Tag: Vietnam Travel

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Flight Review: Onboard Vietnam Airlines to Ho Chi Minh City

Where: Vietnam
May 3, 2013 at 9:59 AM | by | Comment (1)

As you can probably tell from our slew of stories on Ho Chi Minh City, we recently traveled to Vietnam. One of the many ways to fly into the country, and the way in which we arrived, is via the green-blue hued planes of the national airline, Vietnam Airlines. Our route had us hopping on at Melbourne to fly nonstop to Ho Chi Minh City and we booked Business Class for a vacation treat.

At first, we considered using the 8.5-hour flight to relax and perhaps nap before what would be a two-week adventure in Southeast Asia, but the airline had a better idea; the flight crew fed us until we were stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Here's a breakdown of what we loved and what we could have done without:

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Holiday in Ho Chi Minh City: Realities of Visiting a Communist Country

May 2, 2013 at 11:55 AM | by | Comments (3)

There's no question that traveling to a country that doesn't share your motherland's political persuasion can be a little daunting, but since when is travel about revisiting the everyday? Our recent trip to Vietnam proved quite the wake-up, even though rocking up to passport control with an American passport is no longer anything to be worried about. Once granted entry, we were officially on Communist soil.

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Holiday in Ho Chi Minh City: The 10 Foods You Totally Have to Try

May 1, 2013 at 1:45 PM | by | Comment (1)

Yesterday we showed you the hypertension-producing traffic that is a common occurrence in Ho Chi Minh City. Now, we will take on the real reason we braved the road-rage in the first place, food!

Vietnamese food is a tourist attraction all to it's own because it spans plenty of tastes, ingredients and iconic flavors that are independent to the region. From pho shops and bowls of noodles along the side of bustling streets to rice paper rolls in a market and Vietnamese baguettes while strolling the sidewalks, this city has a lot to offer for empty bellies.

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Holiday in Ho Chi Minh City: Braving the Hectic Traffic

April 30, 2013 at 12:58 PM | by | Comments (0)

Driving in a foreign country takes guts and few cities illustrate this need as well as Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. The metropolis is dominated by scooters and road rules are merely a suggestion of how locals get on with their daily duties.

It's not uncommon to witness scooters with three or even four people along for the ride, plus children standing on the seat. We even spied the Vietnamese equivalent to delivery trucks—mopeds piled high with boxes of goods and even a handful of giant rolls of foam. It seems unsafe and pretty crazy, but we never felt our well-being in danger once. All in all, it's reminiscent of the movements of bees in a hive; it just works.

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Holiday in Ho Chi Minh City: An Architectural Paradox

April 29, 2013 at 3:32 PM | by | Comments (0)

Continuing our travels around South-East Asia, we made it into Vietnam after all, despite our passport drama. First impressions caused near whiplash, however as District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City is an architectural puzzle of new and modern facades facing off with the vintage and colonial.

A little history: In the middle of the 19th century, the French colonized the country and made Ho Chi Minh City (then, Saigon) the capital of the colony. Nothing is more evident of the colonial era than the architecture, as France brought their talent to the East during this time. The influence is even seen in the grid of the city; wide streets, large fountains and landscaped roundabouts recall a European capital more so than a steamy Southeast Asian metropolis.

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A Friendly Reminder to Double, Triple Check Your Travel Documents

April 17, 2013 at 11:56 AM | by | Comments (0)

Sounds kind of like a given to ensure your travel documents are in order before handing over your boarding pass, but take it from us that you should always have another look on that tourist visa or itinerary. It's easy to overlook little misspellings or transcribed numbers, so it is even more important to have someone else look it over to give it the thumbs up.

Here is our story; any American traveler wanting to enter Vietnam needs to obtain a visa. This is not an e-visa that can be purchased online and electronically attached to your passport number. This is one of those old-fashioned, visit-a-consulate or mail-away-your-passport to the nearest embassy situations. While it's a bit of a hassle, a side perk is that you do get a pretty colorful sticker in your passport to show all your friends.

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Pack Your Travel Mug as Starbucks Ships Out to Vietnam

Where: Vietnam
January 10, 2013 at 9:34 AM | by | Comment (1)

Last year we saw Starbucks and their coffee empire spread into some new spots like India, Disneyland, and even aboard Alaska Airlines. Obviously things are still moving full speed ahead—thanks to all that caffeine—as 2013 looks for more expansion. The year is just beginning, but it’s already time to celebrate Starbucks entry into another country, as the espresso machines just cleared customs and are on the move once again.

Up next for the Frappuccinos and lattes is Vietnam, as Starbucks is getting ready to open their very first store over in Ho Chi Minh City as soon as next month. Just like over in India, it’s a partnership deal as the coffee giant throws it's weight in with Maxim Group. Maxim already runs a whole chain of coffee shop locations in Hong Kong and Macau, so they kind of know what they’re doing when it comes to getting you going in the morning.

