My Vacation in Vietnam!

Hello everyone. Happy Sunday!

So last month I took a month long vacation in Vietnam & Japan. It was a very long trip and I was definitely homesick. Although it was great and fun, there are a couple of BRUTAL things you have to deal with. For fun (not fun), I counted all the hours I was in the plane for and the total was *drum roll*... 42 HOURS... Yup, I was flying for 42 hours total. The total time for layover was 16 hours. 

Now, onto the more fun stuff, Vietnam!! It feels so weird coming from Seattle, WA at a nice ~50F (~10C) weather to Vietnam which was a blazing 85F (30C) AT NIGHT . I was wearing jeans and a jacket, sweating like I just came out of the shower inside the airport where they have AC. So, that was very nice lol... Overall, I don't have many pictures of Vietnam but I'll post as many as I can here. There is a lot of stealing in Vietnam, especially with phones, so anywhere I went, my phone was in my awesome fanny pack.


Throughout my trip, I went to visit my distant relatives. All of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc all live in the US. The people that I visited were very far from my family tree. I stayed mostly in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). I believe the name is officially Ho Chi Minh City now, but I grew up calling it Saigon. Anyway, onto the pictures (I've also posted pictures of my trip on my Instagram as well: @elleinked) 

The first thing I saw as soon as I stepped out of the airport 
was Popeyes. Surprisingly, it's pretty popular in Vietnam because I saw a couple Popeyes while I was there. They also have Starbucks, Burger King & KFC. 









Got my hair done at Beauty Salon Chika. It's pretty funny because while I was here, the hair stylist refused to believe that my hair wasn't dyed. He told me not to be embarrassed about dying my hair lol... I've never dyed my hair before. Also, there is only 1 person who cuts the hair here and he has like 5 other assistants and they all do one job each. One person washes hair, another combs it, another dries it, etc. 









A 500K VND bill is about $20 USD. Average yearly salary is around $1,700 USD. Overall, the trip was very inexpensive. A very nice breakfast is about $2 USD. Got a mani & pedi for $2USD too. 









There are travel buses that you can sleep on. They don't have seat belts or they have seal belts that don't lock. So... Don't sit on the top bunk because you can fall off.











Some food that I had while there. I forgot what this was called but it was very delicious! 










So... there are a lot of geckos (?) or lizards in Vietnam. The scariest moment was when I went to a hotel and opened the bathroom/shower door. I guess I scared the living daylights out of the lizard because S/HE DROPPED THEIR TAIL ON MY HEAD. Scared the crap out of me while I was showering. Couldn't find the lizard, but I have a pic of the tail... Creepy thing is that it flops around for a good 5 minutes...








Unfortunately, Vietnam is a very poor country. In the country side, many people do eat dogs and cats :( There are basically 3 different types of dogs in Vietnam, guard dogs, dogs for meat, or luxury dogs. Here are 2 puppies I saw while in Vietnam. They're so tiny and can fit on my palm. 










Here is a picture of an average family in the country side. In Vietnam, you can literally have generations living in the same house/land. This family raised pigs, chickens, cats and dogs. There are 4 generations currently living in that house. They've had a total of 12 generations on that plot of land. 









Some more delicious food~ Also, no one here serves water. I have never missed water so much until I went to Vietnam. Coconut water is more common. Also, they don't have ice in most places. So, everything you drink is warm and you're in 90+ degree weather. 

This is considered a "luxury dog." He cost around $600 USD according to the owner. The poor dog didn't like me much :(

Buildings in Vietnam are really bad structurally. I don't think there are two houses that look the same. 

Also, everyone here drives mopeds/motorcycles. There are cars and buses but those are a minority. Driving here is TERRIFYING. It's every vehicle for themselves. Look at this traffic...

More food that I ate!!! This is what I ate 75% of the time on my trip.

This is my favorite dish. I tried to make this when coming back and I couldn't :( My soul is hurting because I can't eat this and I can't find this anywhere here in the US. 

Look at this NEON GREEN soda. The flavor is vanilla. I'm not a huge soda fan and this made me weirded out lol... It was super sweet. Even sweeter than most sodas here.

MOAR FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!

There are so many family owned businesses in Vietnam. Besides American fast food restaurants, there are no business chains. Every family runs their own store. Stores/shops can be hair salons, fruit stands, flower shop, jewelry shop, eyebrow waxing, etc. The list goes on and on. There is no Walmart or Costco type of place. If you want to get meat, veggies, and drinks for a dinner, you'd need to go to three different shops. 

Anywho, that is all I have for my trip to Vietnam. Sorry for the weird formatting. I tried my best xD. There are other pictures, but they weren't interesting enough for me to post lol. I would say that the Vietnam part of my trip cost a total of $1,100 USD. The plane ticket was the most expensive part at $800 USD. The other $300 USD covered food, lodging and transportation. It is really an inexpensive country to visit. Got any other questions about Vietnam? Ask me in the comments :) My post about Japan shall be posted later.