TLDR: Our trip was for 14 days, we think it should have been double of that. Vietnam offers so much to experience that 14 days does not do justice. That being said, this was an unforgettable trip.

Pre travel

Get your visa sorted, the application form is slightly tedious but the visa is usually processed in three to five working days.
Convert and keep dollars handy. No one seems to accept cards without a surcharge. Which is usually three percent. There are a ton of places with no support for cards since they don’t even have a card machine. All the tickets to the local sight seeing only take cash. Cannot emphasise this enough. Carry extra dollars and keep them handy for emergencies. We made a mistake here.
Limited vegetarian food options, very small number of Indian restaurants. You’ll also find a lot of vegan restaurants, but they too tend to be expensive. Food in the Indian restaurants does not really taste close to any Indian restaurant. If this is important for you, carry some pickles or something along that sort. Vietnamese cuisine is pretty bland when compared to Indian cuisine. Some day to day essentials for us like ghee and coconut oil for hair are not available anywhere as far as we searched for.
We suggest downloading
- Google translate: We could not find a lot of folks who speak english in Vietnam
- Grab: For booking cabs and bikes
- Currency converter
- Flighty on iOS: nice flight tracking with live activities and many other nifty features
- Klook: For booking activities
- 12Go: For booking travel of all sorts (trains, cabs, limos, buses etc..)
- Get your guide: For exploring & booking activities
While booking rooms in cities, room size becomes very important. Make sure you are booking good room sizes. At least 250 sq meters or above is recommended.
No windows in rooms is a thing, make sure your rooms have windows if you need
If it’s a long trip, plan carefully and have a laundry day. Laundry is not super expensive and is well worth it. 50k per kg of clothes. A kg of clothes is lesser than you imagine. But still worth it.
No one in Vietnam gives free water. Not sure why. Make sure you carry a couple of steel water bottles and keep refilling them whenever possible. Buying water can get pretty expensive.
For domestic travel, try exploring options across trains and buses. Trains for domestic travels is an extremely good option. The prices are extremely reasonable and they tend to be pretty comfy too.
Small travel hack, if you don’t select seats during booking, a good chunk of money can be saved since the airline auto allocates free seats. You usually end up getting seats side by side at the end
Luggage weight is a big pain, make sure you measure and travel
Wherever the place is famous for history, try taking a guided trip and make sure the guide knows English. It makes a big difference if you see the site through the story in the past.
You can explore buying electronics & food in Vietnam, especially macbook products. You’ll also get a VAT refund (of around 8-10%) which you can claim at the airport. VAT refund only works if the package is unsealed. If the item is consumable, then make sure you have proof that it’s not consumed: if it’s supposed to in check in. Make sure that you go to the VAT refund office before security. Else after security is preferred. Make sure the shop is giving a document which is also uploaded to the government. The VAT refund folks will give back USD.
Renting a bike is always a good idea. Grab can get pretty expensive. No requirement of an international driving license, you can either have a deposit of three million VND or deposit your passport. Which we found to be safe. Driving in cities is a bit hard since Vietnamese are super good at driving their two wheelers. If you are a novice driver, I would not recommend driving in cities.
If you are open to buying and getting some local produce from there, make sure you incorporate visiting markets during your travel. Here are our recommendations
- Fabric (silk specifically) in Hoi An
- Coconut candy, Fresh coconut oil, Royal jelly and pure honey in Hoi An
- Skin care & beauty products are pretty cheap everywhere
- Dried fruits (like mango)
- Coffee (ofc)
Last but not the least, don’t pack your trip too much. It can get hard to breathe if you are jumping cities every two days. Make sure you have three or more days at least per stop, otherwise the trip will get suffocating.

Our Itinerary

Day One – HCMC & Settling into Vietnam

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and settled down. First steps: rented a bike, converted USD to VND at a forex center, and got a Viettel SIM card (better to buy it outside the airport). Downloaded offline maps to stay covered even without network. Visited Bùi Viện Street — busy and lively. Also stopped by Book Street, where we got a hand-painted postcard. The painting wasn’t great, but it’s a nice keepsake.

