Saigon, Da Nang, and Vietnamese Hospitality

When I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City a.k.a. Saigon, the first thing that came into my mind was that the city was radiating the same vibes as those of the Indian city of Mumbai. It is something that I cannot really put my finger on, but that was a different story for another time. In this first chapter of a series of my very first visit to Vietnam—and will surely not be the last, I will talk about the trip in general, why I had chosen the country, and why I have made the decision to be coming back despite only be coming home from there a few weeks ago. Let’s get start it.

Previously, I have never been to Vietnam. I am an Indonesian and the other countries I have been to were Singapore (2016), India (2017), Nepal (2018), and Malaysia (2019). The idea of adding a new country to the list has been imprinted onto my brain ever since, namely in the year of 2020, because, look at the sequence! But well, we all knew what happened and the idea was kept being pushed back due to so many responsibilities and some self-rewards here and there. Only until the end of 2023 that I finally tried to materialise it in the following year.

Before I decided on the country, however, there were several things that I needed to consider. First, the power of my passport; second, the budget; and third, the convenience. I’d be lying if say I don’t want to go to Taiwan or Japan. But the fact that my passport is so weak not that powerful, which requires me to apply for a visa to some countries—including the two I mentioned earlier—has kind of limited me in some ways. As for the budget, I planned the trip in November 2023 and I figured that by saving some amount of money for at least four months I would have more than enough money to spend, so it was no biggie. Last, but not least, the convenience here referred to the fact that I did not have to prepare too excessively for the trip (e.g. no need check-in baggage, etc.).

The choice was a draw between Thailand and Vietnam. I have never been to any of them and they are pretty much within the vicinity of Malaysia with daily flights serving some of their biggest cities. After some considerations, I had decided to go to the country of Vietnam. The final conclusion itself was not really a smooth process, though, because I still have to choose the cities I needed to visit. Saigon and Hanoi were definitely topping my lists, but I was considering to visit another city/cities as well because I thought it might be too boring if I were to visit one—I was kind of both right and wrong here.

Ba Na Hill’s famous Golden Bridge in Da Nang

Prior to buy the flight ticket, I bumped into one of my Vietnamese friends and he kind of gave me the biggest influence on the whole trip planning. Yes, I’m talking about you, Tom.

“I wonder whether I should go to Da Lat or Da Nang.”

“I suggest you go to Da Nang.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s my hometown.”

“That makes sense.”

After that “convincing” conversation, I finally decided to put Saigon and Da Nang on my itinerary. As for the capital city—and subsequently the beautiful Ban Gioc Waterfalls—I had to sadly put them in my future plan instead as the flight ticket was a bit steep.

I have decided to plan a four-to-five days trip; two days in Saigon; two days in Da Nang and its vicinity; with a domestic flight in between. Perfect—or so I thought. The trip was in the early March 2024 and I had planned everything out perfectly before something that almost ruined it came up at the last minute. I stuck to my plan even though I had to make a little bit of adjustment which eventually cost me the first 20 hours of my precious time there. But it was only a minute detail, because all in all, both the trip and the experience were worth every penny of it.

Day 1: Too Short to Call It a Day

I landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN) around 12:55 PM local time. I hadn’t had any proper sleep since I finished my night shift earlier in the morning that day, but I knew I needed to at least arrive at my hotel first before I can even get my precious sleep. After a smooth immigration process, I headed to Park View Luxury Hotel by booking a readily-available Grab car outside the airport. I could directly use the internet there because I had activated a RM30 ASEAN 7 days data pass from my Malaysian SIM card before I boarded the plane. I was too lazy to change SIM card at the airport, especially if it was only for a few days trip.

There was nothing exceptionally shocking from Vietnam, except maybe that the vehicles ride “on the wrong side of the road“—according to my familiar point of view—and that Vietnamese looooove their veggies. You’ll know later.

Pho—Vietnamese beef noodle

After an exhausting journey with almost zero hour of sleep, I ended my first day in Vietnam with a bowl of the best pho that I’ve ever had in my entire life—I’m not kidding—at Pho Ong Cat. The broth looked elegantly simple but the taste was so flavourful. The greens, which I think consist of Burmese cilantro, Thai basil, and some bean sprouts, added the complexity of the flavour when they were mixed with the soup. It felt like a hug in a bowl. After devouring it up to the last bit, I went back to my hotel and slept for almost 12 hours. I had to.

