotels
and all sorts of places in vietnam so
definitely if you want to see more of
these kind of videos
hit that subscribe button and the bell
button so you don't miss any of them and
if you want to know what i'm doing on a
daily basis or what i'm eating all the
time
definitely check out my instagram
account i post stories every day
and if you want to help support the
channel i got cool tokyo shirts and even
samurai shirts i'll leave a link in
description so with that all said let me
share with you guys
my tips and tricks to navigate through
da nang vietnam
let's do this all right so let's talk
about
where to stay in danang the reason i
want to talk about this is when i was
first coming to da nang myself i didn't
know where i wanted to stay
that was kind of like the thing i didn't
find a lot of information on and so i
wanted to kind of spend a little time on
just
talking about where you're going to stay
when you're staying at da nang now you
pretty much have three options
you can save beachside you can stay city
side
or you can say kind of like the outer
parts of da nang which is like
either down the north or the south side
of the city and the beach area the beach
side
um to me is a little more calm it's just
a long
strip you do have these amazing views
and if you want to just go to city then
you can take a taxi
there are more seafood restaurant
options by the beach like the ones where
you get to pick out the live seafood
from the tanks
or buckets and then the staff weigh it
out in front of you i personally enjoy
this process and i think it's more
reasonably priced so if you're like me
the beachside may be your best choice
hotels around mike beach look quite
similar
small skinny and older and they seem to
be built all around the same time
if we go a bit more south around miaon
beach i noticed a lot of larger hotels
but also relatively dated
on the city side it's a little more like
packed and crammed in
it's not the cleanest of cities so it is
still kind of
developing and you'll find that there's
a lot of traffic and people honking
but you will find that there's a more
variety of food
on the city side there's a lot more
coffee shops on the city side you'll
find that the hotels are generally
cheaper now if you're looking for
something a little bit more
luxurious in terms of your stay then up
north
and down south the really really nice
hotels
are actually going to be staying at some
really nice hotels coming up
so subscribe to the series because
that's going to just blow your mind
now i ended up staying at the hotel side
and i'm actually happy
that i did but i think that's because of
my preference on how to spend the
holidays i actually enjoy
being right next to the beach and if you
look just
out this way i have this amazing view
just overlooking the ocean the beach so
i'm actually
quite happy that i decided to go
beachside and it's actually not that far
from the city
itself because you can take a taxi but
more about the taxi and the food options
later on in this video one of the things
i like to do is go for runs in the
morning or you can do that in the the
city side but it's just quite busy you
could probably run
alongside the river but here you can
just run along the beach which is just
completely amazing every morning so if
you want to have kind of like a healthy
running style vacation going beachside
is probably a nice thing so the hotel
that i'm staying you guys are probably
wondering i'm staying at the
paris delhi hotel which actually isn't
that bad i like
i like the area that we're in again the
view is amazing the location is great
room i actually personally like myself
my wife on the other hand doesn't like
it so much
just because she thinks um how do i put
this nicely he thinks the cleaning
could be a little bit better than it is
so maybe if you
if you're into cleanliness then maybe
the paris delhi hotel is not for you but
if you look down this strip there's a
lot of hotels that are similar to
peristelli like
it looks like they were all built during
the same time but a la carte
is probably looks like it's a little bit
newer than the rest of them we haven't
been
inside but that's probably where we
would look into staying probably the
next time you come here
and this is the beach and in fact this
area that we're in is a bit south from
peristelli the hotel that we were at
earlier what you'll find is that it
actually has the larger hotels they have
like these sitting in lounge areas on
the beach was also nice and they even
have like these nice bars
in fact this hotel holiday it looks like
they have a
tunnel that goes underground directly to
the beach so that you don't have to
cross the street which like get a bit
hairy because there's just so much
traffic going back and forth
overall though like i like this kind of
area and what's nice is
just um running perpendicular to the
beach there's a really like wide
road it has kind of a a tourist trap
vibe you don't see as many locals there
and you see like a lot more tourists
they have a lot of souvenir shops they
have massage shops
it just feels like a more tourist
friendly area i don't know i think
if we were to stay on this like the nang
beach site area this might be actually
a better spot for us to stay because the
the beach is nicer and then
just right here we were actually able to
rent some boogie boards
we were both you are actually able to
run some surfboards and actually surf
in this area so maybe it's kind of like
a better section than up north where
we're staying at right now
and this beach area is just super nice
like the sand
itself i don't know oh i just got sand
