Hi there,
I noticed that I did a couple of posts about the trip to Vietnam, but I didn’t tell you about the overall experience. When we were planning the trip, we had several destinations from which we selected Vietnam and Cambodia because culturally it was what caught our attention the most. From the beginning, Diego insisted that I prepare myself mentally for dirt, especially knowing how obsessive I am with cleaning, but the truth is that I did not expect what I found.
- Dirt
There is a lot of dirt and garbage in general everywhere. On top of this, the hotels are disgusting.
We booked hotels for 15 euros per person per night (which is not a cheap price there), with the highest cleanliness score on booking.com and even so, the hotels were disgusting. Apart from not cleaning common areas well, in the hotels there were kilos of dust everywhere.
In a hotel in Hanoi, I went down to the reception to complain about the dirt in the room and with photos so that the receptionist could see the amounts of dust and she stared at me as if I was crazy. There Diego told me “Look at the amount of shit the keyboard has, this lady doesn’t understand what you’re saying”.
In Hoi An it was the only place we saw pleople cleaning and vacuuming in the hotel in 20 days of travel.
- 0 hospitality
The care in general was dire. They treated you well to do the tours and once they got the money, things changed drastically.
In Hanoi we booked two tours with an agency because the owner seemed competent, but the experience we had ruined those days of the trip. Everything the guy told us was half a lie and then there was no way to contact him or where to find him. In addition, those of us who were later in the agency when we went to claim, coincidentally did not speak English.
On the Sapa tour we found more tourists from Sweden, the United Kingdom and Ireland and they all agreed with me that the Vietnamese were very nice when they wanted to sell and, once they got the money, they changed completely.
In many restaurants they also tried to cheat you and charge you for dishes that you had not ordered, taking advantage of the fact that they did not speak English very well and it was difficult to understand them.
In Vietnam it’s all about money and tips, they get as much out of you as they can.
- Decay
The hotels were in a deplorable state, and it was evident that there was no maintenance or restoration.
The cruise we stayed on in Halong Bay was “deluxe” and the rooms were disgusting. Perhaps 50 years ago when they were new, the luxury could be seen, but not when I was there.
In addition, in cold places, hotels are not even well insulated. In Hanoi the window in our room was half broken and the air conditioner was not able to heat the room.
- Pollution
Just like in Cambodia, there was a lot of rubbish. It was hard for me to spend so much time in such a polluted environment and I spent many days with a terrible cough.
In short, the overall experience in Vietnam was not good. In addition to being all dirty, you had to fight because the hotels were disgusting, because they harassed you to sell you things, because they wanted to cheat you for being a tourist and in the restaurants, they wanted to overcharge you. So, the trip was psychologically exhausting.
Only in Hoi An we were good because the hotel was new and immaculate; besides, the city was fairly clean. It was the only place where we found a restaurant where we ate well.
There is also something very important to consider for any trip: ALL the photos you see on the internet are retouched. Starting in Vietnam, we began to pay close attention to this and keep in mind that one is going to find things uglier and dirtier than in the photos; much more if they are agency photos.
There are countries to which I would return a thousand times, but Vietnam is a “never again”.
