Vietnam

After nearly three months of travelling abroad (and countless hours of pre-trip research), we have picked up various tips and tricks for international travel. Then again, we haven’t exactly earned the title of “saavy travelers” quite yet. Earlier this week, we came within a few minutes of missing our flight out of Amsterdam because we didn’t realize that the clocks had moved an hour forward that night. Oops. (Tip #1: Beware of Daylights Savings Time!)

Anyway, here are some notable tips and tricks for international travel:

Get a No-Fee Credit Card: Many credit cards charge a so-called “currency conversion” fee for international purchases, often set at 3 percent. Be mindful of the fee charged by your credit card and, ideally, find a card that does not charge such a fee, or charges a low fee. Capital One credit cards, for instance, charge no fee at all. (This is the credit card that we have used exclusively during our travels.)

Get a No-Fee or Low-Fee ATM Card: The same also holds true for ATM cards. Many banks charge a standard fee (often $5) plus a currency conversion fee for all ATM withdrawals. (This can add up fast.) Consider moving some money to a bank with lower fees, or no fee at all. After some research, E-Trade seems to offer one of the best combinations of high interest rates and low fees for international ATM withdrawals.

Budget Airlines: Travelers can save a lot of money by booking budget airlines for intra-region flights. Most of these airlines are not listed on Expedia or Travelocity, so you have to go direct to their websites to check out fares. We’ve found that a flight on a regular airlines can be double, or sometimes even triple, the cost of a budget airline flight. In Southeast Asia, we used AirAsia and JetStar several times. We used the budget option Virgin Blue in Australia, and we just recently flew on SkyEurope in Europe. (Europe has a slew of budget choices.)

Obtain Multiple Credit Cards & ATM Cards: While travelling in New Zealand, our E-Trade ATM card was deactivated due to so-called “suspicious activity.” (No idea why.) In order to get it reactivated, E-Trade required that I mail them a signed letter notarized by a notary public. Totally ridiculous. And next to impossible considering we were in the Middle of Nowhere, New Zealand at the time. Fortunately, we brought along a second ATM card (from a different bank) that we used until the E-Trade card was reactivated.

Call Your Bank and Credit Card Company Before You Leave. Make sure you tell them where you’re going to be, so they don’t deactivate your account once you start ringing up charges in strange countries.

Packing Cubes. We pack all of our clothes and items into several different packing cubes, which then fit easily into our suitcase. We'll never again take a trip without them.

Lonely Planet Guidebooks. We’ve purchased guidebooks for every place we’ve been, and they’ve been worth every cent. For New Zealand and Southeast Asia, the most popular (and revered) guidebooks seem to be Lonely Planet and the Rough Guides. But here’s a word of warning for using Lonely Planet in Southeast Asia: the books are great, but just about EVERYONE uses them throughout the region. So if there’s a hotel that Lonely Planet strongly recommends, it will probably be booked up. If there’s a restaurant they rave about, it will probably be packed and the prices will likely be jacked up. The books are definitely a bit too popular. (I have not used the Rough Guides before, but this reason alone would probably make me look strongly at using them instead.)

*****

On a related note, we’ve heard from a few of you that trips to New Zealand are now in the works. Very cool. We’ve had a blast everywhere so far, but our favorite overall spots have probably been New Zealand and also Vietnam. (Amy keeps raving and raving about Vietnam...)

Of the places that we didn’t go (but we wish did, if we had more time): In New Zealand, we heard good things about the Bay of Islands up on the North Island; and several people raved about whale watching and swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura. In Southeast Asia, we really wanted to go see Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia---but we ran out of time. We also heard people rave about the crystal clear waters and fantastic diving on the Perhentian Islands in Malayasia. (One person described the Perhentians as “like the Maldives, with less crowds and at a fraction of the cost.”) We also heard great things about Borneo, also in Malaysia. (Maybe next time…)

Anyway, we just spent the last week split between Amsterdam and Prague. More soon...