all over myself
and in almost michael's drink so the
sand itself feels really nice
very very fine sand the waves are fun to
play with because there's like a
constant
rolling wave just all along the beach
and the waves can get pretty big
so you got to kind of watch out from
like getting swept away but like one of
the nice surprises
is the beach itself how do you say how
pristine it still is despite all the
tourists in fact i know maybe this is in
the high season right now
but there's not a lot of tourists around
so you'll get like
spots where you can almost feel like
you're by yourself on the beach
you're not like inundated with people
and crowds you do feel
it's like the private beach that you
wanted but like depending on the section
you are then there are still like people
around
i've been to several beach countries
like for example i've been to phuket
i've been to boracay when you're sitting
at the beach you'll find a
lot of people trying to sell you things
even like little kids like coming up and
like trying to sell you
like little trinkets or sunglasses
trying to build a castle for you
you don't get a lot of that here maybe
we were approached by one person selling
sunglasses but
aside from that we weren't really
approached so you feel less bothered by
people trying to sell you
goods which is really nice i don't know
why that is maybe it's just vietnam in
general
and one thing you always will have to be
careful of like we're on the beach right
here there's no stop lights so you have
to be really careful with the traffic
when crossing
crossing is always tricky because
there's not a lot of street lights here
so basically you just have to go when
traffic kind of slows down
but in the middle of the day sometimes
there's no let down so just kind of like
wait
because i'm going to protect my car
let's go
okay there we go
now we're on this side don't worry about
these guys
here we go there's not a lot of stop
lights so you're like having to play
frogger with your life or on these
streets and it does get a bit hairy in
some of like the city
areas where the traffic gets really
really busy and
what i found is instead of running
walking and like making yourself like an
apparent obstacle to them
is probably safer than running across
the street and they'll just like kind of
weave around you but if you like try to
dart then they might not be able to
predict how fast you're moving so
if you're crossing the street maybe one
of my tips would be just to kind of walk
at a normal pace instead of like run
even though you're kind of scared all
right time to talk about the city area
so
when you think of the city area don't
expect something that's really really
developed what you'll find is like when
you actually start walking the streets
a lot of the sidewalks are like quite
hard to walk on because
they're very uneven some of the roads
aren't finished completely just wanted
to share that with you before we like
take you into the city
in terms of like tourist spots the
biggest turtle spots here
are just in front of me the dragon
bridge the highlight of dragon bridge is
definitely at night it's lit up in all
different colors and at 9 pm on weekends
and holidays the dragon blows fire
and water unfortunately i couldn't make
it on time to catch the event but i
believe the best spot to watch this is
around the sea lion area
on the beach side there are street
vendors and you'll see many people
hanging out around this area
another touristy spot is the catholic
cathedral you won't find a lot of pink
churches so a lot of tourists go to that
but for me it wasn't
too exciting so this is the nang's
cathedral and it was
built in 1923. it's pretty unique
because you don't see a lot of catholic
churches
with weathervane cox that still doesn't
sound right weathervane caught
cockweather other popular streets on the
city side is one this street that we're
on now
it's called bakdon street and it runs
parallel to the han river which has been
the dragon bridge and the han bridge
and once read over is the wrong trend
foo supposed to be like a tourist tree
with a lot of shopping and stuff
but i didn't really see a lot going on
aside from like some minor shopping some
coffee shops
you can also check out the marble
statues on buck dunn street which is
another tourist spot but i found it a
bit lackluster so it wasn't for me
one thing to note though there's
absolutely nothing going on in the south
of dragon bridge as it's filled with
empty lots
maybe in the future there'll be some
development here what i found intro like
most interesting
is that the coffee shops here seem to be
like the busiest
social like location where everyone
likes to gather and meet
it's almost like starbucks on steroids
like there's so many people
that gather in like all these different
coffee shops like they sit and talk
all day and i haven't found the reason
why maybe you guys can let me know if
you know
so as you can see there's actually not a
lot going on in the city but the silver
lining staying on the city side
is at a whole slew of restaurants and
bars
and places just to like hang out with
your friends like the coffee shops
so if you're looking for that food and
drink experience
then i would say the city side is more
your speed
but again you can always just take a
taxi from the beach side it's only a few
minutes
and it's relatively cheap to travel to
the city side
all right so let's talk food if you guys
are looking to
like see what to eat in da nang then
this is going to be part of the series
and be sure not to miss that video if
you're really into food
definitely subscribe but in general the
