30 Days In Vietnam

(Picture by Richard Huckvale)

I have named this blog 30 days in Vietnam as we originally only planned on staying for the 15 free days you get on arrival into the country. Thankfully we met some amazing folks and decided to stay for 30 days instead. A decision that was well well worth it.

We flew in to Da Nang which is pretty much bang in the centre of the country now we had originally planned on flying into Ho Chi Minh and working our way north and then into Laos but the flights were cheaper to Da Nang so made more sense to save money.

It's amazing what you can fit into 30 days when you are on the road, from fire breathing dragon bridges to paradise like beaches, abandoned water parks, museums, nights out, waterfalls, boat trips and much more I have done a post already on the Abandoned Water Park so check it out if you haven't already.

Our trip went as follows Da Nang, Hoi An, Quy Nhon, Da Lat, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, Hanoi, Halong Bay thats 1,608 miles literally covering the whole country. It was pretty exhausting at times but when you get to relax on a private beach, or walk round an abandoned water park or drink stupid amounts of alcohol with new friends and people you met in India it makes all the travelling worth while. I would also like to add Vietnam was the first place I'd say we became real backpackers. By this I mean we stopped pre booking hostels and hotels online and literally finding a place we liked and turning up to it hoping they had a room. Now although this is risky as you can spend a while walking round trying to find an alternative if there is no rooms available the financial gain is brilliant we were always able to negotiate a better rate for the room helping us save money in some cases in excess of £20 over the number of days we were staying there.

We liked certain places more than others, Ho Chi Minh was basically like Benidorm in my opinion and that's something I have never been interested in, Gary and his mates from Clacton-On-Sea thinking they are 10 men after a few beers. Hue there was not really much to do here and we only stopped there to go to the abandoned water park. Everywhere else was awesome its hard to pick my favourite place in Vietnam because we stayed in some awesome and some interesting places.

The Big Tree in Quy Nhon was out of this world a hostel right on the beach it was literally like waking up in paradise everyday. The guy that runs the place is one of the nicest blokes I've ever met Chris thank you for your hospitality. Also thank you to Janina for crashing a Vietnamese wedding with us.

Mamas Guest House in Dalat was defiantly an eye opening experience Mama was off her tits literally every night we'd all have a meal cooked by mama when I say all I mean about 30 people crammed into a small room being fed with endless amounts of food for something like £1 per person, the foods is awesome and mama even more so the first night we were there she took my beer off my pretended to squirt milk in it FROM HER BOOB and gave it me back. Like I said it was eye opening.

Ha Long Bay the boat trip we did here was brilliant for Lauren's birthday it was also where we met Hannah and Jake who we'd end up spending almost a month with travelling through Laos they are great couple and we miss our cider drinking days and nights.

Hachi Hostel in Da Nang where we met Larissa and David and two of the most amazing local girls who run the hostel, we were meant to stay only 2 nights but ended up staying for a week. I highly recommend this hostel if you go to Da Nang. It's that good that David is still there.

Vietnam is literally not what I expected one bit, the people the surroundings the atmosphere everything is better than id ever imagined. I love the country and will go back for sure there was so much more we could have done but just didn't have time, once again though it was about the people we met not just the new people Larissa, David, Dianne, Ranz, D, Janina, Hannah, Jake, Ngoc and Chinh but we got to spend time with Kellie and Becky again and the crazy lot from London Lottie, Paige, Alex, Amar, George and George and Ken who we spent a little time with in Japan. I have said it before and I will say it again travelling is all about the people you meet.

I would just like to add I have added a Press page to my blog as there are a few new things coming from me check it out. I am majorly behind with my blog simply because I have just not had time. We have been on the road now for 152 days we have come so far and still have such a way to go. It has been an epic journey and things are really starting to look up.

Thank you for reading and the support so far almost 70,000 page views is just unreal.

Take care

Richard :)