Guide or no guide
 

Our itinerary brings us into Hanoi and has us leaving from HCMC. As we did in India, we have arranged a car and driver to ease our exploration of each of the cities. The agent in Vietnam has said the driver may not speak any English and has recommended a guide. Although we will have a guide for many other parts of the trip (trekking in Sapa, the Citadel in Hue, My Son in Hoian and the Mekong Delta) we prefer to explore more “on our own”. Is this a mistake? Does anyone have experience with or without guides through these cities? Any idea if “no English” means “poor English” and is actually enough to communicate our needs for the day?

We're just back & I can see pluses and minuses to your plan to have a car and druver for the big cities. Traffic is incredibly horrible, and I don't really know if you will need a driver just to explore the cities. I think you could just as easy hire taxis to go to a place when you want to go there.

On our trip we had 3 different drivers for expeditions outside of the major cities--one driver was HCMC based and two Hanoi based. None of them spoke any English as far as I could tell. What I would highly recommend, however, is to request drivers whose cars have seat belts installed in the back where you will be riding. Only one of our vehicles had rear seatbelts, and I felt quite nervous because of the horribly crazy traffic.

Personally, I prefer not to have a guide unless there is really something for which I need to be "guided." And while a car and driver can be very convienent, sometimes it can be much more trouble than it is worth. (I recall the recent post by someone who had a car and driver in bangkok, and it took them 45 minutes to go from one site to another when the other site was on the next block!)

In Hanoi, I did not use either a guide or a car and driver. We had a car and driver for our out of town daytrip to the Perfume Pagoda. In town, we used taxis as necessary, but we walked a lot, which I prefer when practical. So if it were me, I'd pass on both the guide and the car and driver for my in-city time. Use a car and driver (my experience was that the non-English speaking drivers speak enough English for you to tell them where you want to go, etc.) for out of town trips.

Having been several times to Vietnam, most of it you can explore on your own if you do your homework ahead of time.

The advantage of hiring a guide once in a while is that they can show you stuff that most likely you would not find on your own.

Hanoi is a great base - and so many fantastic trips available from there. One of the better travel companies is Handspan - a little bit more than some, but they do a great job.



If you want something a little different - I would strongly recommend a fellow who works out of Hanoi. His name is Phuong and he goes by the nickname of "Smiley". He can be reached by email at [email protected]

Smiley is certainly one of the nicest people you could hope to meet. Knowledgable, honest, good sense of humour, and he speraks English very well. We have used him many times, and have recommended him to friends - who all reaved about his services.

Some interesting areas to visit out of Hanoi are Sapa, Tam Coc, Ninh Binh, Halong Bay, etc.

It's a fabulous country - enjoy your trip.

We used a car, drive, and English speaking guide for an afternoon in HCMC because we had limited time and it worked very well. In Hanoi we used pedi-cabs and it was fun and we went everywhere. No guide, I don't think we missed anything. Our agent could not get us an English speaking guide for our day in Han Lon Bay but it was a pleasure not to have one. The driver did not speak English but on such a long day it was certainly not necessary. I hate going into a cave and having someone tell me that the rock looks like a chicken. You will not want a car in Hoi An, distance too small in town, walk or take a cab. Only need car for daylong excursions.