Okay, so it has been way too long since we’ve updated our blog! The last week has been incredibly busy for us….and we’ve seen some amazing sites. Hopefully we’ll be able to catch you up in the next couple days. Our last stay in Vietnam was an unplanned visit to a central mountain town called Dalat. Originally, we hadn’t planned on visiting this city (it’s not a widely-known tourist destination outside of the Vietnam citizens). But, while travelling in Laos, we might a fellow tourist who told us that Dalat was his favorite city in Vietnam. Remembering this, we decided at the last-minute to ditch our plans to see Sapa (another overnight trip from Hanoi) and instead catch the next flight to Dalat. And were we glad we did – Dalat was delightful!

Dalat is a mountain town of 188,000 people, popular among the Vietnamese as a weekend and holiday destination. Known for it’s cooler climate, as it’s a welcome reprieve for the locals to get away from the humidity and heat. This was evident when we arrived to see all the locals were wearing pants, long sleeves and coats. For Kevin and me, the climate was perfect – warm enough for tank tops and shorts, yet cool enough that we didn’t overheat as we did in other Vietnam cities.

The city itself isn’t that much different from other Vietnam cities we’d visited – motorbike traffic is still the preferred transportation method, although perhaps slightly less congested than other major cities. But it wasn’t the downtown city that made us fall in love with Dalat. It was the gems we found once you ventured past the urban walls into the countryside: lush green valleys, hills (mountains by Vietnam standards) and all the activities and sports that any outdoor enthusiast could want. We had four nights in Dalat and we didn’t waste any time filling them up and getting ourselves outside the city to where the real beauty lied.

We had discovered in our research on Dalat that canyoning was offered there. After our introduction to canyoning in New Zealand (and based on how much we enjoyed it) we knew we would have to try it here in Dalat. And Dalat didn’t fail – it was so much fun! We weren’t sure how it would stack up to New Zealand’s -- but we found ourselves discussing afterwards which country had the better canyoning. In the end we couldn’t decide – they both were so much fun. One thing is for sure – Dalat offered the most challenging and tallest waterfalls that we rapelled. The largest being 82 feet and the water pressure unreal. We were literally rapelling down the waterfalls with the water crashing over us – it took everything we had in concentration, well-timed breaths (when we found an opportunity to grab a much-needed breath) and all our strength to fight the waterfall and make it down to the bottom. To say the least – it was exhilarating!

Dalat is also well-known for its mountain biking. We decided to spend one of our days on a guided mountain bike tour. This turned out to be the most physically demanding activity we have completed so far on our trip. We ended up in a private group with just the two of us and two guides – Ming and Kahn. They were great, but I don’t think Kevin and I realized what we were getting ourselves into when we signed up for the “easy” tour. The ride was a full day that started with some city riding (which was a bit nerve-racking initially – remember the crazy motorbike traffic we’ve been telling you about? Well now imagine riding a bicycle in that traffic – and trying to cross intersections with no traffic lights. Scary!). Luckily, the city riding was minimal and very quickly we were riding through lazy country roads. The scenery was beautiful – mostly farmlands. However, this riding didn’t last long before we went off-road and into their single track mountain-riding. I’ve never rode through a more beautiful area, but there was nothing lazy about this style of riding. It was insanely difficult and challenging – we were true mountain bikers! (And whoever called this the “easy” ride had to be out of their minds!) At any rate, Kevin and I were exhausted by time we stopped for a much needed lunch break. After lunch we still had a couple hours of riding before we returned back to Dalat for the end. What a ride – I don’t think we’ve ever slept as well as we did that night.

Finally, on our last full day in Dalat we decided to take a break and hire a couple “Easy Riders” for a motor-bike tour of the area. The Easy Riders are a group of 60 or so motorbike guides who offer tours of Dalat and the surrounding countryside to tourists. Our guides took us outside of the city and into the country. We got to visit some minority villages, meeting some of these locals, seeing where they live and visiting their schools. But the best part had to be riding on the back of the motorbike and seeing the beautiful mountains (and a gorgeous waterfall) of Dalat. It was great fun.

After three quick days it was time for us to leave Dalat. Like the rest of Vietnam, we easily fell in love with this town. There was something very different about Dalat – it didn’t look like any other city in Vietnam – while mountain biking we felt like we could have been in central Orgeon; the farms and valleys could have been a scene from Europe. Yet there were the many similarities that made this country most certainly Vietnam – the motorbikes, the food, and the great people. Each new city that we visit in Vietnam reinforces for me how much I love this country. As our time in Vietnam comes to an end, I know that I’ll miss it. And yet, I know that Kevin and I will be back someday. This is a country in Asia that I definitely want to return.