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Not Another Cruise Ship Accident.

Where: Vietnam
March 19, 2012 at 2:46 PM | by | Comments (0)


Silver Shadow in happier times.

Okay. Cruise ships—get your act together and stop running into things. PLEASE.

Just this morning it was announced that the Silversea Silver Shadow had T-boned a Vietnamese cargo ship while sailing in heavy fog off the coast of Vietnam. Though neither ship sank and no Silversea passengers were killed, the incident still piles on negative news to an industry already suffering following the Costa Concordia disaster and the fire/stuck-at-sea drama of the Costa Allegra. And all this comes in a year that cruise lines had hoped to raise prices to make up for the money lost during the deep discounting of the last two years of recession. Whoops.

Despite the fact that the Silver Shadow ripped a hole in the hull of the cargo ship, the cruise liner made it to its next port of Ha Long Bay on schedule, only in need of repairs. CNN has an harrowing firsthand account from passenger Andrew Lock, who pointed out that passengers had only around 5 seconds to brace for impact, as the cargo ship emerged from the fog within spitting distance.

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Man Opens Airplane Emergency Door to Get Rid of Crying Child

March 7, 2012 at 1:54 PM | by | Comments (0)

Everyone's been next to the screaming child on the airplane. Your blood pressure instantly shoots up, and it doesn't take very long before you sincerely start to believe that travel with children on flights should be banned by law. The parents are almost always mortified, which somehow makes the entire spectacle even more annoying because in a very precise way it's all their fault, so what are they doing getting annoyed?

There was an incident a few years ago when Allegiant Air removed an entire family from a flight (parents and kids) because the parents couldn't or wouldn't get their adorable little angels under control. There's a reason why some people are calling for banishing kids to the back of airplanes.

Fast forward to last month in Vietnam, when an obviously harried woman—accompanying an tantrum-throwing child—just could not wait any longer to get off her Vietnam Airlines airplane. The flight was over and she had simply had enough. So she asked the man next to her, 29-year-old Le Van Thuan, to pop the emergency door and release the slide. And, because this story is awesome, that's exactly what he did.

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Another Day, Another New Airline: Welcome Jetstar Pacific to Vietnam

Where: Vietnam
March 7, 2012 at 8:48 AM | by | Comments (0)

When it comes to creating and launching low-cost carriers, it seems like existing carriers can’t resist running the numbers and throwing some startup cash behind these new airlines. The latest cheapo carrier seems to be a collaboration between Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar, and Qantas. Their plan is to takeover Vietnam—in a good way—with cheap and affordable flights to here, there, and everywhere.

Jetstar Pacific Airlines is the name of the new startup, and they’re already kind of flying around. The airline can be construed as just a refurbishment and update, since the existing carrier is getting an influx of cash, new opinions, and some new aircraft. The government was paying for part of the airline, but now it sounds like costs are being distributed between the checkbooks of Vietnam Airlines and Australia’s Qantas Group—of which JetStar is a part—with most of the cash coming from Vietnam Airlines.

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Brangelina and Brood Head to Ho Chi Minh City for a Vietnam War History Lesson

November 14, 2011 at 12:37 PM | by | Comments (0)

The Brangelina clan added more stamps to their passports last week as they traveled from Tokyo to Vietnam. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took their six children to Vietnam, where their son Pax was born, after premiering Brad's latest movie, Moneyball, in Japan.

The couple wanted Pax to visit his home country so he could better understand, and be proud of, his culture. "They are all learning about each other's cultures as well as being proud of their own," Jolie recently said of her three adopted children.

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The Dangers of Stepping Onboard a 'Tourist Boat'

April 4, 2011 at 12:04 PM | by | Comment (1)


The Ha Long Bay sinking

If there's something we've learned over the last year, it's never to trust an overnight "tourist" cruise in Southeast Asia. It was only a little more than a month ago that such a boat sunk in Vietnam's Ha Long Bay, killing 12 in only 30 feet of water. The safety (or lack of) in these boats is to blame, and nothing has illustrated the issue better than the story of "Adventurous Kate," who survived a shipwreck in Indonesia.

Kate is author of her own blog about traveling Southeast Asia on her own, which she has been doing continuously since October of last year. A week ago, on Monday March 28, she was enjoying a 5-day cruise to visit the famous Komodo dragons of Komodo Island when her tourist boat hit a reef and promptly sank, causing her and her fellow travelers to abandon ship and swim to the closest island—Komodo, with its dragons.

The reason they swam? Half of the life jackets onboard were unusable and both lifeboats failed. Their luggage was waterlogged and left behind, and what they did eventually reclaim had been pillaged by the boat's crew.

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