Vietnam suggestions, please
 

We are very excited about our first trip to Vietnam. We plan around 30 days there. First stop, Hanoi. Plan to see Halong Bay (overnight) Denang, Hoi An, Hue and Saigon. Is Sapa another good place to go? Our time frame is the month of June. We have reservations at De Syloia Hotel for the first 3 days. (Thanks to suggestions on this board). What hotels and transportation to the above mentioned cities do you recommend? Thanks. Vicky

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hi bajaflash - one hotel I can really recommend in Hoi An is the almost completed Life Resort Hoi An River Park. It's very close to the old town, but quiet and peaceful, no motorbike noise. Rooms have Zen feel and are lovely. I stayed there a couple of weeks ago and the manager said they were just waiting for final touches for website photography so you should be able to find it on the web in a week or so. The food wasn't fantastic but am sure will improve when it's fully operating - anyway, just around the corner one of the best Vietnamese meals we had in the country was at Restaurant Nescafe 62, 62 Phan Boi Chau St, Hoi An - the proprietor's name is Ut and she's a wonderful cook.

Reading Pat's post I recalled that in China (I'm told) you'll almost always pay a lot more for a hotel room if you book via a website compared with turning up at the door and haggling - maybe twice as much. Looking up the Life Resort Hoi An River Park I saw rooms advertised for US$38-73, compared with alleged rack rates of $79-130, and wondered whether the Chinese "rule" is equally valid in Vietnam? Certainly those rack rates are a lot of money in Vietnam, but then so are the website rates.

Thank you so much Pat and Neil!! We have always traveled without reservations except for our first night and last night (maybe) and I love your information. I think we will just "fly by the seat of our pants" on the rest of our Vietnam trip. I have had so many tips on this website and I thank you all again. Any more suggestions?

I love the help I have gotten on this site. As a first time visitor to Vietnam I am going to make "resers" when we get there. If there are govermant holidays, saint days, we could be out of luck. But you have no idea how excited I am! This is a wonderful time in our life. We finally are getting to travel and we are GOING FOR IT!

Bajaflash, Pat's recommendation for Hoi An sounds pretty good to me, but I could mention the place we stayed at too, which was fine and centrally located - the Hoi An Hotel,
6 Tran Hung Dao St (tel 84-4-8253315, fax 84-4-8269818). Obviously I can't compare it to Pat's, though. For the record, the following we also found to be at least adequate (can't tell you the prices, sorry, we were on a package tour):
Hue - Century Riverside, 49 Le Loi St (tel 84-54-823390, fax 84-54-823399), large Russian-built place with a good location - only complaint, dodgy electrics.
HCMC - Grand Hotel, a French-era establishment in a very good location,
8 Dong Khoi St (tel 84-8-8230163 fax 84-8-8235781. No complaints, except from one female member of the group who was dismayed to be propositioned (along with her husband) by an in-house masseuse.....
Halong Bay - Halong 2 Hotel, Halong Rd, Bai Chay (tel 84-33-846321, fax 84-33-846318) - the most basic we stayed at, adequate for one night though.
You could keep these in mind unless you score places that are obviously better for your purposes.

BTW, just so you can judge our standards, we don't look for 4/5-star hotels - as long as the place was in a good location, clean, comfortable, not too noisy and air-conditioned we were happy. We don't stay too long in our room and we don't usually eat in hotel restaurants.

Have a great time (I'm sure you will).

Hello again bajaflash - we also always prebook hotel for the first night or two in a strange country, then sort it out from there. I'm glad you have pre-booked De Syloia - it's in a good area - we tried to stay there and if you have a look at my recent thread "Hotel Scam at Hanoi Airport" you'll see why we were thwarted.

