Come & Go Vietnam Blog

Scams, robberies and general beastliness towards tourists are a hot topic in Vietnam right now, and so the local authorities in Danang have taken steps, by introducing a hotline for tourists to call in the event of any such shenanigans happening during their stay.

Sounds good right? Well, it does, except, there isn’t one hotline. There are seven. Oh, and they aren’t hotlines, they’ve just made the phone numbers of various local officials available to the public. Here’s the lowdown:

The hotlines include Le Thi Thu Hanh – deputy director of Department of Foreign Affairs 0905.113.038; and Nguyen Thi Phuong Nga, deputy head of the department’s Consular and Viet Kieu Desk 01669.597.120. 

Hotlines for the police department’s immigration service include Dang Trung Thinh at 0905.475.762 and 05113.743.791; and Ho Thi Thanh Ha at 0905.010.586 and 05113.743.791. 

Foreigners can also report crimes and other complaints in person to the Da Nang Immigration Office at 78 Le Loi Street in Hai Chau District or call 05113.860.247.

Good luck calling the deputy director of the department of foreign affairs at 3am when you’ve just left your camera in the back of a Hoi An taxi!

Contemplating a trip to Vietnam, or want to bring back memories of a previous visit? Look no further! Here are 10 of the best Vietnam videos on Youtube, showing you the country in all its crazy, beautiful, noisy, friendly, chaotic glory…

1. Top Gear Vietnam Special

Personally I can’t stand Top Gear & its three smug presenters, but the Vietnam episode did more to promote the country as a tourist destination than anyone else has ever managed and should be required viewing for anyone thinking about paying us a visit!

2. Anthony Bourdain in Saigon

Chef & food writer Anthony Bourdain LOVES Vietnam; in fact he loves it so much he even came to live here for a while. He’s a great ambassador for Vietnamese food and Vietnam in general, and in this clip he checks out the food scene in Saigon:

3. Andrew Zimmern in Vietnam

More food this time with Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern, connoisseur of the world’s most weird & wonderful cuisine and the man responsible for my policy of trying everything that’s put in front of me. As usual with Zimmern’s show, this clip is not for the squeamish:

4. Saigon in 1945

My favourite clip on this list – wonderfully evocative footage of colonial Saigon in 1945, and a very bittersweet clip in that it shows how beautiful this city was until very recently, before the developers and their wrecking balls moved in. Watch and weep:

5. Saigon traffic time-lapse

Time-lapse photography is all the rage at the moment and Vietnam’s crazy traffic is the perfect subject. This amazing clip takes a look at Saigon’s insane traffic on both road and river:

6. 226 Days in Vietnam

This Lonely Planet video is a great overview of the country, warts & all, for anyone planning a visit:

7. Haiphong market walk

Well-known Vietnam-based blogger, filmmaker & travel expert Mark Bowyer takes us on a fascinating wander around Haiphong Market and deals with a few personal questions:

8. Danang & Hoi An

An entertaining & informative look at what Danang & Hoi An have to offer visitors, from the Travel Channel:

9. BBC Halong Bay report

The BBC recently filmed a report on the current safety situation in Halong Bay, following the fatal accident there in 2010. As well as putting visitors’ minds at ease, it’s also a good look at what Halong Bay has to offer as a visitor experience:

10. Vietnam win 2008 AFF Cup

Finally one of my own videos! The Vietnamese are crazy about football, and when the national team won their first AFF Cup in 2008, Saigon went stark staring mental. I was out on the streets in the middle of it and filmed this footage:

Found any other Vietnam gems on YouTube? Please share them in the Comments section! And if these clips have whetted your appetite, visit our website or email me on tim@comeandgovietnam.com to start planning your trip.

Steve Jackson, the man behind the excellent Our Man in Hanoi blog, left a very thought-provoking comment on my piece about Vietnam’s sexy new tourism ambassador. Steve says:  “Elsewhere tourism bosses were talking about utilising Facebook to promote tourism while FB remains blocked. How about not blocking Facebook – there would be a way of allowing people to post pics of their travels to friends while in Vietnam. More WIFI here than anywhere I’ve ever been so why not make something out of that and let people share those great images.”

It’s a really good point. As the world’s biggest social network, Facebook has become pretty much the default channel for travellers wishing to share updates, anecdotes, photos & videos with their friends & family while they travel. It’s quicker, easier & less intrusive than email, more versatile than Twitter, and a lot less hassle (and less likely to be abandoned after a few days) than a travel blog. And Vietnam has free WiFi everywhere – in the cities, and increasingly in the countryside, virtually every bar, cafe and restaurant is offering free WiFi.

BUT, Vietnam still insists on blocking Facebook (not, as many think, for political reasons, but economic ones – to save bandwidth for, and encourage take up of, domestic social networks), and in doing so, it is blocking a potentially highly effective, and free, channel for word-of-mouth advertising. Instead of logging into Facebook and telling their friends how great Vietnam is, and showing off their photos, tourists are complaining that they can’t access Facebook. This is not a good thing.