food is inexpensive here in danang like
you can get a chicken and rice dish for
like two bucks
the seafood in fact is pretty
inexpensive as well if you're sticking
with like
shrimp clams and even snails for some
reason the lobsters and the fish are
i found on the higher side like they're
charging like two to 2.5
million dong for a kilo of lobster which
is roughly like a little over a hundred
dollars but maybe it's because we're in
the winter and it's out of season
and it's maybe harder to catch i'm not
quite sure but it's like the prices are
really really
expensive from what i found one thing
that i found really really cheap are the
beers even at restaurants you're paying
like a dollar
for a beer and instead of like ordering
beers what they'll do
they'll order a case of beer and they'll
just set up like to the side
maybe this is only like at a couple
restaurants where they do it but get
them as they want
and then they give the customers cups of
ice
and then they just pour the beers into
the ice and they drink them like that so
it gets kind of watered down
but like at least you get like really
cold beers and another table manner i
noticed maybe a cultural thing instead
of the service collecting the beer
bottles throughout dinner customers were
just leaving the empty bottles around
their feet and another edges they
actually have like garbage cans
right underneath the table which is also
quite interesting they just like want
you to throw your trash in
which is nice in the sense that they're
like they know people are just gonna
throw stuff away
on the floor i know i understand i'm in
a different country that's cool it's
actually
like fine with me but i think speaking
to you guys that are traveling to
vietnam for the first time you might
just want to prepare yourself for
this kind of eating culture here in
vietnam it might not be as definitely
from where you come from also another
thing you want to consider is
credit cards versus cash a lot of these
like
like stalls like places that aren't like
nice like restaurants they only accept
cash so be prepared to have cash
when you're eating and the places that
do accept credit cards you also need to
be careful of what type of credit card
you have
um i have a visa card which seems to be
generally accepted but my wife she has
an american express and
nowhere does it work so again like a
visa is okay but other credit cards
don't work
sometimes when you're a little bit tired
you don't want to go out you can
actually order food here which kind of
makes it which is kind of nice we use an
app called
foodie a very useful app here a lot of
people use it for food reviews like in
the states we have yelp in japan we have
tabirugu here in vietnam they use an app
called foodie
and it not only has reviews but it also
has a delivery service that you can use
we just logged in with facebook put our
credit card information and then
delivered right to our hotel
so quite useful but the one thing is
when we ordered the soup the faux
it didn't actually come with any bowls
so luckily we just asked the hotel for
some days
but definitely a useful app if you get
tired of going out and you just want to
get some
food this is our tonight i found
the foodie site and app very useful
because it's used and rated by locals
although you can't read the restaurant
reviews and comments you can see the
pictures for ordering
tripadvisor is useful when looking for
western foods but not as useful for
vietnamese food
i personally found that cleaner
restaurants with a nicer presentation
tend to rank higher on tripadvisor
despite the taste of the food
so now let's talk about shopping centers
as you can see
it's pretty crazy in the city there's
just so much liveliness
going on so if you're looking for a
street marketplace
then there's two markets here in danang
there's calm market which is behind me
and there's hon market
that's just down the street and it's
right by the river
this is how con market looks inside it's
a lot bigger than the han market it's
mostly fresh food and food stalls here
but you can also find clothing cooking
supplies and some other random stuff as
well you can't really buy fresh food as
souvenirs
but it's quite a unique experience to
witness all the local food
served right before your eyes and take
in that local market vibe
oh and if you go inside there's even a
spot where you can eat on the tables but
i think the true experience
is to squat down and eat right in the
middle of the aisles in front of the
food stall
and this is han market the smaller of
the two the first floor is mainly food
and everyday goods the second floor is
apparel goods if you're looking to
purchase a reasonable out die dress
this may be the spot uh one thing that
you'll find about these local markets
they always have an interesting smell
how do i say this without being rude it
has its own unique
and very characteristic market smell
and if you look behind me there's just
so many knock-off products they have
shirts dresses they have shoes there's
just
all these different types of clothes and
whatever you would want
out at a discounted rate but i'm not
sure about the quality because i've
actually never bought
any clothes from here the market also
sells fresh vegetables
meat and lots of other food as well
so but if you had a choice and you only
had to like go to one then i would
suggest going to con market because it's
a lot bigger
you feel a lot more local here but
another hon market
is close to the river and it's by more
of the tourist spots so if you don't
have a lot of time to make it to this
one and you're already over there
