Vietnam - best value in SEA
- spitthedog
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Vietnam - best value in SEA
After traveling from Cambodia > Vietnam > Laos and west trough Thailand it struck me that Vietnam is now the best value in SEA.
Great food everywhere. You really appreciate how great Viet food is once you leave there and travel Laos by road. Viet street food has everything from sophisticated duck salads to those huge plates in the buffet rice shops. Such a contrast to Cambodia.
And the beer. Only 60 cents for a bottle of Tiger.
We travelled through the central highlands where air con not needed.
Only 100k dong per night for a room if you stay in the non english script locals places.
And everything is organised.
The humble guesthouse in Thailand has virtually gone the way of the dodo. Been replaced by 400 baht "resorts" all throughout the country. Most of them always look empty and the rooms generally small and pokey.
We stayed in a hotel in Banglamphu for 600 baht and i shit you not i could not get through the front room door without squeezing my body sideways.
My frame had trouble getting through the bathroom door. The beaches of Rayong were lovely but full of Scandanavians and no brits.
As the street vendors get moved out of Khao San road and beer prices not particularly cheap , it makes Vietnam look very attractive for long stayers.
No forms to fill out when we entered Vietnam. No questions asked for other SEA citizens.
No rubbish everywhere in Vietnam like erm...
No driving like chimpanzees on crack.
I should imagine the healthcare is alot less life threatening and above board.
Oh, and the hammock cafes all throughout Vietnam. The world needs more of those. Why doesnt Canbodia adopt them?
If only the buggers learnt more Engrish though. They make khmers look like language geniuses.
Great food everywhere. You really appreciate how great Viet food is once you leave there and travel Laos by road. Viet street food has everything from sophisticated duck salads to those huge plates in the buffet rice shops. Such a contrast to Cambodia.
And the beer. Only 60 cents for a bottle of Tiger.
We travelled through the central highlands where air con not needed.
Only 100k dong per night for a room if you stay in the non english script locals places.
And everything is organised.
The humble guesthouse in Thailand has virtually gone the way of the dodo. Been replaced by 400 baht "resorts" all throughout the country. Most of them always look empty and the rooms generally small and pokey.
We stayed in a hotel in Banglamphu for 600 baht and i shit you not i could not get through the front room door without squeezing my body sideways.
My frame had trouble getting through the bathroom door. The beaches of Rayong were lovely but full of Scandanavians and no brits.
As the street vendors get moved out of Khao San road and beer prices not particularly cheap , it makes Vietnam look very attractive for long stayers.
No forms to fill out when we entered Vietnam. No questions asked for other SEA citizens.
No rubbish everywhere in Vietnam like erm...
No driving like chimpanzees on crack.
I should imagine the healthcare is alot less life threatening and above board.
Oh, and the hammock cafes all throughout Vietnam. The world needs more of those. Why doesnt Canbodia adopt them?
If only the buggers learnt more Engrish though. They make khmers look like language geniuses.
Last edited by spitthedog on Wed Oct 24, 2018 9:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
"I don't care what the people are thinking, i ain't drunk i'm just drinking"
- Hanno
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I must be living in a different Vietnam.spitthedog wrote:The beaches of Rayong were lovely but full of Scandanavians and no brits.{/quote]
Thank God.
No rubbish everywhere in Vietnam like erm...
No driving like chimpanzees on crack.
Two days ago in HCMC:
"I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
- spitthedog
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WTF Hanno. You livin next to a rubbish tip or something?Hanno wrote:I must be living in a different Vietnam.spitthedog wrote:The beaches of Rayong were lovely but full of Scandanavians and no brits.{/quote]
Thank God.
No rubbish everywhere in Vietnam like erm...
No driving like chimpanzees on crack.
Two days ago in HCMC:
Is much cleaner than the KOW though right?
"I don't care what the people are thinking, i ain't drunk i'm just drinking"
- shehasnoballs
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Yeah nam is a lot cleaner than Cambodia, but littering is still a problem. Street-sweepers work around the clock and some people make a living picking up recyclables. Their efforts make the huge problem that is littering seem like not such a big deal. Everybody and their mom litters, but the street cleaners come out at least three times a day from what I've seen.