Day Two – Mekong delta tour

Took a Mekong Delta day tour. The landscapes were stunning — lush greenery, serene waterways. Would suggest picking up royal jelly, honey, and coconut candy from local vendors

Day Three – Da Nang

Flew from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang. Rested at Mỹ Khê Beach for a bit — peaceful spot. Visited the Lady Buddha Pagoda — beautiful and very calming, definitely worth seeing. Stopped at Bye C Café, a gem in Da Nang. Highly recommend trying the shakshuka, berry smoothie, coconut coffee, and French toast here. Ended the day exploring Son Tra Night Market and another local market — if you bargain hard, you’ll walk away with great deals.

Day four – Bana hills

Visited Bana hills. Cable car is great. A lot of french inspiration. A lot of backdrops for instagram worthy photos & they’ve tried to mimic dubai miracle garden to some extent. Good fun. Alpine ride is must do activity! Highly recommended. Golden bridge we felt is not really worth the hype. It seems to be pretty crowded all the time. There was one museum about jurrasic fossils and life size dinosaurs & mammoths. It was very nice.

Day five – Citadel & Tombs in Hue

We travelled from Da Nang to Hue on a train. The travel in the train is very beautiful. You can see a lot of mountains and water bodies from the windows. They even have a cabin where you can see local vietnamese dance and have nice coffee in the train!

Citadel is worth two to three hours of dedicated time. You’ll need that time to soak in the rich history of vietnam rulers, the grandiose lifestyle of the royal family and the art. The palace grounds are very vast. We would also recommend an audio guided tour since its easy to go in circles. This place really blew us away, highly recommended you do this first.

The rest were not so great in our opinion. Hue was one place which seemed pretty expensive. When we landed the first place we explored is Khai Dinh Tomb. The entry pass was 150k VND per person and the place was pretty vast. But we did not feel it was worth the 150k or the time investment. Apparently Khai Dinh was also a bad ruler who invested a lot of public money on the tomb itself before his death. Seemed off. We did not seem to enjoy tombs much, so we skipped Tu Duc Tomb.

Then we went to the incense sticks village. It was stunning, the entire setup was beautiful. They expect you to pay 20k-30k VND to take a picture with the incense sticks backdrop. Instead we would suggest you to buy some incense sticks and get some pictures, you would also end up supporting the community.

Then we went to Thiên Mụ Pagoda. There we also saw the car driven by Thich Quang Duc. He was the buddhist monk who drove to Saigon & self immolated as a protest against the Diem government.

Post which we went to The garden cafe, where we had both our brunch add dinner. Very hospitable folks and the two dogs they have are lovely.

Day six – Cooking class and Riverside in Hoi An

This day from Da nang we travelled to Hoi An on bike. We passed marble mountains without noticing it. We would suggest you visit marble mountains while going to da nang.

Once we arrived to Hoi An we went to Minh Hien Vegetarian Restaurant for lunch. The food was good here. We tried the cooking class here as well, the chef did not let us write the recipe down or record the session. Each person did not get a cooking station. All three people who were in the session had to watch and do parts of cooking. For the price it was worth it (we paid 700k VND for the class alone, skipped the market tour). But there are other cooking classes which are slightly more expensive (near about 1 to 1.2 million VND) but do better in terms of setup and notes.

After this we went to the river side where everything is nicely decorated with lanterns. There is a lantern boat ride in the river, they seem to have two options. A large boat and a small one. Since we are a couple, we picked the small one. The concentration of lanterns is better on the small one we feel. We would recommend picking the small one. They would also hand you a couple of paper lanterns which you yourself can float. The ride was very beautiful, worth every penny.

In the market near the river they have lantern shops which make a good backdrop to get some pictures. They usually charge 10k VND per person, we would recommend it since the pictures are stunning.

