Help w/ details - 21 days in Vietnam
 

I posted my tentative 6-week itinerary for Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand a few weeks ago, and everyone was very helpful. Now I'm trying to iron out some of the details, and hope you can help us out. We are currently stationed in Iraq, so it's really difficult to plan from here since we have very little time and sporadic Internet availability. We've done a LOT of reading both on this site and guidebooks, but planning this long of a trip while stationed here is challenging, so forgive me if I ask tons of silly questions.

We will start our trip in Thailand and Cambodia, then go to Vietnam from 14 March to 03 April. So for just the Vietnam portion of the trip, we're planning:
Day 0 - fly Siem Reap to Hanoi
Days 1-5 Hanoi
Days 6-7 Halong Bay
Day 8 - Fly Hanoi to Danang, bus to Hoi An
Days 9-12 Hoi An (+ day in My Son)
Day 13 - Fly Danang to Nha Trang
Days 14-15 Nha Trang
Day 16 - Fly Nha Trang to HCMC
Days 17-18 HCMC
Days 19-20 Trip from HCMC to Mekong Delta
Day 21 - Depart HCMC

OK, my questions:
* Thoughts on this itinerary in general? Are there places we should add or remove? Trying to find a balance between not running around too much, but also getting to see as much as we can. I figure that when we're in Hanoi and Hoi An, we can always take day trips from there if we want to, but I think we'd rather settle into a home base for a few days vs. running around too much. But please tell me if I'm leaving out someplace wonderful.
* I originally had Hue in our itinerary, and dropped it in favor of more time in Hanoi and Hoi An. Thoughts on that decision?
* We have scheduled 3 in-country flights, as that seemed the best way to cover those long distances, vs. using a driver or a bus. One of my guide books recommended bus travel so you could see the countryside; but I'm not sure I want to spend a day on the bus; seems we could get a car/driver to take a day trip to the countryside. Have most of you traveled via air or ground?
* We are working with a travel agent for our international flights to/from Asia, and some of our Thailand and Cambodia travel, just because we have so little time here to plan. However, their Vietnam branch will only book our flights if we book hotels through them as well. Seems like overkill to me; we stay in budget to mid-range hotels/guesthouses, and I am used to booking myself online. What have your experiences been? We'll be offline for the next several weeks, so I wouldn't be able to make hotel reservations until early January, for our stay in March. Is this likely to be a problem, since we're not looking for fancy hotels?
* Has anyone had bad experiences getting a visa for Vietnam? Obviously we have no Embassy here to go to. We'll be in BKK for a few days, but I heard that it takes 5 workdays to get the visa there. One guidebook says we can get a Vietnam visa in Cambodia in 15 minutes for about $30. Has anyone tried that? I just don't want to take any chances on having problems later.

Thanks for your help with all of our questions. We are working nearly 24/7 here, and this trip is our reward for being in Iraq, so I want it to be wonderful, but it's difficult to plan from over here. Any thoughts re: places not to miss, what I really need to plan/book now vs. which things we can play by ear once we get there, etc., would be very reassuring. Thanks for all of your help!

I think it looks good. One place you aren't going is Hue which I think is a must -- much more interesting than Hoi An. Perhaps you could reduce your time there. Halong Bay only needs one day. I love Hanoi but you could also reduce it by one day in order to go to Hue.

Your itinerary looks good, copilot.

I would strongly disagree with glorialf about Hue vs. Hoi An. Not sure how long Hue has been this way, but it was almost impossible to move outside one's hotel because of aggressive sales people. Trying to walk down the street was like running a gauntlet. The sellers, especially the cyclo drivers just will NOT leave you alone, and they won't take no for an answer. No means please badger me some more. It was absolutely exhausting.

On the other hand, Hoi An has some kind of harrassment ordinance. If the police see somebody hassling tourists, they will roust them very quickly. It is possible to actually walk down the street in Hoi An.

I would highly recommend the Hoi An Hotel in Hoi An. It is right in the heart of the tourist area, walking distance to many restaurants. Of course, you might want to take a motorbike or cyclo just for the fun of it. We had a deluxe room booked through vietnamstay.com for $50 US including tax and huge buffet breakfast. It was indeed deluxe.