With the after-effects of Matt Kepnes’ blistering blog blitzkrieg on Vietnam’s tourism industry still resonating across the country, Voice of Vietnam has unearthed a happy tourist visitor to our fair shores – Australian backpacker Thomas Johnson who, as he states himself and as the title of the article stresses, is most definitely a “real backpacker”, and not, under ANY circumstances, a fictional character created by VOV journalists to enable them to expose Kepnes’ article for the treacherous pack of lies it most obviously is.

The VOV scribe was fortunate enough to bump into Mr Johnson near Hoan Kiem Lake, where he was bargaining (and most definitely not being overcharged) for souvenirs. And like any other Australian male backpacker, Johnson was filling up his backpack with traditional women’s dresses and ceramics.

Johnson has clearly been in Vietnam so long, and adapted to his new surroundings so well, he has forgotten how to speak gramatically correct English, forgetting to pluralise his words (“beef noodle”, “chicken noodle” etc), and coining a new expression, “to buy things at first sight”.  A fine example of cultural assimilation.

He has also become an expert on Hanoi traffic and is keen to share his expertise with visitors to Vietnam’s capital. ‘ ”It’s dangerous to cross the road. Please wait for the green light and use the zebra crossing as quick as you can, and keep your eyes wide open,” he said.’ Thank you Thomas!

And having seen all there is to see in Hanoi, Thomas is now planning to head south to visit Ho Chi Minh City. But it’s not enough for him to say “I’m looking forward to visiting Ho Chi Minh City”, oh no. For Thomas it’s almost a pilgrimage. ‘“I’ve heard a lot about the great leader of Vietnam and wish to visit the city named after him to explore the southern part of Vietnam,” he said.‘ I’m sure he did.

Thomas is so typical, nay, stereotypical of the Vietnamese authorities’ dream tourist – shopping for traditional goods, stuffing his face with pho, and paying homage to Uncle Ho, rather than doing weird stuff like sunbathing, motorbiking or watersports – that readers of a much more cynical bent than myself have suggested this article may be fake. Shame on you I say! Mr Johnson I salute you, and look forward to welcoming you to Ho Chi Minh City and selling you some more ao dai & conical hats. If there’s any space left in that backpack of yours, obviously.

Tourism in Vietnam is finally getting sexy! Late last year, the powers that be appointed a new “tourism ambassador” in the shapely form of actress Ly Nha Ky, who, as the comment in the title suggests, seems to be more famous for getting her kit off than for her knowledge of tourism or ambassadorial qualities. As the report says, “At the Nha Trang Sea Festival in June, she was criticized for exhibiting 500 photos of herself in swimsuits and revealing clothes for a charity event.” I’d imagine that this would have been pretty much the only interesting thing about the Nha Trang Sea Festival, but that is beside the point.

The Hidden Charms

The idea of tourism ambassadors is a good thing, provided that ambassador has some sort of fame or renown in the market in which they are working. However as usual, Vietnam’s authorities can only think domestically, and whilst the comely Ms Nha Ky may be a household name here in VN (though a quick vox pop in my household confirmed that noone here knew who she was, but then as my household consists solely of a 4-yr old girl and a Filipina housemaid, it may not be a particularly representative sample), it’s highly unlikely that anyone outside Vietnam is aware of her existence – which kind of makes her pretty useless as an ambassador.

When picking a tourism ambassador you can go down one of two routes – you can either pick someone from your own country who is internationally famous (for example, Victoria Beckham was recently named British tourism ambassador), or you can use foreign nationals who are well known in their own local markets to help market your destination, such as Indian actor/producer Akshay Kumar, who promotes Canada in his native country.

Sadly Ly Nha Ky doesn’t fit either description. I recently had lunch with celebrity chef Bobby Chinn at his new Saigon restaurant, and he told me he’d offered to do a bit of ambassadorial work for Vietnam, promoting the country via his hugely popular World Cafe Asia TV show. He got no response. At a 2010 trade show I asked a VNAT official why they didn’t approach someone like Anthony Bourdain, a huge Vietnamophile and a well known figure in the US, Australia & Europe, to help market Vietnam in those territories. The official had no idea who Bourdain was, nor what I was talking about.

To judge the effectiveness of foreign tourism ambassadors, look at the 2008 Top Gear Vietnam special. Now personally I hate Top Gear with a passion, especially Jeremy Clarkson, whom I would only like to see as an ambassador for the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, offering his own first-hand testimonial regarding its facilities and efficiency, but the show gave Vietnam’s tourism a HUGE boost. I lost count of the number of people who watched it & then emailed me or called me saying things like wow, you’re so lucky to live there, it looks amazing, I never realised it was so beautiful etc. And yet the authorities here continue to make it difficult for foreign film crews to work here.

