HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.
This tip is especially true for Vietnam because firstly, it’s rather cheap as far as food and lodging goes; and secondly, you can spend the remainder on tailor-made clothes of your dreams.
When Ukraine is soaking in fog, rain and occasional snow, Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) is in its best season for visiting. Sunny and hot, its winter resembles the Ukrainian summer.
To know which country fits you better if you are squeezed for holiday time, think of this saying: People in Vietnam grow rice, in Cambodia they watch it grow and in Laos, they listen to it grow.
The nature of my job took me to the busiest and zaniest country of three – Vietnam.
Old-fashioned Chinese boats cruise the serene “waters of a descending dragon,” Ha Long Bay. A town engraved with Chinese character, Hoi An, offers a trip to the past in one of the boats along the Thu Bon river.
A former French colony turned war zone during an American invasion, and then gravitating to the sphere of Soviet influence, it showcases how modern history trampled over traditional past.
Over 3,000 kilometers of sandy beaches can help you escape from the ghosts of history, but I recommend taking Vietnam with all the spice it has to offer.
My two-week travel plan included Ho Chi Minh City, Vung Tau, Hoi An, Ha Long Bay and Hanoi. Landing in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, you quickly see the traces of the person to whom it owes the change of name. The father of Vietnam’s independence movement from the 1940s, Ho Chi Minh oversaw many successful military operations against the French and the Japanese. Ho founded the Communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh is not, in fact, his real name. Born as Nguyen Sinh Cung, he inherited the most common surname in Vietnam – Nguyen. During my trip, I met so many Nguyens that it felt like the whole nation is one big family. It turned out that Nguyen is the family name of the last monarch in Vietnam, hence its wide usage.
I suggest exploring Saigon streets rather than its museums. Start by crossing the road – it is truly an adventure. The traffic is chaotic. Without exaggeration, scooters outnumber all other vehicles by about 50 to one.You can’t really navigate the sidewalks because of all the parked motorbikes, which means that the narrow streets are filled with pedestrians on top of regular traffic.
The Vietnamese are obsessive-compulsive when it comes to honking horns. The style is rather more like “hey, I’m here” than “get out of my way.” No one seems to care about the division of lanes, traffic lights or other road conventionalities. To cross the road, you have to make eye contact, and they drive around you.
The Vietnamese also rush to start their day early – 5 a.m. is a common waking time. Get ready to witness an army of young and old, stretching, playing badminton or greeting the sun with some yoga moves in parks. By noon, they get tired and doze off for an hour or so wherever they are – behind a desk, in a bank or in a makeshift bed right on the street.
In big cities, people are squeezed for space and live in tiny flats, which are sometimes composed of bedrooms only. That’s why they turn sidewalks into public eating spaces – not to be confused with a restaurant. Sitting on plastic chairs, people are intermixed with motorbikes, passersby and power lines.
The latter are a sight to behold. Hundreds of wires stretching from every energy-consuming household dangle over your head, very much like spider webs. Being of very low quality, they often break, and electricians find it easier to stretch out a new one rather than go looking for faults.
In Vung Tau, a coastal town about two-hour’s ride from Ho Chi Minh City via a Soviet speed boat, you can relax and let go. There are few motorbikes around. If you stay on the Back Beach, you might even forget you are in Vietnam.
It became a favorite destination for high-profile officers and priests when the country was still a colony, but then the town lost its popularity to other resorts. Many villas are built in French colonial style, adding to an overall European feel.
As Vung Tau started pushing to restore its old charm and lure herds of tourists back, now is the right time to visit. As one Australian put it: “I come here so that I can have all the waves to myself.”
The South China Sea is warm and stormy in this part of the coast, making it a perfect spot for playing in the waves and surfing. The water was not particularly clean, though – either because of sand stirred by the currents or because of the oil platforms operating in the region, and inevitably polluting the water. Vung Tau is the only petroleum base of Vietnam, where crude oil and natural gas exploration activities dominate the city’s economy.
Russian-Vietnamese joint oil ventures employ many Russians and Ukrainians that live in a Soviet built quarter. They run a few restaurants and bars, and generally make it easier to digest Vietnam for Russian speakers who arrive.
After a week of egg fried rice, shrimp and pho soup, which the Vietnamese eat even for breakfast, I was genuinely starving for home food. The quality and taste of seafood were amazing, and prices very affordable. But it turned out that European stomachs need some ordinary meat cuts once in awhile. The Kozak Restaurant, run by a friendly Ukrainian restaurateur will cater to your needs, if you have the same problem.
To Hoi An, I came full of hopes that the tailoring capital of Vietnam will be something like a Hollywood fitting studio set in scenic landscapes that are commonly seen in Chinese movies.
Looking back, this was the only place I regret visiting. It is a gorgeous colonial village of faded yellow mansions with tiled roofs and shutters, a muddy little river where things get transported on bamboo rafts and curvy ancient Chinese pagodas.
Yet, you can’t enjoy any of it because it’s overcrowded with tailor shops screaming at you from all corners. Even if you hate shopping, you can’t escape it. Never take your girlfriend there; otherwise, you will have to endure hours of choosing, bargaining, then fitting, refitting and, finally, looking sorry at yourself in the mirror.
Despite reassuring travel guides, tailors don’t always get it right. They can make it a perfect fit, yet advise you on a wrong fabric. If you still end up in Hoi An though, choose pricier tailors. They will save you time and nerves.
As to romantic retreats, there’s hardly a better place than Ha Long Bay, the inlet of a descending dragon. An intriguing seascape of two thousand green islets sticking out of the water feels like a filming set for the Lord of the Rings. According to legend tracing back to a war with China, dragons came down from heaven spitting jewels in the water, which then turned into rocks, forming a great wall against invaders.
To experience this divine beauty and tranquility, take a trip on one of the junk boats. Ships imitating ancient Chinese vessels intensify the unique cultural experience in the bay of jungle-like vegetation, fishing villages and exotic wildlife. It takes four hours to get to the bay from the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. I recommend taking a two-day cruise, but making it a day trip is also possible.
A two-day trip with full board, kayaking, cave exploration and a roundtrip from Hanoi will cost you $100. And, it’s worth every penny. Before visiting Hanoi, you might read in travel guides about its striking resemblance to Paris. If you ever go there on this premise, you might as well be prepared to start suing these travel gurus.
A busy center of commerce, it combines anything from hardware rows to shoe lanes, swarms of bikers, polluted air, and power webs in the old quarter, making it feel more like a rundown Ukrainian town by the sea than any of the Parisian suburbs I’ve seen.
And yet I want to go back to it for its inconceivable union of ancient culture and sprouts of resilience against the foreign attempts to take it over.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliya Popova can be reached at popova@kyivpost.com.
1. For an affordable flight, book Aeroflot or Vietnamese Airlines early and you can get a roundtrip ticket for Hr 5,500.
2. For domestic flights, check out Vietnamese Airlines or Jetstar. You can get a return flight for only $50, provided you book ahead. Buying on the same day will double the cost.
3. Quality hotels will be around $50 per night
4. A two-course meal with a soda drink is $10 on average
5. Ukrainians need a visa to Vietnam, $25-$35 depending on urgency
6. Ha Long Bay two-day tour – $100
7. Tailored silk casual dress – $30 – $50
8. Tailored two-piece suit – $150 – $250
9. Traditional Vietnamese hat – $1