Several of the guidebooks trumpet Hue as the culinary capital of Vietnam. We did not find that to be the case. We had restaurant recommendations from Lonely Planet, Frommers, and Let's Go guidebooks but had problems finding a decent place to eat other than La Carambole. Many of the recommended restaurants were open air storefront places with plastic everything and zero appeal. One highly recommended one actually smelled of urine. Since the dining area emcompassed the street, that is probably precisely what the smell was.

We ended up at a restaurant that had a huge crowd, all locals. Seems they had already eaten all the food. No Tiger beer, no prawns, no chicken, no pork, no this, no that. We should not have stayed but we were beaten down by then. When we finally did get food in fifteen minute intervals for each dish, it was awful. We barely ate.

I can help on the HCMC and Mekong Delta part if you have any questions. I did this with my son in Feb 04. I was a combat medic in 67-68(9th infantry-Mekong Delta) and wanted to return, My advice:
In HCMC stay as close to the river as possible, this way you are easily able to get to these fast boats that travel the rivers, lots of fun and MUCH faster than by car. We took a 45 min. ride to Vung Tau and had a blast, climbed onto the roof of the boat-they don't care. We stayed at the Majestic and were very pleased (about $85./night).By the way I found that most Vietnamese call it Saigon.
Travel by road (car or bus) is excruciatingly slow because of the thousands of motorbikes on the roads with seemingly no rules. Your car trip into the delta ( Can Tho I presume) will be 5-6 hours of avoiding motorbikes.
I used Exotissimo Travel (www.exotissimo.com) and an agent named Truong was very competent, arranged everything. Drivers met us on time and took us everywhere, even met us at the Dalat airport, which is far from Dalat.
In Can Tho the Victoria was very nice (about $90./night). Take a sunset river cruise on the Mekong.
I finally got to see a beautiful sunset over the Mekong without dreading the night and found Vietnam to be inexpensive and fabulous. We hope to go back but Bangkok awaits us in February. Enjoy, Russ.

Dang! We didn't even think of taking a boat to the Mekong Delta. And yes, it would have been preferable to the slow van trip. We stayed at the Saigon Riverside, just up the street from the Majestic. Dated but cheap and perfectly acceptable rooms if you didn't mind the leopard pattern blankets instead of bedspreads and the low water pressure in the bath.

I would agree that you only need one day in Halong Bay and you could probably cut a day off of Hanoi although we loved it there. We just spent three days in Hue and were impressed. STayed at the Saigon Morin which I think is overpriced. I have never slept on such a hard bed in my life. We really enjoyed the tombs and the citadel. Hue is a much prettier city than many others we saw in Vietnam. We did a full day DMZ tour from there so if you didn't want to do that, one full day of touring in Hue is probably enough.

I personally love HoiAn. I like to shop and the shopping there is so much fun. There are numerous tailoring stores, some quality art galleries and the market is fun. But the best is the food, by far the best we had in Vietnam. Make sure you have the fish wrapped in banana leaves - it is excellent. We took a cooking class at one of the restaurants that face the river. It was only $10 which included lunch - I would recommend that if you have a rainy afternoon. We also went on a boat ride up the river which was interesting. MySon is worth the trip. The Cu Dai beach is absolutely beautiful. It is about 4 km from historic part of town.

Have fun - Vietnam is beautiful

Pam

While I agree with the other postings that it is possible to do Halong Bay in one day, I would stick with your plan of staying two days there. Spending a night on a Chinese junk among the limestone outcroppings of Halong Bay was an unforgettable experience for us. It is so peaceful there in the evening and morning, and provided a refreshing break from the traffic and noise of the cities. Maybe we were just lucky to have perfect weather, and a really exceptional group of fellow travelers on our boat, but I would not trade that experience for anything!

I think u could reduce a day in Hanoi. I would stay with an overnight cruise to Halong Bay - if you do it at all best done at leisure coz travel time to and fro makes it a very hectic day. I think the day u reduce from Hanoi (which I love by the way, just feel with this itinerary u could use it somewhere else) could be added to Saigon (if u like cities).

I agree with Pam1951 that the food in Hoi An was the best we had in any of the places we visited.

I spent a week in Hanoi and felt it was well worth it. There is plenty to do and see.

Ialso agree that you must stay overnight on a junk ship to fully enjoy Halong bay. You don't get a good feel for the place on a day trip. We found the break of staying overnight on the boat to be very peaceful and relaxing, not to mention beautiful