Day 2: Sagion, Saigon, Saigon

The small cafe has her sister in Le Lai Street

An hour in a foreign country felt like ten hours in a familiar one. That was exactly what I thought on my second and last day in Saigon. My time there was limited because my flight to Da Nang was scheduled for 6:00 AM the next day. So I had to utilise it to the max. After having my obligatory morning coffee at my hotel, I went to Little Hanoi Egg Coffee in Yersin Street to have some breakfast.

The nine-storey building has become an iconic tourist destination in Saigon

Afterwards, I went to the renown Cafe Apartment in Nguyen Hue Street and took some pictures. I should have gone to one of the cafes before continuing my journey but I was still full, so I decided to go to the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City before I came back to the Apartment and went upstairs to the Saigon Oi Cafe. There was an option to use the elevator but we had to pay Đ3,000 (RM0.57) per person. For me personally, I preferred to use the stairs so that we could see and check every cafe on each floor.

I should have put my journal next to them to add the aesthetic value

I spent the time at Saigon Oi to write my monthly check-in for the month of February on my journal. After I finished it, I decided to go to the Saigon Waterbus Bach Dang Station to book a round-trip ticket along the Saigon River. Unfortunately, the nearest available seat was two hours away. As I had not much of a choice, I eventually bought the Đ30,000 (RM5.7) ticket for the round-trip.

To kill time, I decided to walk to the Saigon Central Post Office (above) and sent some free postcards I got from Little Hanoi to some of my friends. As I still had ample of time, I decided to go back to my hotel to change my clothes and washed the dirty ones in a laundromat. Look at the cutie accompanying me there!

His name is She—pronounced similarly like 蛇 (shé). You can find him at Sesa Coin Laundry

After finished with all my clothing business, I went to ride the Saigon Waterbus and enjoyed the view of the Saigon River. There was a seat number on the ticket, but all the passengers seemed to ignore it, and so did I. Our route was scheduled for 5:30 PM to 5:45 PM and it would take us only to the nearest station of Binh An and then it would take us back to Bach Dang Station from 6:05 PM to 6:20 PM. But I think it was more than enough as while we were waiting there, we were treated with the view of the tallest building in the country, Landmark 81.

The 461 metres skyscraper is the tallest building in Vietnam and the second one in Southeast Asia

From Bach Dang Station, I went for my dinner afterwards. As recommended by some of my Vietnamese friends—Hello, Tu and Rachel!, I was having banh khot and banh xeo. When the food came, I thought we could just simply eat the “bakwan udang” and the “telor dadar” the way we do in Malaysia/Indonesia. I was wrong. Totally. The full plate of the vegetable next to them was there for a reason. As I said earlier, Vietnamese love their veggies and all the greens there were used to wrap the banh(s)!

Banh khot (right, “bakwan udang”) and banh xeo (left, “telor dadar”)

I was struggling to get the wrapping right, but I keep failing. Either I drop the bakwan while trying to wrap it or the veggies’ order didn’t seem to be right—although I doubted whether there was such a thing. Do let me know, if any. Luckily I got a help from a friend who was also eating at the restaurant there. His name was Phat. Despite our language barrier, with a bit of help from Google Translate, he patiently helped me with the wrapping and handed me the beautifully wrapped banh khot and banh xeo while he also still needed to wrap his. Please don’t compare his handcraft with mine. Thank you. It was truly a unique experience of trying new food!

A bowl of vegetable seems to be mandatory on every Vietnamese dining table

After the satisfying unique dinner, I decided to go back to Nguyen Hue Street to take its glamorous night view, which Tu said was better compare to the daylight. He was right. And he was also right that there would be a lot more people flocking in the area compare to the daytime. I was there only for a few minutes as it was too crowded for me. There were people walking, chatting, enjoying the night, while also watching a duo performance of a Vietnamese girl and her father. I took some pictures and a video before heading back to my hotel.

A bustling busy nightlife of Saigon

I put McDonald’s Ben Thanh on the Grab Bike app, a few hundred metres away from my hotel, not because I wanted to have a supper there but because I wanted to have a night-walk. While I was strolling around the pedestrian and taking a picture of a cafe across the Yersin Streets, I couldn’t help but talking to myself: I’ll be back. At that moment, I knew exactly that my time in Saigon was almost over and I knew very well that the less-than-two days of time to visit it were not even enough.

