Jenni goes East: the bright lights of Ho Chi Minh City

The Jenni goes East series is back! And this time, I travelled the 6,000 miles to South East Asia... solo! Obviously you know I'm not short of holidays, and I'm not short of friends and family who love to go on holidays with me. But for a while I'd been feeling like a proper solo travel experience is a rite of passage that I really wanted to do. After becoming single late last year, I did go solo to Egypt. But that was just a relaxing-at-the-hotel experience with a few excursions thrown in. It wasn't a particularly backpacker-style destination and I didn't really meet any other solo travellers. So for this year's winter sun, I knew it was time to do a PROPER solo trip. And the destination that had been at the top of my list for absolutely ages was Vietnam. Cultural, historical, hot, cheap, beautiful; it sounded perfect to me. 

I was originally looking into doing a solo travel tour, where you pay a company to sort the itinerary and there's a big gorup of solo travellers all going round together. But when I looked into, the price seemed extortionate. Most were about £1,000 without international flights. Which wouldn't be terrible for a 10 day trip, if it were anywhere but one of the cheapest countries in the whole world. I looked into how much everything generally costs and figured I was much better off just doing the trip completely on my own. In case anyone else is tempted, I thought I'd include some of the logistics and the costs. My flights to Ho Chi Minh City were £485, indirect via China, and I only booked them 2 weeks before I went, so they might've been even cheaper if I'd done it ahead of time. My accommodation added up to £80 in total, which were all private rooms in hostels. Then the rest of my spending money, which included buses, taxis, food, drinks and attractions, came out at £150 total. In fact, one of the most expensive elements of my trip was parking my car at Heathrow for 10 days, which was over £80. So my car's accommodation total was higher than my own! Overall though, really cheap trip, and I'll include a couple of price references throughout (the 45p beers were my personal favourite part).

I never like to stay in one place for too long, and I've always thought that if you're going 6,000 miles somewhere, it makes sense to try and explore as much of it as you can. So I knew I wanted to do 3 different destinations. Although instead of researching everything myself, I actually employed ChatGPT as my personal travel assistant to help me pick the places, plan how to get around, and budget for the trip. I've included a link to the transcript so you can see exactly how I did it (and feel free to borrow the prompts) but long story short, I did go with the ChatGPT recommended itinerary and it all worked out perfectly. 3 nights in Ho Chi Minh City, 2 nights in Da Lat, and 2 nights in Mui Ne. This blog post will therefore be a 3-part series. First up is Ho Chi Minh City!

I love doing long haul destinations and going to exotic places. What I don't love about long haul, is the long travel day. I set off from my house at 4pm on the Friday, and I arrived at my hostel in Ho Chi Minh City at 3am on the SUNDAY. Thanks to the long drive to Heathrow, the 12 hour flight to Shenzhen, the 6 hour stopover, the 3 hour flight to HCMC, the long ass queue at passport control, and the 30 minute taxi into the city, and not to mention the 7 hour time difference. Although having said all that, the journey was a lot less painful than I'd been anticipating. I ended up getting chatting to a couple of other solo travellers; Adam was sat next to me on the plane and Joe joined us as we went through security at the airport. We were all actually waiting for different connecting flights but they left around the same time so we all had 6 hours to kill and spent it playing cards, chatting and having a few beers. It was basically just like a fun afternoon at the pub (if the pub was as soulless as an airport at 11pm). Either way, I was very glad to finally see my hostel when I got there. For reference, it was £42 for 3 nights and it was called the Full House Hostel, which was in a great location.

Thanks to the jet lag, the late night and the long travel day, I was not exactly bounding out the next day. I had a nice slow morning and then headed out to explore in the afternoon. In my experience of solo travel so far, you really have to force yourself out. It can be quite daunting to just head out alone and explore and I think I really felt that on the first day, but you get more used to it as time goes on. Even though this was my first trip completely solo, I've had plenty of solo adventure days on my trips to see Laura and Fulvio in Italy, so I had already learnt a certain amount about myself that way. My first impression of Ho Chi Minh City (in the daylight) was that it was so beautiful, and beautifully crazy too. Crossing the road in Vietnam is an extreme sport, and there's just so much to take in in terms of the colours, the foods, the buildings. I actually had a fairly relaxed first stop in mind though. Having come from the near freezing temperatures in England, I was excited to just soak up the 36 degree sunshine and HCMC has so much green space to enjoy it in. Although funnily enough, I wasn't left reading my book for very long. A group of excitable Vietnamese students came running over and told me they were learning English and asked if they could chat to me to practise, which I was obviously happy to oblige as they were really sweet and offering me recommendations too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon having a wander around and spotting a few of the sites. Vietnam has a lot more European architecture than I was expecting, so it was a lovely mix, and I stopped by the independence palace and the ben thanh market. There was so much to see, and I couldn't resist a trip to a 7-eleven to try some of the snacks that everyone raves about online. 

