i've been to cabramatta

my mum goes to the markets out at springvale sometimes

Ah, good to know. But what about the questions I asked? Do you have an answer for those? These would be even more impressive than your current contributions.

After Stone Cold Steve Austin's shenanegans, naming oneself after a wrestler may have its drawbacks, like not gotting serious answers.

irony is the best form of flattery

Well, if anybody has anything relevant to contribute to the subject, that would be cool. Goal Attack, I hope not. Given that you're named after a netball position, we might both be fucked if that's the case.

I won a two week holiday to Vietnam last month, and had a blast. It was ridiculously cheap, even though most of mine was paid for. Accommodation starts at about $5 a night depending on which town you are in, and in some places you can stay in luxury for around $12. The food is incredible, a four course meal with a couple of beers each and it would be less than $5 between us. We did extensive beer research while we were there, and our faves were Tiger and Larue.

My favourite place was Hanoi, make sure you stay in the Old Quarter. Also loved Hue and Hoi An. Saigon was great at first, but it's so frantic you just want to get away after a few days. But it's all fantastic, I wish we'd had longer so we could have seen more.

I've always been fucked, but if i'd been to vietnam I'd help you out. Unfotunately I've only been to Laos, which was awesome. If you can extend your stay I can highly recommend it, Luand Prabang in particular. It's about a 9 hour bus ride from Vientiane, or you can take a 3 day boad ride along the Mekong river. Actually you cna fly there these days, it's been a while.

Cool, thanks.

Hey Barryetta, why is this? "My favourite place was Hanoi, make sure you stay in the Old Quarter."

BEER EXPERT ADVICE

drink beer at the "fresh beer" places (can't remember their vietnamese name). big kegs served out of a pump. they're mostly open fronted and all these old men sit around all arvo drinking. very cool. and the beer is often delicious

avoid britishy themed bars at all costs. they're even worse in vietnam than anywhere else in the world. the heineken girl, the carlsberg girl, the tiger girl, will all be fighting to serve you. not in a good way...

"the heineken girl, the carlsberg girl, the tiger girl, will all be fighting to serve you. not in a good way..."

Yeah, I was in Thailand for the past few weeks and I saw all these ladies...as well as the Chang and Singha girls too, they pounce on you as soon as you sit down.
Sure is hard to pass up the beer when it's that cheap though.

You think that's bad, we spent half our night avoiding the Fosters girl.

Shunt, is it Bia Hoi you're talking about?

Old Quarter of Hanoi is really central to everything, you practically don't need to leave. Apparently it's pretty much as it was when the French ruled, with narrow windy streets and cool old colonial buildings, and lots of markets, bars and great food. And people everywhere, nobody seems to sleep, you could be walking down the street at 2.00am and whole families will be sitting on the footpath cooking meals. Although it was like that everywhere we went.

yes! BIA HOI! mmmmmmmmmm

old quarter of hanoi is very beautiful and strange. headachey but

gig vietnam!

vietnam is one of my favourite overseas experiences... spent a month there over this past xmas/new year...

travelled through hanoi (old quarter is ace - a different street for each product or trade, eat lots of pho, everything is conducted on the streets), sapa (high up in the misty mountains with many minority cultures and crazy rice paddies), ha long bay (mountains rising up from the water, amazing), hue (old, rainy, old, charming), hoi an (sweet, beautiful, amazing shopping and tailors everywhere), nha trang (like the gold coast but with some good points, nice snorkelling/scuba here too), saigon (crazy and frenetic and big city vibe, very fun) and the mekong delta (my favourite part... go bike riding through the jungle with kids yelling out to you the whole way, picking tropical fruit as you go, and you'll see what i mean).

it's stupid cheap. you'll pay between 80c-$2 for a bowl of pho. get away from the tourist areas to markets where no one speaks english and you'll find the most incredible, creative food.
you don't need to book ahead further than your first night's accom. we went in peak time and got around easily, got a place to stay easily and cheaply. in 'nam, supply outweighs demand and service is excellent. you'll get a much better deal booking once you're there.

i was there a month and could have spent longer.. every region is different in people, culture, food and climate. the population is incredibly young (war, anyone?)... 80% of the locals are under 30. this makes for a very vibrant environment... it's just fucking ace.

i wrote a blog posting about it if you're interested...

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/zan/blog/s1547384.htm

Fuck, awesome information. Hey, so as far as language barriers go, how will you fare with English only?

Will check the blog too, openroad.

language is not a problem - tourism and rice are vietnam's biggest industries... their grasp of english is excellent. when it's not, you find a way to figure it out. that said, it's a good idea to learn the basics - thanks, hi etc... just cos it's always good to do that i reckon.

feel free to message me if you wanna know specifics big john.. happy to talk about the place. i reckon i think about vietnam at least once a day.. i'll be heading back. it's beautiful.

remember to say 'good morning' to everyone.

One of the best things we did was take a Dragon Boat down the Perfume River in Hue. You can do a tour for about $3, or hire your own boat (with driver and his family in tow) for as long as you want - we did a half day tour and it was $10 for two of us. We visited some spectacular Imperial Tombs and temples.

The shopping in Hoi An is unbelievable, especially for custom made clothes. My bloke had an Italian wool suit made to measure - it was ready in 4 hours and cost $45! We had to buy an extra suitcase to fit all our new duds in.

I really didn't know what to expect but it was one of the best experiences of my life. You'll see some amazing things and meet so many great people. And it's really made me appreciate the lifestyle we have, and realise how gross and wasteful our society can be.

Bring your wet weather gear peeps! Monsoon season. I'm fucking off out of here for Northern Thailand instead.

Too many Vietnamese in my opinion.

Their language hurts me, like miniature knives.

I loved monsoon season.

Loving Hanoi. Heading off to Halong Bay tomorrow.

Such an amazing fucking country.

Their language hurts me, like miniature knives.

I'd agree with this. I've had a ball, seen some great things etc but their language (and shouting into mobiles) gives me a headache. Overall the Vietnamese haven't been that friendly compared to Cambodia and Laos (although like Thailand, they're far more accustomed to tourism and thus have a well-oiled transport system/tourist trail). But that's just my experience - before anyone bites my head off!

Monsoon season isn't a problem either - as long as you're prepared for a bit of rain of an afternoon/evening. But alas our Visas run out in a day or so, time to move on...

Aw, my ha long bay trip this weekend has been cancelled due to typhoon! :-( next time, vietnam...

The Ha Long Bay trip got cut short by a day to avoid the typhoon but I did get to spend the night on the boat which was fun. The rain has been following us up the coast as we have been traveling. It rained the entire time we were in Hoi An and our flights out of Hue were cancelled due to the weather so we had to head back to Danang to fly into Hanoi (Hanoing!). Still, it's been amazing. One more night here in Hanoi and then off to Shanghai!

We had okay weather in Hanoi. The days it was pissing down our conference was on. When I got out to explore the rainstopped. Halong Bay was fine, too. What an amazing place.

First 3 days of Hoi An were torrential rain but the last 4 days were fine. Did 3 cooking classes and read books/drank wine on the rainy days which kept me indoors. The other days I explored on a scooter for US$2 per day.

Currently in Siem Reap and the weather is good here, too. Went horseback riding today through villages and to temples. Off to Angkor Wat tomorrow - viewing it from a helicopter and spending a full day exploring the temples.

I ate crocodile and snake as part of a Cambodian BBQ tonight. Both tasted like overcooked squid/chicken.

Flights from Darwin to Ho Chi Min are around $130. Fuck you Darwin.

Am crossing the border into Vietnam early next week, heading south to north. Any brilliant things I shouldn't miss? Good hostel recommendations? Cooking class recommendations?

Red door or red brick cooking school in Hoi an was great.

Red bridge.

I did that too, was a lot of fun. Particularly the all you can drink tiger.

@soanian : I stayed at this hostel in Saigon over Xmas and it was great. Very touristy area but the place is very comfortable, cheap and the staff are super friendly.

http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Hong-Han-Hotel/Ho-Chi-Minh/21527

Thaaaaanks!

Just booked flights to Vietnam for 3 weeks in May/June. So excited, I've been wanting to go to this country for years. This thread has proved very helpful with ideas so far. I'm totally going to do a Hue Freedom Riders tour!

Just finished a 4 day motorbike tour through the central highlands, from Dalat to Nha Trang and it was SPECTACULAR. I'm a total motorbike junkie now. My guide, Spencer, was an absolute hero - super smart, great English-speaking skills, really funny and a generally cool guy to hang around with. He also orders the best lunches ever. Between three of us, we'd share 7 or 8 different dishes and pay only $2-$2.50 per person.

He is part of the Easy Riders group, but also runs tours independently of them. His email is vnexplorers@gmail.com and website here: http://www.vietnam-easyrider.net/ I can't recommend him highly enough, such a cool guy.

Best part of my couple of months away.

Oh, the reason I came into this thread:

Not sure if I'll have time to do the Red Bridge cooking class (will see if there's a class running on CNY though - fingers crossed). Has anyone done classes in Hanoi? I have a couple of days to kill there...

how about some photos from your trip to Vietnam folks - I want to get nostalgic for this great country.