Day 3: Sleepless Night, Da Nang, and a Piece of Hoi An

I arrived at Da Nang International Airport (DAD) around 7:30 AM and I directly went to my hotel. Despite the plenty of time I had had the night before, I couldn’t sleep at all. I was exhausted and contemplating whether I should just used the day to sleep and waste another time or I should keep sticking to my plan. I chose the latter.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I met Nhu, the exceptionally helpful receptionist of Quang Minh Riverside Hotel. Our communication was kind of limited as we both needed to use Google Translate. But despite that, she had been helping a lot during my stay there. My initial plan was to keep some of my stuff at the hotel and take a bus from Da Nang Bus Station to Hoi An, but apparently the earliest bus I could find was a few hours away-and I just knew that the location was at the other end of the airport. If it weren’t for Nhu, I might have to wait for hours before I could go to Hoi An.

From a Vietnamese app, she showed me that there would be a rental car going to Hoi An at 8:15 AM (that time it was 7:58 AM) and she called the driver whether he could pick me up at the hotel. He could. So I waited patiently for about 30 minutes until the car arrived. In the car, I met a Vietnamese lady who works in Bangkok and was on a vacation in her home country. I don’t usually talk with strangers on most of my trip, especially in a mode of transport. But she was rather extrovert and funny and I couldn’t help myself but to break my silence. We introduced ourselves. Her name was Nomi.

A YouTuber recommends me this place, simply because he loves the home-made chili sauce

It took us around an hour to reach Hoi An from Da Nang. I tried to get some sleep on the way there but it was far from sound. I had had my own plan for this Hoi An trip, but as I had had Nomi as a company, I had to tweak it a little bit. She asked whether I had taken my breakfast. I said no and I planned to have it at Madam Khanh – The Banh Mi Queen. Nomi agreed to follow me and she ordered herself a glass of juice. From there, we strolled around the streets of Hoi An and we practically became each other’s photographer for the day.

If I were whiter, I’d probably be blushing. I wish I could talk to the old man—Sir, if you happen to read this, do let me know!

There was a funny moment when I was trying to pose—probably with a lack of effort and smile—and then there was this old man walking with his wife, and while they were passing next to me, he was casually yelling at me, “Smile!”. I couldn’t help but to burst a big laugh. It really added to the excitement of the day in Hoi An.

Every distinct corner of Hoi An

The heat of the day was killing and Nomi took us to Hoi An Market and introduced me to one of the Vietnamese desserts. It was one of the best desserts I had had in a while. I didn’t know whether there was a Malaysian/Indonesian equivalent of this, but it was called che thap cam—mixed sweet soup. My Malaysian Chinese friend told me that “cham” in Cantonese means “to mix”. Maybe the two are related, who knows?

I wonder if there is a Vietnamese restaurant here in KL that also sells it

From the market, we finally went to the renown Faifo Coffee and took some pictures on the roof top. This time, implementing what the old man had said, I tried to pose with a smile (below). It looked better. LOL. Because the sun was scorching, we rested in Faifo for almost two hours before heading to the famous Chua Cau (pagoda bridge). But sadly it was temporarily closed as it was being renovated—although it didn’t seem to be from the look of it.

The wind added to the dramatic effect

Around 1 PM, Nomi called one of the rental car providers to pick us up around 2 PM. As we had nowhere else to go, we went nearby to the meeting point of Song Hai Square. As there was still plenty of time, we waited at Phuc Long Coffee and Tea. I had my fourth drink of the day—their signature milk tea.

Our rental car arrived around 2 PM and it took us back to Da Nang around 3 PM. Nomi had asked whether I would like to have dinner the night later as her flight to Bangkok was bound for an early morning the next day. I said I don’t promise because I hadn’t had any proper sleep. I was right. After reaching my hotel, taking a shower, and booking a tour package to Ba Na Hills, I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the next day.

Day 4: Ba Na Hills, “Eight Hours Were Too Long”, and The Year of the Dragon

I woke up with a start. It was 7 AM. I lazily got out of the bed and had to apologise to Nomi for not making it for the dinner. She understood. We promised that we would take each other around our cities, be it KL, Bangkok, or anywhere, should we both have the chance to meet again in the future.

I booked the Ba Na Hills trip from Klook. The bus that would take me to Ba Na Hill was stationed at A La Carte Hotel and the whole tour was scheduled for eight hours. There were three pick-up locations, actually, but the hotel was the nearest to my hotel, so I chose it. There were two set of schedules: 8:30 AM-4:30 PM and 10:30 AM-6:30 PM. I chose the earlier. I thought the eight hours time was too long, so I decided to bring my laptop along, thinking that maybe if there were a lot of times remaining, I could use it to write my draft of a blog post of this trip. I was so wrong. Eight hours was definitely not enough to explore the whole area of Ba Na Hills—and this is also one of a few reasons why I want to come back to the country.