When selecting the hostels for my stay, I deliberately chose ones that looked very sociable from the photos. Especially since I'd realised early on that I was never going to be a bunk-bed-and-shared-bathroom girlie, but still wanted to meet people while I was away. The photos of my hostel showed lots of different groups having drinks on the rooftop terrace and so I headed up there after getting ready to find... nothing. Empty. So plan B, I realised I'd be heading out to the Bui Vien alone. Kinda daunting, since it's a super busy strip with promoters outside every bar trying to get you in for a drink! But it was so colourful and impressive and loud; I liked it. I decided to walk the whole thing for a nosey, and then chose to stop at a craft beer place that offered slightly more unique drinks than everywhere else. Lo and behold, it was only about 15 minutes before another solo traveller sat down at the table next to me, and we immediately got chatting. Will (from Australia) was also on his first solo adventure, and we spent the rest of the evening talking and getting a few more drinks. Also funny story, we'd spoken about sports teams and I'd mentioned Nottingham Forest (he was more into Aussie rules than football). Then we walked past a bar with a TV showing football and guess who it was? Nottingham Forest! The weird coincidence meant we obviously had to stop there and grab some food. It was a great night, and a great start to nightlife in Ho Chi Minh City. You'll notice a pattern with how my evenings went but I might as well make the observation now. Making friends is SO easy. Most people, solo or otherwise, are keen to chat and get to know other people, and any fear or nervousness is in your head. The worst that anyone can say is to go away, but everyone I met was so friendly and welcoming and sociable. I'm naturally very confident and outgoing anyway, but even if you're not I'd encourage you to put yourself out there because it's really lovely!

The next day was another slow morning (I was struggling with the jet lag paired with the late night) so I headed off in search of Vietnamese coffee to give me some oomph. Generally speaking, I avoid chain restaurants and anything too commercialised as I prefer to try and find local spots. That's true of while I'm on my travels and also while I'm at home. It felt easier to spot in Vietnam though; if they had an English menu or their English speaking was too good then nope. Find me somewhere that caters to locals only and I will struggle my way through the communication to get the goods. That was the case with the coffee spot and the coffee was amazing! They also gave me endless free refills of iced tea while there which I loved.

The only exception to the rule about nothing commercialised was when it came to street food. I was very scared to get an upset stomach at any point so I tried to be wise with my choices. I'd say in restaurants you're absolutely fine and some of the street carts were cooking everything fresh in front of you. But a lot of them were batch cooking their meat in advance and then just assembling whatever you've ordered and I'm pretty sure leaving cooked meat sat out is a surefire way to get a bad stomach. So with street food, I went to the main Ben Thanh hall, and I actually got a vegan option on this occasion. I love tofu anyway. So I got a noodle salad and a fresh coconut juice and both were incredible! We're quite lucky in Nottingham to have 4 Vietnamese restaurants so I've tried the cuisine plenty already and know I love it; it's just that bit fresher and sharper than Thai or Chinese in my opinion. For reference, this whole tray cost me around £4!

The next stop on my walking tour was to go and see the Notre Dame cathedral. I went, but I didn't see much - it was all scaffolded up! But the square that surrounds it was really pretty and I went and had a look at the historic post office which was cool. I love the way that Ho Chi Minh City has the contrast of old and new buildings right next to each other. The glass skyscrapers and the French colonial buildings.

Something that I thought was particularly cute was the book street. Just a lovely little stretch of endless book shops, stalls and stacks. I think Ho Chi Minh City was definitely surprising in its quaintness.