In the river side, there are bars and live music. Its worth to just grab a chair and sit on the riverside while you sip your drink. Lenco cafe is also good to chill.

Silk here is really high quality in Hoi An. Everyone across Vietnam would suggest getting fabric and clothes tailored here.

Day seven – Marble mountains & lantern making in Hoi An

In the morning we set out to travel to marble mountains. We rushed this a bit but the caves were humongous and very well maintained. Post this we set out to go to lantern making.

We took a lantern making class at Hang Dung Lantern making class. I sticked fabric and made a lantern and my wife painted on a lantern. The hosts here also were very nice and we made some good memories.

Day eight – Settling down at Hanoi

We now travelled from Hoi An to Hanoi. This was a bad day for us, the homestay we booked was not that great. The rooms apparantly in Hanoi are extremely small. Especially in the city center. So we decided to take a refund and start searching for another place. This ate away a lot of time unfortunately. Post which we did not have a lot of energy to explore other parts of Hanoi. So that night we just relaxed next to Hoàn Kiếm Lake and got back to the hotel

Day nine – Ninh Binh tour

We booked a tour and went to Ninh Binh. This place was absolutely gorgeous. We highly recommend booking a tour because you’ll also get a guide who will explain history. We first went to the tomb of the first emperor and other temples around it. We were lucky enough to also get to see a local Vietnamese celebration.

Post this we went out for the boat ride. The boat ride was unforgettable. The vast green landscapes, the caves we pass through, the serene atmosphere. Everything about this was perfect.

Next we went to the dragon mountain. This is what you would have seen a lot of drone shots on social media. The hike is pretty demanding but the view from the top is worth it. The hike from the dragons head to tail is pretty challenging. Please make sure you wear good shoes so that you can experience this well.

Day ten – Ha long bay cruise

We booked a Ha Long Bay cruise which we started for. The cruise was quite expensive, so we were curious on the experience and looking forward.

Ha long bay was stunning, the cruise took us first in Tip top island & took some pictures. The day was ending the cruise folks had a part on the deck of the ship for the night. It was a night of dancing and drinks. The host was awesome and the experience was fantastic.

The next day we went to the surprise cave. Again a tour guide could potentially be nice because they could show the cave formations which look like animals. After this we set out to do kayaking. This was again a very memorable trip cause of the views. The cruise was well worth the investment. We would recommend it any day.

Day Eleven – Sapa

We took a bus and went to Sapa post the cruise. Since the trip was super loaded, we decided to lay low for a day. That night we went to chicago pizza and had a deep dish pizza. It was great. After this we just slept for the day and prepped ourselves for the next day.

Day Twelve – Cat cat village tour in Sapa

We started to cat cat on day twelve. This was a small village where with some waterfalls, a good market, a place for local Vietnamese art performances etc.. It was a good trip.

Day Thirteen – Batarang

Now we started to Bata rang. Its a village famous for ceramics. The market is pretty mind blowing, especially the 6-7 feet vases.

We bought a tea set, two bowls, a cup and some other small ceramic stuff from here. The travel from Hanoi to Batarang is around 45 minutes. The visit was well worth it.

Day Fourteen – Travelling back home

We relaxed in Hanoi and got onto the flight back to Bangalore.

Some food recommendations

If there is a chance of missing some home food, highly recommended to carry some pickles dry food items and nuts to have when you go.

deep dish pizza in Sapa (Chicago pizza)
Curry in coconut is a must in Sapa (reminds you of Kerala or coastal stew of India)
Maazi across Vietnam had decent food
Baba restaurant in bue vienn street HCMC was good (after all the Vietnamese food you get to eat papad and pickle as complementary, which you’ll relish)
Hue cafe
Hoi an cooking class place really good food
Must try dishes: specially for Indian food lovers – papaya salad, spring rolls (I loved fried, but if you like to feel light do relish the fresh spring rolls)

Travel Log: Vietnam