then hot market may be a better choice
so if you're looking to do
any big supermarket shopping then my
recommendation is big c
it has the widest selection and it has
the cheapest prices that i've found
it's inside the parks and mall but don't
expect too much here i walked around to
see what's here but i didn't see many
international brands except gap and nike
and it kind of has this ghost town feel
because not a lot of customers are
walking the aisles
on the second floor you can find a whole
lot of food like their deli fresh
vegetables and so on
this was the perfect spot for me to get
souvenirs like vietnamese coffee and
snacks to bring back home
on the third floor you'll find household
supplies it's very much like your
standard walmart or target in the u.s
so here they have your regular like
toiletry supplies shampoo
conditioner body soap like all that kind
of stuff there's like a lot of stuff
like i would say like this is probably
the best
place to buy like your daily needs stuff
so above the supermarket there's even a
movie theater right here
and right next to it there's actually an
arcade so if you're looking for some
entertainment then
this could be a spot just got to be
careful because some of the movies are
in vietnamese and
some of the games aren't very new but
they do have karaoke machines right here
as well as a bowling alley overall
you're not gonna find like high brand
fashion like shopping here today but if
you're actually looking for kind of like
a nicer place to shop then i would
recommend
going to vincon there's a lot nicer
stores in general
so vincon is near han bridge it's a lot
cleaner and newer than parks and
you'll find nicer shops with a better
item selection i kind of prefer this
shopping mall above all
inside the mall there's even a small
supermarket called vinmart
it's definitely smaller than big c but
it has just enough to pick up daily
groceries and some decent souvenirs
and this behind me is denmark it has
everything it's kind of like your
vietnamese version of a kmart or a
target
and if you're looking for souvenirs it's
pretty nice because they have a whole
entire aisle dedicated to just souvenirs
and they're a lot cheaper than going to
the airport
now if you're looking to do something
just outside of da nang
then i recommend visiting hoi on it's
about a 40 to 50 minute car ride to this
area
and it's just literally breathtaking in
fact the whole city
itself is a world historic site so
you'll see
a lot of buildings that have been
untouched and preserved just walking
around this area you get a sense that
you're in vietnam
in fact i wish we would have spent a
little more time here but unfortunately
we were pressed for our time so we're
only able to spend a day but definitely
i would recommend if you do have some
time to maybe spend two to three days
here and like
really really take in the sights
something worth mentioning for the
historical sites in hoi on city you need
to purchase tickets like this
it comes in a booklet of 5 tickets and
they'll tear off one ticket each time
you enter a site
i went to a few places like this
japanese bridge and kuang
also if you're looking for typical
vietnamese souvenirs like lanterns
colored shell bowls and wooden
chopsticks i saw more of these type of
souvenir
shops with a wider selection in hoi on
one of the things i recommend doing here
when you get here
is visiting a loon production it's kind
of like a circus alley on bamboo which
is
really hard to explain so let me just
show you all right so we're actually
gonna go
backstage and see this show which is
kind of like just check out the
what do you call them actors or
performers yes
when i got backstage they were
practicing the new parts in the show
apparently all the performers need to
know each role the aosho
is a blend of bamboo cirque acrobatics
contemporary dance
with unique live music and i love how
close the stage is to the audience
which makes the experience even more
enriching
and if you have your timing just right
they have a lantern festival that runs
once a month
city itself turns off its lights and
turns on all the lanterns throughout the
city
and it's just amazing to see and between
hoi an
and dunang there's actually the marble
mountains you might want to check that
out as well
here's some other things that i kind of
wish i knew when i first came here but i
didn't know what i found is that tipping
is not a standard practice here in
vietnam going to restaurants or writing
taxis so you don't really have to worry
about tips if you go to massages or even
like nice restaurants the tips are
actually already built in
to the fee so so basically you don't
have to worry about tips if that was one
of your concerns
all the time going to a country one of
the things that i'm always worried about
is not being connected because
i'm always so connected in general like
i want to be connected with people on
instagram or emails and whatnot what i
found is that the hotels here
they have pretty decent wi-fi i was able
to even upload a youtube video
from my hotel here in vietnam so it's
actually not that bad
even some of the restaurants will
provide wi-fi but if you're cruising
around the city
you won't have wi-fi so i would suggest
getting a sim card or a pocket wi-fi we
were actually
able to get a sim card right when we
landed at the airport
at baggage claim there is about eight
dollars you can probably get a cheaper
if you look around
it's kind of been instrumental for us
because we use grab taxi
they have to call it call taxis and just
having the internet connectivity
on the phone at least one of our phones