Traffic is smaller cities is pretty good and I haven't had much trouble there except for teenagers and truck-drivers. They just drive too damn fast.
My only problems this past year has been finding full-time work and finding a good house, but I agree with your assessment. People drive OK, streets are fairly clean, and the food is... as we say... ngon (delicious).
Traffic is smaller cities is pretty good and I haven't had much trouble there except for teenagers and truck-drivers. They just drive too damn fast.
My only problems this past year has been finding full-time work and finding a good house, but I agree with your assessment. People drive OK, streets are fairly clean, and the food is... as we say... ngon (delicious).
- Hanno
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No balls is right, as long as the government can pay for an army of street sweepers, it does not look to bad. A little different away from the city centers and tourist areas though. Like all Asians, Vietnamese are terrible litter bugs. Having driven in both Cambodia and Vietnam fort years, I personally find traffic in Vietnam a lot more dangerous than in Cambodia.
No argument about the food, it is indeed "thom ngon" (as long as you ignore all the additives and chemicals that come with the food, including ground-up batteries in the coffee).
No argument about the food, it is indeed "thom ngon" (as long as you ignore all the additives and chemicals that come with the food, including ground-up batteries in the coffee).
"I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Don't go to Vietnam. The streets are filthy, the driving worse than a chimpanzee on crack, and the street food is inedible muck that often makes you sick as a dog. Also, the wages are incredibly low, but the prices are incredibly high.
Stay here where we love you.
Stay here where we love you.
Seems strange that a country bereft of fine dining (KOW) is bordered by countries that have a very high standard of cuisine.
To be fair, those big piles of rubbish are usually gone in a day or two. Generally, Vietnam seems a lot cleaner than its neighbours, but like everywhere else in Asia, rubbish disposal is a big problem. Take a trip down the river to Chau Doc and you will see serious m3 of garbage going into the river.
One indelible image I have is hundreds of empty insect spray cans bobbing in the water.
To be fair, those big piles of rubbish are usually gone in a day or two. Generally, Vietnam seems a lot cleaner than its neighbours, but like everywhere else in Asia, rubbish disposal is a big problem. Take a trip down the river to Chau Doc and you will see serious m3 of garbage going into the river.
One indelible image I have is hundreds of empty insect spray cans bobbing in the water.
"Not my circus, not my monkeys" - KiR
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spitthedog wrote:WTF Hanno. You livin next to a rubbish tip or something?Hanno wrote:I must be living in a different Vietnam.spitthedog wrote:The beaches of Rayong were lovely but full of Scandanavians and no brits.{/quote]
Thank God.
No rubbish everywhere in Vietnam like erm...
No driving like chimpanzees on crack.
Two days ago in HCMC:
Is much cleaner than the KOW though right?
the second picture refers to driving like chimpanzees on crack. Viet lady, pissed up rode into 5 parked motos killing one and injuring 4. https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/201 ... on_cuOThaU
Last edited by tombraider on Wed Oct 24, 2018 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Hanno
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It is everywhere. Ha Long is a big garbage dump, as are all the rivers.
Sa Pa:
Chau Doc:
Sa Pa:
Chau Doc:
"I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
- spitthedog
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It's funny as to a certain extent we have been travelling slow enough to see the changes in cuisine when we traveled from Laos and through Thailand. My girlfriend almost got slightly depressed eating sticky rice everyday in Laos in the sticks. Unless you went off the main road to resorts that's all there was, and mostly the only dish available with steamed rice was Pad Kra Pao moo. Good BBQ, sausages and som tam everywhere in Laos though.kinard wrote:Seems strange that a country bereft of fine dining (KOW) is bordered by countries that have a very high standard of cuisine.
Rice is expensive in Laos due to the lower farm tech i think, and it's not in their culture to eat out much. Vietnam is a much more efficient farming machine, whereas Laos people are more hunter gatherers.
Laos was much more exciting to travel though. I was somewhat in awe of those Laos dudes heading into the jungle with those long barreled homemade rifles and big smiles.
