It's a new year and it's time to look back on my time in Vietnam, specifically the pros, cons, and things I would do differently if I were to spend time there again. This episode will be useful if you're thinking of taking the same path, but may also just be interesting to see what it's actually like on the ground somewhere so different to the UK and Europe. TLDR: I would spend time in Vietnam again, but would be much more specific and intentional with my choice of accommodation and community.
The best thing by far about Vietnam (and Da Nang specifically) is the beach. It's around 10km of unbroken white sand, with roped sections for swimming, surf areas, beach bars and clubs, and things like loungers and parasols dotted around which you can rent for a few thousand Dong (<$5). I'm sure the feeling is similar across many coastal cities but it's really quite nice being able to take a short walk or grab (Uber) to the beach, and with delivery options for basically any type of food you can imagine, it's a great way to spend the day (when there isn't category 5 hurricane overhead).
Another strong plus is the coffee. Now I'm not a coffee enthusiast by any means, but even my underdeveloped palette could appreciate the unique flavour of the strong (Robusta) beans, which coincidentally contain almost double the caffeine of (Arabica) beans used in most drinks in the West. This strong flavour means that cafes can add coconut milk, sweeteners, syrups, and other things to create overall really nice drinks, which at a cost of <$2 I strongly recommend.
Healthcare in Da Nang for foreigners is very good, specifically the Vinmec hospital which is a branch of the international Vinmec healthcare group (not sponsored). Should you find yourself in need of any scans, vaccines, and other health related things I recommend a visit, especially since you can book same or next day appointments via an app and choose which doctor's experience you think closest matches the specialisation you need. Fortunately I can't speak to their emergency department's user experience, but I would guess it's quite good although as with the consultations you may find using google translate (depending on the doctor you speak to) useful, which may be a challenge if you're unconscious.
Accommodation is probably the main downside of the Da Nang experience. I stayed in low-tier AirBnBs, high-tier AirBnBs, and a five star hotel during the three months there, and have a wide range of experiences to report. Low tier AirBnBs are bad, as in, cancel the booking and find a new one bad. It's all fun and games until a spider the size of your hand crawls under the front door and invites itself for dinner, but insects are not the reason to cancel. Noise is a huge problem.
There are mopeds (which we'll get to) with rear-mounted ovens (yes really) and front-mounted speaker systems, which blast something along the lines of 'Bread rolls for sale' from as early as 05:00 through to 23:00 every day. These mopeds run laps around the entire city, and are loud enough that if one is driving even three or four streets over you will hear it, so you can imagine what it's like if you live on a main road. Add to this that in my experience the construction quality of the buildings is generally low, with windows often not proberly sealed and hollow-core bricks laid end-out (letting all street noise in), and you've got a recipe for poor sleep in essentially all central city locations. There is much more to say about the accommodation situation but in the interests of brevity I'll leave it there. I would add that it seems that this isn't a problem a budget increase can solve, since even the high end buildings suffer the same fate and lack the same window seals for some reason - definitely a huge gap in the market for competent window installers!
On to food, I'm not ashamed to admit that the only local dish I tried was Banh Mi, basically a very light half-baguette with things inside. It's not that I didn't want to try more local things, but that the supermarkets had basically everything you could want to make western dishes, so that's what ended up happening. One surprise was that the best pizza in the world is actually in Da Nang, in a small four-table shop called White Olive Pizza. I strongly recommend their pepperoni and you can imagine my surprise after travelling almost 10,000km from the south of France only to find better pizza in a coastal city in Vietnam.
And to community; this is probably the most interesting part of the whole thing. There are a few archetypes of people that you will meet in Da Nang, the majority of which I would describe as being there 'unsustainably'. That is, they have taken a significant financial or personal risk being there, are simply a tourist, or have put themselves in a 'burn the boats' type situation. I've seen most of the ones I've met return to their home country but it's the other group which are more interesting. It's the people with the financial means to travel sustainably who choose Da Nang over the many other options in the region. It may be the combination of beach, convenience, and cost effectiveness which combine to give a best-overall-score for Da Nang for them, but I'll have to travel more before I know for sure. Anyway, my main takeaway is that the community of international travellers is a bit weird, probably because you have to be a bit weird to choose this kind of lifestyle and it definitely shows.
