Category: Vietnam

Asian Backpacker - Vung Tau bay 0

Revisiting Hanoi and venturing out to Vung Tau

Seems like I’m pretty hooked on Thailand and Asia in general. Last year around the same time I was in the area as well but I stuck to Thailand. Each time I tend to visit familiar places but try to add in a new place to discover as well. I had some spare time before my friend met up with me so I flew to Hanoi for a couple of days and went down to Vung Tau as well. Hanoi was nothing new as I’ve visited the place during my year off trip. I did come back to catch up...

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Cat Ba Island and limestone mountains in Halong Bay

Going to Hanoi usually means making a trip to Halong Bay as well. Everywhere in Hanoi you’ll find agencies and hostels offering multiday tours. We instead went by public transport to Cat Ba, rented motorbikes on the island and cruised around for a day, stopping at it’s National Park and playing beachsoccer. I totally sucked but still managed to make 3-4 goals 🙂 It was supercool! We did book a daytrip to Halong Bay throught our hotel. It was the uncle of the hotelmanager himself that guided us that day. We cruised around the karst limestones for 2-3 hours. It...

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More honking in Hanoi

It was certainly not the cheapest way to go to Hanoi, but both Tuya and me wanted to try out the train in Vietnam. So we paid 32€ for a softsleeper in the Hue-Hanoi train, leaving at 19.30, arriving around 9.30 in the morning. Knowing the sleeperbusses in Vietnam, I expected something simular, but no a sleepertrain is much better. It’s almost like sleeping in a real bed! A taxi, which we think overpayed, brought us to the Hoi An Backpacker Hostel, one of the best ones I’ve stayed in in Vietnam. It’s such a wellknown hostel that we saw...

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Vietnam, streetfood paradise!

No mather who you are or where you are, food takes an essential part in your life. When traveling it is my goal to try everything that comes on my path.As I’m already making many people jealous with my travel stories, why not make it even better with pictures of all the delicious food I had on my trip, right? Being in Vietnam definitely wasn’t good for my weight. How could I possibly resist their pho or the freshly rolled nem? or the bahn mi? or even a midnightsnack kebab?For sure I could not! Do these pictures not make you hungry?...

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Biking around with easyriders on the Ho Chi Minh Trail

I never thought of doing it but once Tuya told me about it, I knew I would go for it!Easyriders..I don’t know if you have them in other places but Vietnam, but here it is pretty well known. The idea is to drive through (a part of) Vietnam by renting a motorbike and an easyrider, whome will also be your guide during the easyrider tour. You can choose to drive the motorbike yourself or to be the passenger on the easyrider’s bike. We went for the 2nd option. We initially planned on a 1 day tour Hoi An-Hue, but than...

Colourful lanterns 0

Colourful lanterns and tailor-made clothing in Hoi An

December 25th, X-mas day! After 15 hours on the bus, I finaly reached Hoi An. Hoi An is known for the more than 200 tailorshops in town. I noticed that quite well. Just arrived in the hostel and Tuya and I were already ‘grabbed’ by a lady that wanted to show us her shop. And we went along! And had some clothes made there! I guess I gave myself a big X-mas present! Of course we had our doubts..would it be made well, how would the finish be? Luckely it turned all well. I even had extra trousers made after...

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Chilling on the beach in Nha Trang

I totally get it now when people say that they are 3 weeks to 1 month behind in their blog. There is so much to see and to do that you really need to just stay in for a day to update your travelblog. Let me go on with Nha Trang. To get to Nha Trang I booked an open (sleepers)bus ticket HCMC-Nha Trang-Hoi An. It allows you to hop on and off in these 3 cities on the date you prefer. Advantage is that you travel by night so it saves you an extra night of accomodation. Before booking...

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Ho Chi Minh City, city of motorbikes

I’m writing this part on the bus to my 2nd Vietnam City, the one after Ho Chi Minh City, so it’s THE best moment to write down what I’ve been doing the past 3 nights, 4 days in HCMC. My flight from Bangkok to HCMC (Dec, 18th) was booked throught Air Asia for about 50EUR. Air Asia departs in Bangkok from Don Mueang Airport, which is about 25km north of central Bangkok and the cheapest option to get there is to go by train from Hua Lamphong station. I had a flight at 7.45am and as I wasn’t quite sure...

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Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon

Ho Chi Minh City is the last city on the list of places to visit in Vietnam. It took a while but I finally managed to make it here after visiting 9 cities in about 3 weeks. I have to be honest, during these 3 weeks, I had a great time, but I couldn’t get used to the Vietnamese way of doing things. Especially all the touts, the motorbike drivers, the difference pricing for “foreigners” and the food. It wasn’t until 20 days into my visit in Vietnam that I discovered that there was more to the Vietnamese cuisine than...

Night market in Hoi An selling tons of lanterns 0

Historical port town Hoi An and beach towns Nha Trang & Mui Ne

Hoi An If you want to experience the historal value of Vietnam, you should definately stop by Hoi An for a couple of days. This place used to be a major trading port and you can still see a lot of Chinese, Japanese and even European influences in the architecture. The well-preserved and UNESCO World heritage Old Town of Hoi An is a great place place to stroll around. During the day you can admire the architecture and at night you can soak up the street stalls and the colorful lanterns that lit up the waterfront. With all that to...