You can see all of our Dalat picks here: Click Here

More soon (I promise!) on our remaining days in Southeast Asia.

Cheers!

Halong Bay in Vietnam is, without question, among the most scenic sights in the world. The bay consists of nearly 2,000 different limestone islands that rise spectacularly from the ocean. Incredibly stunning.

Amy and I spent three days and two nights on a “junk” boat cruising through the bay. (The term “junk” refers to the Ancient Chinese style of vessel that is found throughout the bay, not the age or quality of our boat. Our boat was anything but junky.) Fitted with multiple private bedrooms, our boat “Bai Tu Long” had ten other travellers onboard. We spent our days sailing amongst the limestone islands, exploring and rafting through caves, visiting floating villages, and doing a bit of kayaking. Tough to beat.

Of the people onboard for our first night, we were the only ones who were staying two nights on the boat. (The rest were either returning to Hanoi after one night or spending their second night at a nearby hotel.) On the morning of our second day, while our boat took the others to their next destination, a different boat picked Amy and I up for the day… and we had the entire boat to ourselves. It was a gorgeous boat with a crew of four---and we were the only two guests. We felt like we were living a life of luxury---if only for a short day. (We returned to our original boat later that evening.)

The kayaking in Halong Bay is incredible; we paddled through several different caves and emerged in lagoons surrounded by huge limestone peaks. Very cool. The downside, however, is that the water in Halong Bay is far from clean. It’s obvious that many of the junk boats (and perhaps the floating villages) dump a lot of their waste into the water. Definitely a huge shame, and it kept us from swimming in the water.

You can see all of our Halong Bay pictures here, along with photos from the rest of Vietnam. After Halong Bay, we had originally intended to take the night train to Sapa (in Northern Vietnam). But we changed our plans last-minute and are headed instead to the mountain town of Dalat, where we intend to bike, hike, and abseil in the surrounding area there. Will fill you in soon...

During our first week in Vietnam, we spent four nights in Hoi An, a small town on the central coast of the South China Sea. From there, we spent three nights in Hanoi, a large and somewhat chaotic city in northern Vietnam. Here, in no particular order, is the best and worst of our experiences in these places…

THE BEST

Food: The food in this country is fantastic, probably the best so far of our travels. From the fresh spring rolls, to the various dipping sauces, to the soups, to the vegetables, to the noodles, to the seafood… it’s been consistently good (and very cheap). There’s definitely a lot more to Vietnamese food than just pho. (And, when we return to Seattle, we will definitely be seeking it out...)

Tailors: Hoi An is world-renowned for its inexpensive, made-to-order clothing shops. The center of town is overflowing with these shops; on one block, I counted ten such shops in a row. These shops can make or duplicate just about anything that you show them (they all have samples or fashion magazines in order to pick out designs), all done and tailored within 24 hours, if needed. The shops differ widely in price, but, in a typical shop, a men’s dress shirt will cost about ten or twelve bucks, while a suit will cost about $50 to $110 (depending on quality and the type of fabric). Amy had two coats made (the gray one below only cost only $25) plus a dress, while I had a suit, a coat, and three shirts made.

Domestic Air Travel: Vietnam Airlines and JetStar offer extremely cheap fares throughout the country. While sleeper trains (and even sleeper buses with bunks instead of seats) are available and widely used, it’s hard not to just fly from place to place. Our flight from Saigon to Hoi An on Vietnam Airlines was only $37 per ticket, while Hoi An to Hanoi on JetStar was about the same.

Cooking Class: We took a great cooking class in Hoi An that involved a trip to an outdoor food market (where we sampled bizarre fruits and vegetables) and then prepared various Vietnamese dishes. I wasn’t exactly a top student. The chef shook his head at the results of my labor several times, including the “decorative” vegetables below that were supposed to resemble flowers. (See if you can guess which plate is mine and which is Amy’s.)