After about an hour, I arrived at the foot of the Ba Na Hills. From the main entrance (above), we can go directly to the cable car entrance and choose whichever one we want. From the map, although I think it was not that up-to-date, there were three functioning cable cars, but upon riding it, I could see that there are either four or five tracks. Maybe I was wrong, please correct me.

If we decide to go to the worldly famous Ba Na Hill’s Golden Bridge, then we should queue in the left-most cable-car. Without even asking to the staff, we could somehow tell that the long queue means that many people want to go to that specific cable-car. But I still asked, anyway, just to make sure. This time, I was right.

Ba Na Hill’s cable-cars are one of the longest in the world. It took me around 20 minutes to reach the bridge. This was where my assumption of “EigHt hOurS wEre tOo LonG” was proved to be wrong, as I was staying and taking imageries on the bridge and the vicinity for almost three hours. I kid you not. Nearby the bridge, there were some places that we, tourists, could visit. Both the free and paid one—would still be free if we pay for the different tour packages with additional cost.

The Golden Bridge from afar

And the tour package I booked was one of the cheapest (RM192~ after discount), with at least a round-trip bus ticket from and to Da Nang, without lunch or any other additional ticket admissions to those paid tourist attractions. If I had chosen the more expensive packages, I don’t think I would be able to explore the whole place in a day!

After exploring the area nearby the Golden Bridge, I continued my way to the main area of the Sun World Ba Na Hill. It was huge! There were castles, restaurants, cafes, gardens, and countless attractions that we could possibly think of. I couldn’t remember how many times I was amazed by the sheer greatness of the place. Indeed, it might look to be replicating the European-style buildings, but you couldn’t help but to just appreciate the great work of the people behind it.

After another two hours++ there, I finally had to queue again for the cable-car that would take me back to the foot of the hills. It had taken me around 30 minutes to get to my cable-car. It is important to take note that not all the cable-cars will be operational during our visit. So please make sure to always check on the schedule available nearby every entrance/exit there.

I arrived at the main entrance a few minutes before my bus was scheduled to depart, but because there were another passengers who were late, our departure was still nonetheless delayed. After a few minutes off of our schedule, the bus made its way back to the city of Da Nang. I was drenched in sweat, exhausted, but was totally happy.

Where was the dragon, you ask? Wait ah, coming in a sec…

I’m not sure how to put the narration into this sub-topic, so I’ll just slip it in here. I notice that in the year 2024, I have been meeting a lot of dragons. Indeed it is the year of the dragon and so all the decorations right after the Christmas 2023 and few weeks after the Chinese New Year were all dragons. It is not my Chinese zodiac, no, but I just love it. I mean, who doesn’t? It is the only mythical creature on the list and it is the most difficult one to create, whichever materials it was made of. I even intentionally came to visit some of the famous malls in Kuala Lumpur, namely Pavilion Bukit Bintang, KLCC, and TRX, only to see the dragons.

Interestingly, my Vietnam trip also was also not too far from them. Understandable, since Vietnam has a lot of Chinese influence and so dragons and the decorations were not that uncommon, but it still piqued my interest that my presence there in the country had always been around the mystical beast. In Saigon, Ba Na Hills, and of course, Da Nang, where it is being famous for its Dragon Bridge—which I happened to visit on the last night there.

Day 5: The Familiar Feeling

On the fifth and the last day, there were still so many Vietnamese food that I hadn’t tried. I had bun thit nuong (left) for dinner the night before and had cao lau (right) for my breakfast, but the list was still pretty long and unfortunately I had to fly back home soon.

I told you they love their veggies

Farewell has never been easy. It kind of gives us the uneasy and uncomfortable feeling. In most of my cases, the uneasiness came from the uncertainty of time, of when I will be able to come back to the same place, the same feeling. Or whether I will still be able to encounter the same warmth and hospitality as I did the first time I was there.

I didn’t mean to end this post in a gloomy mood, but, yeah, farewell always suck. In my Vietnam trip case, however, I knew I would be coming back, I knew I would be missing the country, and I knew that my next visit will be longer.

P.S. Special thanks to my Vietnamese friends: Tom, Tu, Rachel, Phat, and Nomi for the recommendations and help before, during, and after the trip. You guys rock!