I was very much in the grand district at this point. I went to see the people's committee, the opera house and the posh hotels that surrounded them. It was all a very beautiful area!

You should know by now that I'm obsessed with rooftop bars. They're pretty much one of my key personality traits at this point. So naturally, I decided to end my day at one and chose a place called The View as it was on the walking street right near my hostel. They also had a happy hour deal with buy one get one free so that had my name written all over it. Once again, I managed to make some friends within 5 minutes of being there and ended up joining them for drinks. It was a group of 4 Scottish people, 2 couples, and I offered to take their photo, they offered to take mine, and then we got chatting from there. Like I said, easy. They were lovely and they'd already been in Vietnam for a couple of weeks so it was great to hear about their trip and get some recommendations. Lots of people I spoke to had started in the North, and it's definitely on my list to return to Vietnam to tick that off too.

After a quick turnaround, I was back to the walking street for a few drinks. Again, I think I was only sat solo for maybe 15 or 20 minutes before I got chatting to a group of older English guys. Funnily enough one of them was even from Nottingham! So that's a super small world. Then I got speaking to a couple of guys from the Netherlands and spent the rest of the evening having drinks with them. Even though I like to hope I've met people from all walks of life, one of my favourite things about being in Vietnam was meeting so many people from different countries and just hearing about their lives. It was so great! Oh and if anyone is wondering how my hair held up against the 35 degree heat and 80% humidity (it didn't get any cooler in the evenings FYI), then you can see the answer is: not well.

Something I was intrigued to try was the famous Vietnamese egg coffee. Sounds weird right? Well, it's basically an egg yolk custard mixed with milk and espresso. You can get it cold or hot and I went for cold; it was very nice but more like a dessert than a drink! It reminded me of the caffe crema I had in Italy actually. 

Ho Chi Minh City is a pretty big one so there was still plenty for me to explore on my third and final day. I ventured into the more built-up areas this time and ended up in what felt like the finance/commercial district. Basically the Canary Wharf of HCMC.

Another one that had been on my list was Japantown. It was pretty small but really cute with lots of sushi places and karaoke and nice little tea shops.

Then it was time for refreshments! I went back to the street food market for lunch and got the famous banh mi. The bread was so crusty it felt like I was in pain eating it but it was really good with the fresh veggies and BBQ pork. I also got a pineapple iced tea which was amazing, and then stopped off at this cute little courtyard for more drinks, including a passion fruit tea and the endless iced tea they bring you. Love that custom.

The final stop on my itinerary for the day was the Tan Dinh church, which was perfectly pretty in pink! I ended my day there as I'm pretty sure I had overdone it with the walking in the heat; I'd done about 7.5 miles and was dying slightly.

When I planned out my itinerary (well, when ChatGPT did), I knew I'd be spending the night on a bus so figured that was my accommodation for the night and didn't need to book anything. What I didn't think about is that I'd need to check out of my hostel in the morning and my bus wasn't until 11pm. So not wanting to wander around aimlessly all evening, I decided to book a night in a shared hostel room for the grand total of £5, meaning I had somewhere to chill and shower and get ready for the next leg of my trip. I also managed to squeeze in an extra travel friendship there as I got chatting to the guy in the bunk next to me. Benjamin was from Hong Kong and again, it was super fascinating learning about someone's way of life when they're from somewhere extremely culturally different from you. It was also fun to blow his mind with the English customs of trying to convince grown adults to eat vegetables, or using brown paste to make your skin appear more tanned. Then after a couple of hours chilling and chatting at the hostel, I went to grab some food. Again, my process for choosing a restaurant came through, because this place had only 10 things on the menu and all the furniture looked totally not aesthetic. Winner. It was probably the best meal I had while I was there! And for the noodle soup plus the beer, it cost me a grand total of £2.

Then it was onto stop number 2! I wasn't sure how easy the logistics of travelling around without a tour or any travel companions would be. But obviously I'm already well travelled, and I'm pretty savvy anyway. Google maps seemed to access most of the Vietnamese bus information accurately and once I got to the bus station, I just either asked people where to go, or they took pity on me after figuring out I didn't know and directed me. Just generally speaking, all the Vietnamese people were so friendly and helpful. So once I'd successfully made it onto my sleeper bus, it was time to go onwards to stop number two. Da Lat here we come...