It wasn't until we got near Phitsanalouk, Thailand, and headed west that the menu started to get more varied and include curries etc. My guess is that this is partly due to the more you get near the old silk road routes, the more the food has been influenced by Muslims and Chinese.
So Laos/Issan same same and Thai cuisine is hunter gatherer meets Chinese / Muslim?
Thai noodle soup beats Viet Pho any day of the week though.
"I don't care what the people are thinking, i ain't drunk i'm just drinking"
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- MerkinMaker
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This is a reoccurring post on 440 and has been since its inception. I think the logic goes something like this:
- Person comes to Cambodia and is shocked by the state of the place
- Person develops thick skin and blinkers to the state of the place
- Person falls in love with the level of personal freedom and friendliness of *most* locals
- Years pass.......
- Person forgets that they fell in love with Cambodia due to personal freedoms not levels of civilization
- Person starts seeing their homeland through rose tinted glasses but it's a bridge too far
- Person starts thinking that Vietnam is a good compromise (insert logical reasons here: salary, food, healthcare hygiene)
- Person moves to Vietnam and raves about it for six months
- Person remembers that Vietnam is full of Vietnamese
- Person remembers that Vietnamese aren't Cambodians
- Person remembers why they liked Cambodia in the first place
- Person moves back to Cambodia and spends the rest of their life talking shit about Vietnam
Rinse and repeat
- Person comes to Cambodia and is shocked by the state of the place
- Person develops thick skin and blinkers to the state of the place
- Person falls in love with the level of personal freedom and friendliness of *most* locals
- Years pass.......
- Person forgets that they fell in love with Cambodia due to personal freedoms not levels of civilization
- Person starts seeing their homeland through rose tinted glasses but it's a bridge too far
- Person starts thinking that Vietnam is a good compromise (insert logical reasons here: salary, food, healthcare hygiene)
- Person moves to Vietnam and raves about it for six months
- Person remembers that Vietnam is full of Vietnamese
- Person remembers that Vietnamese aren't Cambodians
- Person remembers why they liked Cambodia in the first place
- Person moves back to Cambodia and spends the rest of their life talking shit about Vietnam
Rinse and repeat
- Hanno
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No. I love Thai food but few things can beat a good Pho Thin.spitthedog wrote:kinard wrote:Thai noodle soup beats Viet Pho any day of the week though.
"I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
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But to be fair I will say the following. I think Cambodia has kept many expats for so long because the country has such a short half life. What I mean by that is the country seems to reinvent itself about every five years or so, that process keeps the place interesting.
It seems like every five years the place sees massive changes and I have to say that of all the identities or phases that have passed in the time I've been here, this is my least favourite. Phnom Penh now has a lot to offer in terms of dining, entertainment, sports, you name it, it's here. But the population density in all areas of the city have made it a far less enjoyable place to live despite these new offerings. To make things worse the boltholes we used to run to when Phnom Penh was getting too much have become harder to get to and less charming at the same time.
But one thing I do know about Cambodia, is that this is just a phase and it will reinvent itself again and hopefully the next iteration will be more pleasant than the current round of urban slash and burn.
It seems like every five years the place sees massive changes and I have to say that of all the identities or phases that have passed in the time I've been here, this is my least favourite. Phnom Penh now has a lot to offer in terms of dining, entertainment, sports, you name it, it's here. But the population density in all areas of the city have made it a far less enjoyable place to live despite these new offerings. To make things worse the boltholes we used to run to when Phnom Penh was getting too much have become harder to get to and less charming at the same time.
But one thing I do know about Cambodia, is that this is just a phase and it will reinvent itself again and hopefully the next iteration will be more pleasant than the current round of urban slash and burn.
- spitthedog
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All the regular Pho's i've ever eaten were more watery than the broth like soup you get with the thai noodle soup.Hanno wrote:No. I love Thai food but few things can beat a good Pho Thin.spitthedog wrote:kinard wrote:Thai noodle soup beats Viet Pho any day of the week though.
What is the Thin part then?
"I don't care what the people are thinking, i ain't drunk i'm just drinking"
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