Hi everybody,
In January 2018 we went to visit Cambodia and Vietnam. We organized to see as many places as possible in almost 20 days.
The trip generally went well, although there is a lot of pollution, a lot of dirt and the hotels are also filthy. Even though we searched booking.com for hotels with 5 stars for cleanliness, when we arrived, they were always super dirty and there were incredible amounts of dust everywhere.
We started in Cambodia and went to Koh Rong Samloem and Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. Then the tour of Vietnam began. In Hanoi, we had a very bad experience with a travel agency with whom we booked the Sapa and Halong Bay excursions. This spoiled those days quite a bit and took our spirits down a lot.
Also, at this point in the trip, we were already tired of people harassing us to sell things. Every time you left the ruins or went down the street, the vendors were shouting at you: “shopping?”, “Very cold drink”, “something to drink?”, “Something to buy?”. Oppressive.
We already needed some quiet.
The last stop on this trip was Hoi An, a place that all the tourists we had come across had spoken highly of. This city is considered the most beautiful in Vietnam.
We stayed in a big, new house that was about a 15-minute bike ride from the center. It was a house with several rooms that functioned as a B&B. The first thing I have to say is that it was the first time, in the 20 days of traveling, that we saw a vacuum cleaner. The room was big, new, and super clean. Things were already starting well.
We had free bikes at the hotel, which was another great thing. So, we grabbed our bikes and headed downtown. Where we were staying, you could hardly see people in general, but when you got to the center, that was a sea of people everywhere.
It was all cute, colorful, and not as loud as Ho Chi Minh, for example. Everywhere you saw people with their bikes, and we would get to where the center began, we would leave the bicycles and walk. It was safe, so you wouldn’t have to worry that the bikes would be stolen.
We had a great time in Hoi An, we had good bike rides through the rice fields, we went to the beach, we ate very well, and we visited the My Son ruins.
As you can see in the photos, we had a lot of rain, but we still enjoyed the stay. When we were there, we bought a ticket to the ancient city that included admission to five places, and we visited one of each category. If you want to visit the places without people, go very early because at 11am the mega buses full of Chinese begin to arrive and that becomes crazy.
This city is famous for its tailors; In all the places they have catalogs with dresses and suits that they make from one day to the next. A curious thing is that we saw a lot of clothes with fruit designs; I bought a watermelon dress, a banana jumpsuit and so on. I was going crazy all over the city looking at the little dresses and I wanted to buy everything.
In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, for example, the number of motorcycles and the traffic was insane. To cross the streets, we got close to the local people and so we crossed. Also, imagine the noise. In Hoi An that number of motorcycles and traffic does not exist, which I consider very important.
In short, my experience in this city was the best or among the best of the trip. If you plan to go to Vietnam, please sign up Hoi An as a mandatory stop.
Here is the link to my YouTube video in case you want to see a little of Hoi An: