Falling in love with Vietnam

Audley client Debbie M. recently traveled to Vietnam and found everything there is to love about the country and its people

By Audley Travel

January 14^th, 2016

Debbie M. traveled to Vietnam on a trip planned by Southeast Asia Specialist Amanda.

hoi an

Hoi An is such a diverse and amazing place that trying to describe it with accuracy is daunting. When we reached Hoi An, the sun was beginning to set and the city was lighting up. What a spectacle! Everything was shining and everything looked inviting. We were in love with the place from the very first moment. At night, the old city streets and the Thu Bon River turn into a gentle and welcoming “party central”. Everyone is out strolling and singing, enjoying a leisurely meal, browsing in the many shops or just wandering the city and enjoying the atmosphere.

Tourism is very important in Vietnam, so restaurant owners go out of their way to offer up a memorable experience, and the meals we had in Hoi An were easily the best we’d had since we arrived in Asia. The city feels very safe to move around in, day or night.

We really enjoyed our time in Hoi An; the city is a perfect combination of the old and respected with a modern and fresh touch. Visitors can tour historical sights, mingle with the people, cruise along the river, walk till your feet fall off and then enjoy that wonderful strong Vietnamese coffee stirred with condensed milk and poured over a tumbler of ice cubes to recharge. There’s nothing better.

Mai Chau

When we pulled up the Mai Chau Ecolodge, we just kind of gaped at the scene before us. There aren’t enough adjectives in the English language for me to properly describe the beauty in the area of Mai Chau. Our accommodation sat directly above immense fields of rice, running in every direction and visible as far as the eye could see. We were able to take our cameras and our inquisitive selves right into the rice paddies and mingle with the farmers.

We learned that nearly all of the rice in the fields around Mai Chau is cut and separated by hand. Acres and acres of ripe rice stalks are all planted by hand and then harvested the same way. No machines, no automation, just back breaking work for hours on end, with only short breaks taken for a quick meal or a drink of water. It is endless, mind numbing labor and still, when we tourists came barging in with cameras and questions, trying to communicate via ineffective hand signals or a lame attempt at Vietnamese, the local people could not have been more welcoming.

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saigon and ky son

In Saigon, we had yet another tour with a local photographer, and it was by far one of the most memorable experiences we had during our entire three weeks in Vietnam. We spent almost 5 hours wandering the back streets of Saigon with him, very far from the tourist areas and right smack in the middle of places we would never have seen otherwise. We walked up and down streets where locals were fixing motorcycles with tools and parts I’d never seen. We felt truly immersed.

Ky Son is a rural community with tiny villages, vast expanses of farm land, and very peaceful atmosphere. One afternoon, we went with our guide and the manager of the guest house where we were staying on a 10 km cycle trip. We stuck to unpaved country roads that were pretty much the route of choice for school children on bikes, locals on motorcycles and farmers with water buffaloes. Viatnemese people are very efficient on bikes, and in this tiny place, seeing us Westerners attempting to navigate the holes in the road while avoiding other cyclists, slow moving cattle, dozens of ducks, overhanging foliage and any number of other unavoidable obstacles surely made for quite the spectacle. Our guide told us that at one point, the children were pointing and saying “Look at the Westerners on a bike.” Through this experience, we really learned that cycling through small areas where the local residents live and work is a great way to actually see the place you are visiting.

the people of vietnam

On our trip, we learned that Vietnamese people are very open and friendly, and even though the locals can’t talk with you, they communicate through hand gestures and pats on the back and lots of hugging. We Westerners aren’t very comfortable with people forcibly entering our personal space, but if you spend anytime in Vietnam, you learn that when the locals feel friendly, they get close. They look directly at you; they want to hear what your voice sounds like, touch your clothing, pat your hair, examine your hands and almost inhale you. They are trying to learn about a different culture and do not understand your astonished reaction. It took some time for me to stop being offended by the closeness and learn to be more open and available. There is something almost magical about watching the happiness on the face of a 90 year old woman when she sits with you and tells you a story in Vietnamese, waiting for your reaction. When the communication happens, no matter how basic that may be, that memory stays with you forever.