So whilst Ly Nha Ky may be easy on the eye and is a fine example of Vietnamese womanhood, as a tourism ambassador her effectiveness is limited. Far more effective to appoint a foreigner who knows and loves Vietnam – after all, when you’re working in tourism, foreigners are your target market.

A recent post from travel blogger Matt Kepnes on Huffington Post, Why I’ll Never Return to Vietnam, created quite a stir here when it was published last month. And whilst the whingeing, self-pitying tone and clear lack of pre-trip research are not what one would expect from such a popular travel writer, Kepnes’ experiences are sadly typical of many tourists who come to Vietnam, and help explain the country’s pitiful 5% return visitor rate.

Thankfully the blog has attracted a lot of coverage in the Vietnamese media and led to a lot of self-analysis and soul-searching, rare activities in a country whose citizens often consider themselves above reproach. The mistreatment of tourists is no longer the elephant in the room and is now being widely discussed, and I hope that this new awareness will lead to a much-needed change in attitude.

Personally I’ve written about this topic countless times and my views on the subject are well-known. Time, I feel, to push the negativity to one side and look at the positive side of Vietnam – with over 6 million tourist visitors  a year and a growing, and mostly happy expat community, there must be one, right? Via the power of Facebook, I harvested the opinions of local residents, both expats & Vietnamese, to find out what they like most about Vietnam. Here are a few random thoughts…

• Nice weather, less tax, good people (Quentin)
• The Vietnamese are endlessly optimistic. Sometimes it can be infuriating, but 99 times out of 100 it’s not. The Vietnamese are, at the end of the day, incredibly tolerant. They can bear almost anything and continue to belive tomorrow will be a better day. And finally, the greatest thing I can say about them, is that they’re also forgiving. I imagine, if the tables were turned, and the Vietnamese had come to America and dropped more bombs than on any other country in history, and then 25, 30 years later tried to come over for a summer holiday, or to see if they could find a job, how would they be treated? The fact that the war still exists in living memories, and yet I still not only feel welcome, but often feel like people like me specifically because I’m western/american is mind blowing. (Jake)
• The FOOD! (Jase)
• Love the food, good, friendly and warm people, pretty country with lots of history, and is full of business opportunities (Ravi)
• Positive people make me more positive and the Vietnamese are generally a happy entrepreneurial bunch, good business opportunities, great weather, affordable to eat out and enjoy life outside my apartment. (Anders)
• Ca phe sua da (iced coffee with milk) (Mike)
• Its never, ever boring. The endless people watching opportunities. Low cost of living, the tailors of Hoi An, the fact that different parts of the country are so very different from each other. The fact that you can have absolutely anything delivered to your house. Every single day you’d come home and have at least one story that started ‘you’ll never guess what I saw today…’ Cheap beauty treatments, the smell of the those waffley things they cook on the street, the excellent cheesecake (we actually had a blog dedicated to it!), the fact that when you’re not on the tourist trail the people are actually incredibly warm and funny. The fact that, no matter how you feel about the place (and I’ll be the first to admit there were times I was less than enamoured), the majority of foreigners living there experience a quality of life that is better than in their own country. (Rachel)
• Their ability to STOP work or what ever to have a coffee break and relax for how ever long they like. No such thing as “Time is money” in Nam. The job will be finished when it’s done! So envious of that attitude and way of life. Wish more western countries were like that. (Chad)
• You can order anything to be delivered to your house. (Linh)
• You’ll never have to talk to an answering machine here. (Tim)
• When asked “why Vietnam?” I refer to the wonderful optimism, it rubs off on me and I love it. Tomorrow will be better than today, that is the paradigm and I hope it does not fade away too quickly as the country develops. (Adam)
• The absolutely amazing, high energy vibrant street life, positives and negatives to that, but mostly positive! No matter how many times you witness something and say “now I’ve seen everything”, there always comes a time, usually very quickly, that you witness something and can say again “NOW I’ve….”! (Robert)
• Girls…lets be honest guys! (Soren)
• Free WiFi everywhere. Only realised how great it is until I went home for Christmas. (Dani)
• After 17 years, I still love and am amazed at the smiles, the free smiles, the real smiles, how easily they come. (Tom)
• Being welcomed anywhere. I’ve shown up unannounced at people’s houses, at funerals, in pagodas and been welcomed in and fed well. (Helen)
• Optimism, friendliness, generosity – I’ve come to the conclusion that all the good things about the people here seem to be underpinned by a very deep sense of pride. For thousands of years foreigners have been trying to control this part of the world and the Viets have seen them all off thanks to plain old hard work in the face of the most atrocious and formidable conditions. Now for the first time this generation is able to live the life that virtually all of their ancestors dreamed of, independent, free, and happily, and the result is the warmth, friendliness and generosity that all of us here have experienced from the average Vietnamese. That’s what I appreciate the most about the place. (Paul)

How about you? If you’re a tourist, what did you like about your visit to Vietnam? If you live here, what things do you enjoy the most?