Da Nang, and I believe broader Vietnam, is built around mopeds. This is cool if you're a moped enthusiast, but if you're a walking-on-pavements enjoyer this is not the city for you. On top of this, what do you think the maximum number of people you could fit on a moped is? If you're thinking a family of five then congratulations, because that's the most I've seen and that's alongside many many four-person situations, two parents plus a baby, single parent plus baby or toddler, couple plus dog, old person plus dog, two school children only, and other combinations. It's really wild to see and it gets more extreme. Many local modify their mopeds with trailer extensions up to 4m (yes 400cm) long. This allows them to transport things like metal roofing sheets, fridges, sofas, and other construction materials and bulk goods using just a moped. This is alongside the rear-mounted ovens (with open fires burning inside as they drive) I mentioned above, side mounted fishing crates, workers caring ladders or OSB sheets in one hand and steering with the other, and you can see that describing the roads as chaotic is an understatement.
But mopeds aren't the only thing on the road. There is a vast fleet of white Mitsubishi 4x4s which are for some reason all grab/taxis, and huge American style 18-wheelers which go from the docks in the north straight through the city. I have no idea what the injury/incident rate is but if you can picture a four-lane motorway with multiple 18-wheelers in the left lane surrounded by say 80 mopeds (8 of which are heavily modified) and 10 cars all stopped at a red light then you've got a pretty good mental image of one of the crossroads in central Da Nang. I don't drive myself (not that that's an issue apparently) so I didn't experience anything other than the relative safety of a grab/taxi but if you do drive it's absolutely something to prepare for.
One thing I quickly have to mention is the markets in Da Nang. There is Han Market which sits in the middle of the west bank of the river and Con Market which is slightly to the south. Han Market is the place to go if you want branded goods. I for example purchased a genuine 👀 Moncler t-shirt for 120,000 dong (around $4 down from $400 ) which I was very pleased with. Con Market is good for basically everything else, if you need a new suitcase, a new kettle, 10kg of cashew nuts, a live turtle, a crate of chicken feet, or other essential every day items then it's a good bet. Be warned though, the wet market portion of the sprawling structure smells - very bad. I can't stress this enough, whatever the worst thing you've ever smelt was, imagine sniffing that in hot humid air and the 'fresh' air coming through the building is just more of that. Needless to say I probably won't be going back any time soon, but 100% recommend Han Market for a great overall experience and a sea of every type of bag, t-shirt, cap, and more that you can imagine.
Vietnam is a really interesting and eye-opening country to spend time in. On the one hand, it's clear that it's on the cusp of a tourism boom and lifestyle convenience is at the heart of that future. On the other, construction seems generally 'functional' rather than 'robust' across the board, but in the context of around 10 tropical cyclones per year this is understandable. And I'm going to be completely transparent here but spending three months there during the rainy season especially was tough, but not because of anything about the country or the city, but because of the journey that was happening in parallel.
Leaving a career, a globally important and influential company, and the stability of regular income and a clear path ahead does a lot to change how you see yourself. In my first months of the journey in France the true impact of that decision hadn't really kicked in. But being in a different time zone, a different culture, and a different climate especially it felt like the outside world now reflected the internal struggle. Nothing is familiar, everything seems risky and dangerous, and it's not clear if this is even the right place to be. So I can't give a fair recommendation on Vietnam because I didn't see it through a clear lens, but I will say that there are definitely worse places in the world to be.
Also, a bit of a spoiler but currently Vietnam is beating Malaysia for me personally in terms of convenience and overall vibes, but I'll do a full episode in Malaysia soon too. I could easily have written half a book on all of the different things going on in Da Nang but these have been the main points. Sure there are always things which could be improved, but for the objective of 'buy time to figure things out near a beach without selling a kidney' it definitely meets the brief. Anyway I hope this was useful and interesting, and I'll end with another idea which might make for a useful company; a VPN for banking - pay via local entities instead of international cards/accounts, subscription model to buy private, seamless, compliant, and tax efficient spending power globally. The value add here could be tax residency ties but we'll get to that in an upcoming episode 😉
Also happy new year! Hope it's off to a flying start wherever you are.
Thanks and all the best,
Oliver
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