Neil, I don't know what we paid for Life Resort at Ho An, but it couldn't have been too much. We started trip in Saigon and after a few days at Caravelle and the old Continental then booked 2 day trip on Mekong with hotel at Can Tho (this was a shocker) which included breakfast and lunch; soft sleeper in a/c Reunification Express to Danang; car transfer from Danang to Ho An; two nights in Life Resort with full b'fasts; one night in Saigon Morin with b/fast in Hue and air fares from Hue to Hanoi. We booked through Go Vietnam in Saigon and the price seemed reasonable. When we reached Hanoi we did try to bargain at Guoman Hotel but they wouldn't go below US$68 a night including b/fast for a 7 night stay. Their rack rate was advertised at US70-180. I guess how much you can bargain them down depends on their occupancy - the Guoman was busy. In Hanoi I didn't find bargaining in shops as easy as or Thailand or Indonesia- there was a lot of pressed bamboo tableware around that I could buy for only a little more in Freedom in Cairns and the nicest handicrafts I found were in fixed price stores.

Thanks, Pat. In regard to bargaining, I remember being told by a friend who'd worked in Vietnam for some years that as a good luck tradition Buddhist shopkeepers work really hard to make a sale to the first customer of the day to walk through the door, even if it meant a loss. One morning we put this to the test - woke at the crack of dawn and spent a delightful couple of hours strolling around the lake and the city before the hawkers arrived, then went looking for a backpack in a row of shops near the lake. The only shopkeeper with what we were looking for was just opening for business and we applied our admittedly poor bargaining skills for 10 minutes to no effect whatever: it became clear that the owner couldn't have cared less whether we bought or not. Even walking away produced no response whatever. We concluded that he was probably a Catholic.

Hi Neill - I think I went to that shop too. The owner would not come down a dong under the price for a small suitcase but when I showed interest in a small, cheap, embroidered handbag he threw that in with the suitcase price. I read somewhere that the first sale of the day is very important to the shopkeepers - it's very inauspicious if they don't do well as bad luck will follow for the next month.

Pat - I wish somebody had told the guy we were dealing with!

Bajaflash - you shouldn't have to worry about public holidays - there are none in June anyway*. The Vietnamese government, even though Communist in name only, isn't all that big on saints' days, and I doubt that the Catholic minority are too fussed one way or the other. We arrived in HCMC just before an unusual 4-day weekend (Reunification/Liberation Day + International Labour Day) - and while the city had a holiday air commerce continued unabated, or at least not much abated.

*www.holidayfestival.com/Vietnam.html

Bajaflash - I forgot to mention that the food is truly terrible in sleeper section of Reunification Express train. If you find yourself on it for any length of time, ask your hotel to pack something you can take with you. Ours was just inedible, and I'm not too fussy about food,- a congealed mass of overcooked rice, shrimp that had seen far better days(in fact they were going black) and a lump of pork gristle and fat.

having been to Vietnam 3 times you have a wonderful trip in store. Last year I stayed at the De Syloia hotel in Hanoi which was very nice. They have a good restaurant in the hotel. Be sure and go to the water Puppet Show-very neat. It was my first trip to Halong Bay last year. I stayed overnight in a very basic place. The ride out there show you so much of the countryside-the farming with the water buffalo. It was misty out on Halong Bay which made it looke like a fairyland. You will enjoy walks along the lake in Hanoi where there will be young people wanting to practice their English. I found Indochine a nice restaurant. Having been a teacher The Temple of Literature was very interesting to me. The most annoying thing is the touts who are students wanting to sell books.
In Saigon I have sayed in the Majestic and Grand Hotel the Majestic down on the river. If you do not stay there go up on the roof to view the river and have some coconut ice cream. In Saigon you might enjoy a buffet on the river boat near the Majestic Hotel which I enjoyed. Sure you will want to go out to Chu Chi Tunnels one day. Also the Ben Tanh Market will be interesting to visit.
Vieited Denang,but do not think it is a city I would want to stay overnight.
In Hue take a trip down the Perfume River to see the old tomb of Ming Mang. We stayed at The Century Hotel in Hue.
I have not been to Sapa,but will be happy to share other info with you.
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