Exploring Ho Chi Minh City & Hoi An - Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) was one of the most interesting places we could have visited in South-East Asia.

Ho Chi Minh is a lively city, with lots of motorbikes screeching through the streets. At times it seems like a form of (un)organised chaos, with bikes parked at the traffic lights waiting for the lights to turn green, whilst pedestrians frantically attempt to cross the road in due time. Its well worth checking out some of the local markets here, with some night markets operating in the city ‘centre’, where the infamous Bull bar is located.

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As well as the nightmarkets, we also went on a day trip to the underground tunnels, which were used as hiding spots by Vietnamese soldiers to evade detection from American soldiers during the Vietnam War. There were also trap pitfalls used, which from the outside appeared to be solid ground, but were rigged so that American soldiers would fall into them to their peril. We were amazed by what we seen and experienced, the tunnels were tiny and walking through them was very tiring. The tunnels were incredibly well hidden making it hard for American soldiers to track them during the war allowing the Vietnamese to go undetected. We even found out that the tunnels had since been made even bigger to allow tourists to fit in. This seemed incredible to believe due to the sheer tininess of them!

After the tunnels we decided to go buy some more batteries for our now completely dead digital camera and go see some more sights at the war museum. We had booked a tour guide to take us to the tunnels and the bus driver agreed to drop us off at The war museum on the way back, as this wasn’t included in the trip. This is something I would advise to attempt, as both the tunnels and museum are some way out of the city centre and unless you want to try your luck on the fairly unreliable Vietnamese public transport, your best chance of getting there (in one piece! ) may be by taxi. The war museum from the outside was very impressive, it was filled with planes and tanks used in the war. However, on the inside there were many shocking pictures from wartime of things like American Soldiers carrying dead remains of local Vietnamese school girls. The whole experience was very shocking and incredibly sad, it really opens your eyes to some of the tragedies of the past of this highly beautiful country.

Hoi An

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After Ho Chi Minh we headed north to Hoi An and spent a day on the sunny beaches of Nha Trang on the way. It was evident this was more of a holiday resort type place than budget backpacker location (though I’d guess those sort of places are equally available there as well). The reason for this judgement is based purely on the amount of fancy restaurants and bars located on the beach front and the array of sunbeds lined out across the beach. Our day spent there was mostly but as soon as the sun set, the heavens opened and the place soon began to flood! Good job we had our bus tickets and it was off to Hoi An for us, hopefully the flood's wouldn't follow...

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We arrived in the old town of Hoi An after a long trip from Ho Chi Minh City. This weren't too bad as Nha Trang had a lovely beach and, as mentioned above, we got to witness the beginning of an epic flood in the evening in Nha Trang just before our second coach to Hoi An arrived.

Hoi An was a relatively quiet town with lots of culture and old buildings and the markets and the river were two of the main attractions there. However, it boasted two beaches where you could soak up the sun in the day and then go out round the bars of a night. There is a special atmosphere in Hoi An, especially when people are setting off lanterns or setting lotus flowers into the nearby river.

We also rented bicycles to ride around the town of a day time but the 1 thing about the bicycles here is that they absoloutely KILL your butt off. So after a couple of days of tearing ourselves new cracks we decided to rent a moped for a good price (around £5 a day) and took a long ride to the next town of Da Nang. Be careful where you park your scooters however as on one occasion, ours was parked for being in an invalid space! Da Nang was an interesting place, with a Buddhist statue that sits at the top of the town which is reminiscent of the Christ Redeemer in Rio De Janiero, albeit in Buddhist format. Be warned however, you’d best arrive early enough to see it in daylight, as by the time we got there, it was too dark to take any pictures! See for yourselves below:

Da Nang, similarly to Hoi An, also had a beautiful beach and the two towns were about 45 minutes from one another (or less) by scooter. Apart from the beaches and bars we made the best of the market, I got a shirt and shoes made for less than £50 in the space of a day thanks to the talented tailors of Vietnam! Vietnam truly is a beautiful country with a very sad past. If I were to go back, I’d be sure to check out the nearby Ha Long Bay as well as the capital of Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An weren’t without their charm however and I would highly advise for anyone to check out these places on their travels to Vietnam.