I’m on my sixth day for the Vietnam south to north trip! Since I have a nice room and wifi, shall update my trip till now!

This is my second time going travelling alone and my first time riding airasia. I’m not familiar with the weird practices so was quite confused at the Bangkok airport. Then in 1.5hours, I’m in hcmc. Been to hcmc ten months earlier so I still remembered there’s a direct bus to ben thanh market so off I went to the bus. The start of my I-have-to-look-confident journey. I found a room at ten USD per night and I thought it was a steal until I went to bathe at night… The water was trickling down and I couldn’t bathe at all. Hardly. But still I pressed on and tried to bathe finish. No wonder they put two mugs at the basin, otherwise the guests would take at least one hour to brush their teeth.
Hcmc was… A turnoff this time round. Partly because of all the touts I faced at every single corner, and due to the dishonest guy at the Market whom I bought coffee from. FYI, some vendors and touts on the streets are under the mafia so I had to be street wise and not bargain with him for shortchanging me, lest I get cornered into a street alley and get beaten up…ate quite a lot on the first day: pho, bread, baguette etc.
The next morning I’m off to dalat! It took nine hours to reach and by the time I was there it’s already evening. Once I got off the bus, a swarm of people came to me asking if I want to stay at their hotel. I was brought to the one opposite sinh cafe and it was decent I guess… There were two double beds and hot shower and i managed to cut the price by two to six dollars per night. Was staying there for two nights. I should have brought my sleeping bag for my exchange… Seems like I forgot the disgusting lesson I learnt at Vientiane guesthouse… They don’t change the bedsheets and the room had a musty smell. The beds in dalat was like that… Okay dalat was freaking cold at twenty degrees. I was quite disgusted by the blankets and bedsheets so I went to bed with long pants to avoid direct contact with the sheets. I didn’t pull up the blanket high enough and so the next day I had a really bad cold. And I got a full day tour to go…
The dalat tour is really good, I went to the flower plantations which had roses and carnations, coffee plantation, rock trekking to the back of a waterfall, traditional weaving house, silk cocoon factory which had dead cocoons everywhere, cricket farm, langbiang mountain and lat minority village. The most worthwhile trip ever. They even included lunch. After the tour I was half dead but I still managed to get to the night Market and shop. The winter wear is cheap in dalat because of their weather. I bought two outer wear for 15sgd and it can easily cost up to 100+ each in Singapore. Bought some preserved fruits for my mum… I bought dried Rose petals also! It tastes cool hahha. After shopping I went to try more local food like the miquang.. It’s large yellow wheat noodles but i don’t think I’m going to be a fan of it. Shop finish then its back to the guesthouse. On the third night I became smarter: I wore sweater socks long pants and turned off the fan. Lols. Still feel really sick the next day but oh wells it’s a bus ride to nha trang so should be fine! I departed dalat at 8am and reached nhatrang at 12pm.. I decided not to stay there for the night and go straight to hoi an on the 7pm bus because nhatrang is all about the beach and I have enough of beaches Lols. But I must say I was quite amazed by the beach. It’s clean and not crowdy! As i had seven hours to while away, I dragged my heavy backpack to the beach to Nuah and while away my time. I bought this really huge rice cracker from a vendor! Shall put up the photos when I’m back in Bangkok. After two hours of tanning I had enough of the sun sand and sea and decided to seek cover at a cafe. Haha I spent four hours at the cafe eating only fried rice and rumcoke Lols. After several hours of waiting and reading books (I brought three books to read) it’s time to go to hoi an! I looked forward to going to hoi an! It’s a sleeper bus that night and the whole journey took 12 hours… But I had quite a nice sleep. Met this girl from china and she treated me to some fruits ;) after reaching I started looking for a place to stay and all the guesthouse that I took down with the lowest price were charging high rates when I went. Walked for fifteen minutes and this tout stopped me and asked if I need a ride. So I asked him if he knows where is this this this street and about cheap guesthouse and he said xx had the lowest but it’s one km down the road and he asked if I want a ride at one USD. I laughed at him (seriously and sarcastically) because I don’t even pay such rates in the more expensive Bangkok. And another thing is, luckily I did homework for this trip and when he told me xx had the cheapest, I must agree he’s right. But the guesthouse was just two hundred metres from the place he stopped me. Furthermore I went to checked the prices at xx already. Obvious liars. This shows one thing: do your research and know the Market rate for everything you want to buy. If you complained that you paid xx times higher, I can only say too bad haha. Buy a lesson.

Ao I walked around and chanced upon this hh guesthouse and it’s the worst room ever. Shared bathroom, wet pillows with two mosquitoes underneath, no blankets, a dirty towel and a very musty smell. Oh wells. If I haven’t been through the worst how can I appreciate what I have back at home? I couldn’t sleep the whole night and couldn’t wait to check out. For hoi an itself, it’s a huge disappointment. I paid six USD for a stupid tour that brought me to my son, another ancient ruins. The town itself is totally touristy. Ew. Hate it. But I had the best Vietnam dish there-Cao Lau. Got lost in the town and finally made it back after forty min of walking. Btw hoi an was charging ten times the amount for the same bookmark sold in hcmc. Lols.
Then I departed at eight am for hue today. The bus took us to two tourists site and stayed there for a total one hour. Expected. Anyway there’s this lift built right beside a mountain. Lame shit. After a few hours I’m finally in hue. Hue has the hardest roads to walk and it took me quite a while to find a place to stay. I was so tired and hungry yet I need to put on a strong look to fend off touts and potential bag snatchers. I couldn’t stay on the streets for too long otherwise I would exponentially increase my chance of being robbed since I had such a big backpack on me. I bargained with many and couldnt find a rate I was satisfied with. On the last stop, this lady offered me 10usd initially but I said no and was about to walk off when the mother came and they eventually brought down the price to 7usd. The mum climbed a few storeys to show me the room, and climbed another time to get me towel and toiletries. I was already panting after climbing four storeys with my belongings and she climbed two times! Wow. I went down to make payment and the mum invited me to lunch!!! I guess it’s quite obvious that I’m tired and hungry Lols. I ate the lunch and it was good ;D the mother couldn’t speak English so I managed only smiles with her. The daughter asked where I was from, how old I am etc and she said that her mom, herself, her dad and her brother are all police. Then I got a shock and froze there. “four?!” haha. But ya they are really friendly and nice and I honestly couldnt tell they are police.
Today’s room is the best and the second cheapest. My previous rooms were all fan and for today’s room, I got a double bed, free wifi, tv, fridge, water, private and very clean bathroom, clean towel, toiletries, table and chairs, clean bedsheets and blanket, and aircon!!! Goodness. I had the first decent bath in days at the room just now and have nuahed for a few hours and honestly I dont feel like walking out again Lols. Will do so later~ what a nice room I have today!!!!!!!
Oh ya. All the cities I went to thus far in vietnam have the same street names again and again Lols.