works really well make sure though your
phone is unlocked
i tried to use my phone it's a newly
purchased iphone and it wasn't unlocked
yet
so i wasn't able to get a sim card for
my phone but michael had an older iphone
which we unlocked and she was able to
use it and speaking of taxis
we haven't used a regular tactics here
we've been using crab taxis it's a very
similar service to uber
in asia i'll leave a link in the
description for you guys if you want
it's been very very easy to get from
location to location all of the
locations and the restaurants we've gone
to have been
easily searchable on the app so
everything is kind of like
pre-registered um so it's been easy to
find the locations it's easy to get
picked up and it saves you that language
barrier and the payment barrier
language barrier meaning that a lot of
vietnamese don't speak english i mean
like
literally they speak zero english so
when you tell them like i'm asking for
salt or water and some they just don't
know sometimes so
good luck trying to tell them directions
to a place if they don't speak any
english
grab taxi just pretty much like do it in
the app and they'll just take you to
that location
no problem also you don't have to like
fumble around
with the vietnamese dong when you're
paying them so it just makes it
super super convenient to get around
also one of our concerns when coming to
a country
is how we're going to do laundry you can
probably ask the hotel to do your
laundry for you
but it gets quite expensive since we're
staying by the beach side
we found that the street behind us
there's quite a bunch
of laundry services and they're quite
cheap though it's like
one kilo or 2.2 pounds is about
20 to 25 000 dong about a dollar for a
kilo of laundry which is
really really cheap and finally if
you're looking for massages then
i found that on the same street as a
laundry street behind the beach hotels
there's quite a lot of
massage parlors or massage shops also
the street after that
this one's parallel that also has a few
massage shops and
they're pretty good they're about twenty
five thousand to thirty thousand
dong which works out to be around ten to
fifteen dollars
and this is for your like regular one
hour body massage
and they have other services that you
can get one thing you need to be careful
about the price
is that sometimes the price that's
listed doesn't include the tip and they
actually add that on
after you've had the service so what we
found is that the tip is about another
fifty thousand dong which is like two or
three bucks but if you're looking for
nicer massage places then
it runs roughly between four hundred
thousand to six hundred thousand dong
and usually the tip is included in that
fee also if you're looking for like
really really nice massage places what
we found is that the hotels provide some
really nice like day spas
but you will pay a premium for that
price but that's pretty much the massage
scene
i was actually expecting it to be a
little cheaper than compared to thailand
but these are kind of the general prices
in da nang and one last thing i wanted
to talk about
are drones or also known as fly cams
here
pretty much they're banned everywhere
you're not supposed to fly drones at all
if you really want to fly a drone then
you're going to want to get
a license for it but i've heard some
stories of people trying to get licenses
for it and it's pretty much impossible
so
like don't even try to bring your drone
here in fact if you try to bring your
drone there's a high chance that it'll
get confiscated at the airport
i've read some stories where once you
return back to the airport you'll be
able to pick it up
but pretty much like like all of vietnam
is like a no-fly zone
so don't like waste your time trying to
bring a drone but one more thing that i
forgot
visas if you're gonna stay less than 15
days there's several countries that you
actually don't need a visa if you're
saying less than 15 days
but if you're staying more than 15 days
then you're definitely gonna need to get
a visa
actually quite easy to apply online you
just need to go to the
government website i'll leave a link
here be careful because there are
services
out there that will say that if they do
a visa service not to say that they
won't actually process your
visa but you need to know that they're
not government
sponsored visas and the best place to go
is the government one michael actually
had some trouble because she didn't get
her visa on time and we were traveling
during lunar holiday and everything is
closed it takes a few days maybe up to a
week to get your visa online that's
probably the best way to go there
there is a visa on arrival process but
then you need to get an invitation
letter which you can apply
online but save yourself some time and
getting that investigation letter and
then being at the customs and having to
get your visa there oh and for you
backpackers out there that are planning
to go in and out of the country
so you're traveling to cambodia or
thailand and then back here
then you'll probably want to get a
multi-entry visa you don't want to get
the single entry visa or you won't be
allowed back in
all right so that wraps up the video if
you liked it if you found it helpful
then help me out and hit that like
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again this video is kicking off our
vietnam series we'll be checking out
some awesome street food we're gonna be
checking out some luxury hotels i'll be
releasing a video once a week for this
series that subscribe button and the
bell button and i'll catch you guys in
the next one