plan a six months trip to Vietnam
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plan a six months trip to Vietnam
I am a 21 years old male and I plan to take a trip to Vietnam in May '23 and stay there for six months before coming back to the US and starting my professional career. I plan on playing a lot of golf and tennis while I am in Vietnam while traveling from Hanoi to Saigon during my six months stay. I was born and raised in the US but my parents are Vietnamese and I've never been to Vietnam. I have relatives in both Ha Noi and Saigon but I don't know them. How can I plan a safe trip to Vietnam and not get scammed when I am there? How much money do I need in order to have a very comfortable trip for six months?
Best,
Mike
Best,
Mike
Last edited by Moderator3; Jan 4th, 2023 at 04:14 AM. Reason: Removed unnecessary paragraph
#2
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I found the Vietnamese people to be very honest, but it seems that in every country I go to I get scammed by taxi or tuk tuk drivers. Make sure you either establish a price a head of time or use the meter. Make sure you know the conversion rates fromUSD to VND as you will be dealing in millions
Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.
For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices
Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.
For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices
Last edited by live42day; Jan 10th, 2023 at 08:58 AM.
#3
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I found the Vietnamese people to be very honest, but it seems that in every country I go to I get scammed by taxi or tuk tuk drivers. Make sure you either establish a price a head of time or use the meter. Make sure you know the conversion rates fromUSD to VND as you will be dealing in millions
Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.
For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices
Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.
For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices
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Do you have a Vietnamese passport or the Vietnamese nationality ? If not, you are going to have a huge problem of visa, which is valid only for 30 days and, to renew it, you have to go out of the country each time. OR yo get a student visa. As for traveling in Vietnam, I live on retirement in Hanoi since 16 years, travel constantly, and have at your disposal over 100 pages of very detailed travel notes on the whole country (plus note and Cambodia and on Laos). The file is too big to post here, but, if you give me your email address, I send it to you (you can give me the address on a private message if you wish)
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As for money, life is quiet cheap here. A good 2-star hotel costs you 25-35$, a backpackers hostel 15.You can share an apartment or villa with other people in Hanoi for 200-300$ a month Food is the same, 5$ in a street restaurant. 5-6000$ for 6 moths will be OK. Saigon is a little more expensive.
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As for money, life is quiet cheap here. A good 2-star hotel costs you 25-35$, a backpackers hostel 15.You can share an apartment or villa with other people in Hanoi for 200-300$ a month Food is the same, 5$ in a street restaurant. 5-6000$ for 6 moths will be OK. Saigon is a little more expensive.
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I found the Vietnamese people to be very honest, but it seems that in every country I go to I get scammed by taxi or tuk tuk drivers. Make sure you either establish a price a head of time or use the meter. Make sure you know the conversion rates fromUSD to VND as you will be dealing in millions
Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.
For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices
Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.
For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices
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Well, let's say that Thailand the worst in scamming foreign tourist, foloed by Cambodia.
TYPOS. Here is what I wish to say :
Well, let's say that Thailand is the worst in scamming foreign tourists, followed by Cambodia. In both, the police is appalling, harassing foreign tourists - especially after 2 years with no "income" because no tourists thanks to covid, and taxi/tuk-tuk/moto-taxi drivers are the kings to scam them. It has reached a point where, after coming back from Siem Reap and Bangkok, I have decided that I will never put my feet any longer in both countries.
TYPOS. Here is what I wish to say :
Well, let's say that Thailand is the worst in scamming foreign tourists, followed by Cambodia. In both, the police is appalling, harassing foreign tourists - especially after 2 years with no "income" because no tourists thanks to covid, and taxi/tuk-tuk/moto-taxi drivers are the kings to scam them. It has reached a point where, after coming back from Siem Reap and Bangkok, I have decided that I will never put my feet any longer in both countries.
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Obviously, you like huge expensive impersonal hotels where you are strictly a room number ! NO need to fly 30 000 km round trip to sleep in there, they are all over your country. Vietnam has a marvelous network of small 3-star hotels at reasonable prices (45-65$). Among those, the Serenity Villa and La Siesta in Hanoi, the Vung Hau (Emerald) in HOI AN (NOT Danang, a beautiful city, but not the extreme charm and History of Hoi An), the Sporting in Saigon.
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We were scammed by a taxi driver today in Saigon. Yes it was metered but I gave the driver a 200,000 dong bill to pay the 110,000 dong fare and he switched it out with a 10,000 dong bill insisting that was what I gave him. I knew how much money I had on me and I knew that I had two 200,000 bills but it was no use arguing with him. When we exited the taxi I had no 200,000 bills (having had to give the thief my second one to pay). So yes, you can get scammed by taxi drivers in Vietnam.
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