Our first stop was Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam – also known as Siagon, this city houses around 8.9 million people and is the financial hub of Vietnam. The flight from Sihanoukville to Ho Chi Minh took just over an hour and getting through immigration took another hour meaning we arrived in the city in the late afternoon.
Out of the 4 countries we visited, Vietnam is the only one that doesn’t condone getting a visa upon arrival, you apply for one in advance either online or at an embassy. We chose to do ours online as that seemed easiest but after doing some research we discovered that there were a lot of scams and faulty visa application websites that would take your money and give you a fake visa. Because of this, I was quite nervous as we stood in the long line to go through immigration. It didn’t help to calm my nerves when it seemed like every second white person was being turned away and sent to an even longer line labelled ‘visa services.’ However when we finally got to the front of the line, the officer on duty hardly seemed to give our visa’s a second look and stamped us through no problem! Phew, Matt and I were both really happy and relieved that we had chosen a valid visa website 😅
Once we left the airport we began the hunt for a cheap hostel. We settled on ‘WillHome Hostel’, a cheap 8 person dorm room with breakfast included for only $7 a night. It wasn’t the cleanest or quietest hostle we’ve stayed in but Matt was still feeling fatigued from dengue and flying really took it out of him so when we got our room key he layed down to rest for a few hours.
That evening we stumbled upon a kick-ass vegan restaurant where we tried our first hot pot – a popular cooking method here that involves a large pot of soup broth placed on a single burner in the middle of the table with an assortment of protein and vegetables mixed in it. Also with the hot pot comes a big plate of veggies to top it up, some vermicelli noodles and garnish such as fresh mint, cumin, sprouts and lime. It was delicious and a great value for money. Easily one of my favourite dishes!
We spent a total of 2 nights in Ho Chi Minh and occupied most of our time with walking around the city and eating at all the vegetarian restaurants we could get our hands on. Ho Chi Minh was such a welcome change of scenery after being in bleak and dreary Sihanoukville. I found Sihanoukville very uncatering towards vegetarians and I ended up eating either fried rice or fried noodle most of the time as that was all there was. I mean, not the worst thing but I knew getting out of there would mean more options for food and for fun and man was I right. One thing I noticed and really liked about Ho Chi Minh city was how popular vegetarian food was – locals of all ages could be seen casually eating out at vegetarian restaurants!
After a quick but delicious stop in Ho Chi Minh, we caught a flight to Da Lat – the city of a thousand pine trees (so it’s said). Da Lat is a quaint city located approximately 1500 metres above sea level and is surrounded by vast, coniferous tree covered mountains.
We stayed in Dalat for 3 nights spending our first night in a great little hostel called the ‘Brew and Breakfast’ – a hostel that prides themselves on serving tasty vegan food which we treated ourselves to for breakfast. They also had a few friendly cats and dogs that lived there which made me really happy.
This was my first time trying
Vietnamese coffee which I feel comfortable saying is some of the best coffee I have ever drank.
Our second two nights were spent at the ‘Maple Hostel’.
While we were in Dalat we visited the Datanla Waterfall, one of the three ‘must see’ waterfalls in the area. It was pretty busy but we picked a nice day for it.
After the waterfalls we headed back into the city to check out an architectural point of interest. It’s called the ‘Crazy House’ and it’s a hotel where every room has a stand alone design and decore. For a small admission fee you can spend as much time as you’d like exploring the crazy house. For me it was like stepping into a hobbit-sized, Dr. Suess inspired children’s book that had come to life. It was really neat to frolic around in for a few hours but I have no desire to actually stay there because there are nosy tourists walking through your accommodations every single day!
That evening it was cold (like 12 degrees) and raining so we were craving some comfort food and what’s better than a vegetarian buffet? 😏 It was a good way to end our busy day.
On our last evening, we decided to check out a cool bar called ‘The Maze’ because our friends recommended it to us for its unique atmosphere (thanks Ern + Josh!). Turns out the name is pretty self explanatory as it’s a 5 story bar and the entire thing is one huge maze! Every floor has a different theme and no two staircases lead to the same place. No map, no employees walking around to help and only 1 bar. Here are some pictures from that lost lost night…
Before we left Dalat, we made sure to try some of the local specialties!
Fun fact: Da Lat is home to the countries’ largest cultivation of artichokes
We paired our wine with a crunchy yet subtle delicacy, the Cheese Slide. I was picking up on strong notes of cheddar Pringles, would recommend.
De Lat was awesome and we both really enjoyed our stay but after 3 days it was time to say goodbye. We took a bus to Nha Trang, a small coastal town famous for its beaches. We only spent a total of 10 hours there as it was just a stop over on our long bus journey to get to Hoi An, but we made the most of it. We set up camp on the beach and enjoyed a relaxing recovery day by the ocean, the South China Sea to be exact.
That evening we caught an over-night train (which was our first train ride of the trip) to continue on to Hoi An. That being said, I’m going to leave it here and save those stories and more about northern Vietnam for the next post. Stay tuned!
– Ky 🌙
Matt and Ky Travel Thai (+) 