Gap month adventures

January 2020 - Vietnam and Cambodia

I was so excited to be back in South-east Asia. I’ve heard and seen so much about Vietnam and Cambodia and couldn’t wait to visit. The weather was great, sunny most days with a bit of a breeze.

Hoi An

When we arrived in Vietnam, we noticed there were a lot of orange trees and jasmine flowers on the road which was quite unusual though it had a nice smell to the streets. We realised this was for Chinese New Year which was coming up.

Most of the sights in Hoi An were close together which made travelling around easy apart from when we wanted to do day trips away to marble mountain and My Son sanctuary. We took taxi which was arranged by our hotel as it turned out cheaper than grab app.

My Son sanctuary is a must visit place when in Vietnam as its ruins are so interesting to look at and it looks so similar to the Angkor in Cambodia. In terms of navigating around, it can easily be done walking. My favourite part of the whole trip was the day trip to Bach Ma National Park which is definitely not for the weak! The hike within the park was very enjoyable and adventurous but sadly it was cloudy so couldn’t see much at the start but it then cleared up. You can see waterfalls and also 5 different lakes you would need to hire a vehicle to drive some parts as its quite big to just walk everywhere.

Hai van pass is a scenic road which is between Da nang and Hanoi. We were lucky enough to pass through it when we were on our way to marble mountains. It was so amazing and the views were breath-taking.

Whilst walking around Hoi An, we noticed a local football match happening which was quite nice to watch how the locals played and also watched it. Also cycling around hoi an is essential for those who want a bit of adventure going around (not that dangerous in my opinion).

Other stuff to consider near Hoi An:

An Bang Beach (cycle 20 mins away) Danang (45mins taxi)

Orivy local food restaurant is a restaurant which we would highly recommend to try the local cuisine as they have a range of foods to try and it tasted really nice!

Ho Chi Minh City

One thing my friends wanted to visit when here was the fake market as it was known for the fake goods at a cheap price. A highlight was one of my friend getting a Gucci hat for around £1.50 through his ‘expert bargaining skills’.

Another thing which I noticed was the amount of Korean imports in shops and tourists around in Vietnam. Every night on the streets you will hear karaoke happening something locals liked there.

Water puppet show is another must see attraction in Vietnam/Cambodia, this is where the locals tell a story through puppet. The show overall was fascinating to watch and highly recommend it.

Mekong delta tour was pre-booked online through ‘klook’ which is a website that tailors towards Asia country tourism. The tour consisted of boat rides, visiting pagoda and also seeing how the locals make candy.

Phnom Penh

The final part of the trip was Phnom Penh in Cambodia, we pre-booked a coach from Ho Chi Minh. The journey was around 6 hours which was a bit draining.

Something we found interesting was how every city we visited had something different about it for example, Phnom Penh was a temple type city which was really similar to Thailand. We met a couple of new people along our journey too which was really nice and staying in contact is always good. An advice also would take care looking after valuables as someone’s phone got stolen from a motorist going past.

When in Phnom Penh, we took a tour guide by tuk tuk driver as we felt drained walking everywhere. We got to see some monkeys and a lot of temples.

Towards the end of our journey coronavirus was an issue which we were very alert about as it was in the news a lot and spreading throughout Asia and even Vietnam. Thankfully we all got back to London safely (we wore masks at the airports).

Shugs