Beer: The beer here is very good, but its best feature is its price. A bottled beer in a restaurant is typically fifty or sixty cents, which is cheaper than a soda. And, even better, a freshly-brewed pilsner known as bia hoi or “fresh beer”, when available, is even cheaper.

The Gecko Hotel: Amy found us a fantastic place in Hanoi. Located in the heart of the Old Quarter, this hotel is almost brand new, has modern rooms, free wireless internet, a free laptop for use in the rooms, a large television, over-the-top service, and free breakfast... for $32 per night. Not too shabby.

Copycat Businesses: To our amusement, we often encounter businesses that are clear copy-cats of successful businesses from the Western world. For example, see if you can tell what coffee franchise this clearly resembles, right down to the green, circular logo…

THE WORST

Motorbikes: Motorbikes are the predominant means of transportation—by a huge, huge margin. The streets are a chaotic mass of motorbikes. On our taxi ride from Danang to nearby Hoi An, the taxi driver honked about 800 times and nearly took out about 50 bikers.

Crossing the Street in the Old Quarter: Most of the busy streets in the Old Quarter of Hanoi do not have stoplights or meaningful crosswalks---which can make it quite daunting to cross the street and evade the sea of motorbikes. Here are the three rules and tips for crossing the street, as far as we can tell: (1) Don’t wait for a significant break in the traffic since it will likely never come; (2) Walk at a constant, steady pace across the street and the traffic will move around you; (3) Do not suddenly dart for the end or stop abruptly; (4) If you get lucky and see other people trying to cross the street, join in with them; and (4) Cross your fingers and hope for the best. (Yikes.)

Motorbikes, Part II. For pedestrians, the motorbikes make it a bad idea to carelessly “stroll” down a street. The streets of Hoi An and the Old Quarter of Hanoi (where we stayed) have very narrow streets and alleyways (often without sidewalks), and the motorbikes will seemingly roar through any and all spaces, no matter how narrow it may be. To make matters worse, even when streets have sidewalks, such sidewalks are often impassable since they are filled with parked motorbikes or vendors. (Fortunately, both Hoi An and Hanoi offered street markets or promenades in the evening where certain streets were closed to motorbikes.)

Aggressive Salespeople: It’s rare to walk down the street in Hanoi and not be constantly approached by aggressive and insistent vendors or drivers about buying certain products or using a particular service. (This also makes it difficult to simply browse through items in a market.) And a simple “no” or “head shake” is often not enough. (Very annoying.) In light of the absurdity of what was sometimes often offered to us, it’s clear that these salespeople think nothing of being rejected a thousand times in a row before someone will finally say yes.

Tailors: This one belongs within both the “best” and the “worst.” I’ve described the positive aspects above, but I was basically dreading and loathing tailors by the time we left Hoi An. First, it’s completely overwhelming. Unless you arrive with a solid idea of what you want, the decisions in what tailor to choose and what you want them to make (and what type of fabric to use) can make your head spin. Definitely too many choices. Second, it’s just too time consuming. Every piece of clothing you have made requires several trips to the tailor for fittings (since it takes several times to get it just right) and, depending on the shop, may lead to some push back from the tailor about whether changes need to be made. Even Amy (who loves to shop) was exhausted and a bit disillusioned by the process (although she loved the end result). Third, it’s easy to get carried away with this. We ran into many travelers who had planned on having a few simple items made… and ended up staying for a week and having a thousand dollars worth of clothes made.

Hanoi's trash: While Hanoi and its Old Quarter definitely has its own charm, be prepared for streets littered with trash.

Haggling: Everything is negotiable here, and—especially in the street markets or touristy shops—you will often get ripped off if you don’t haggle a bit. One traveler wisely advised that the initial, suggested price is probably about forty percent higher than it should be—and that our counteroffer should be roughly sixty percent less (with the aim of eventually getting it for forty percent less). It all gets a bit tedious and makes you (often unreasonably) suspicious of all prices you see.
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Anyway, Hoi An and Hanoi are extremely different cities with a completely different vibe and charm, but we enjoyed them both very much. We'll post a link to our pictures once we get them all up on Flickr.

Up next, we head out on a three-day boat trip through scenic Halong Bay. More soon...