It has been 5 years since we were in Vietnam, so when we were eager to include it on our current South East Asia trip. We had last been here right when Covid was starting, and we barely made it out before they started closing down the airports in 2020. It was an interesting time because the borders to Vietnam had already closed to China so the tourist destinations were all very empty. Our last trip was also before retirement so were in our fast travel mode of seeing as many destinations in the country as possible in 3 weeks. We saw a lot. Now we are still trying to slow down in our retirement travel. We decided to just stay in one city for 9 days and experience the holiday week of Tet New Years.
Tet is a huge holiday for the Vietnamese and we struggled to really understand what it would mean to travelers. Many local people go back to their hometown to visit family, so a lot of things in the city of Da Nang were closed down. The restaurants that stayed open often charged up to 30% supplements so they could incentivize their workers that stayed to during the holiday. There were fireworks over the river but we didn’t catch another fireworks show with the crowds. What was really the visible part of the Tet holiday in Da Nang was all the decorations on the riverwalk. Lots of flowers, including plastic branches/flowers tied on to the regular trees to make them look like blooming cherry blossoms. Lots of 2025 and Happy New Year signs with big “cute” baby snakes. And lots of pictures!!! The Vietnamese families were all dressed up in their traditional clothes and taking pics in front of the flowers and probs. It really felt like an Instagram holiday!
Vietnam is still technically a communist country. They have a one party system that still makes all the big decisions. But, the country is really been active in creating a manufacturing sector that is very close to capitalism. The GDP is growing more than other Southeast Asian countries and the country is doing just fine in creating a middle class. But, it is hard for it to be called a socialist country. Education, health care, transportation and retirement benefits are still not even close to other Democratic Socialist countries in Europe. They have a long way to go before they reach their social ideals. Still it was fun to see Da Nang as a really successful looking city. It didn’t feel as chaotic as Hanoi or Saigon and it felt much more like a place that an expat could stay. We saw many foreigners that are living here happily. It is pretty beautiful with the beach and a festive riverwalk.
We had a relaxing 9 days in Da Nang and didn’t do any big tours or excursions. We had done a lot of the other big nearby attractions when we visited 5 years ago and didn’t feel the need to return to Hoi An, Marble Mountain, or the My Song ruins. However, if you are visiting this area, Da Nang makes a great home base from which to visit these cool spots. We also skipped Ba Na hills, which is where the picturesque gold hands bridge is – while the bridge looks cool, the rest of the Ba Na fake french village and gondola just looked too cheesy for us. Part of our evolving slow-travel mentality is that we don’t have to visit every single tourist attraction in every location we visit. We did visit the Lady Buddha, and did a lot of city long walks, which had us explore the Da Nang pink cathedral, the Dragon Bridge, the Cham archeological museum, walks on the beach, and along the riverwalk with the many instagrammers taking their Tet pics. We stayed at this hotel right downtown for less than $50 per night that included breakfast. It was a small room for a 9 day stay, but the breakfast and price was just fine. We had 3 meetups with Nomad friends including our first Nomadmania meetup that I wrote about here.
We did have a lot of great food in Vietnam which is par for the course so far on our 2025 Asia trip. It ranks right up there with Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, but I don’t think it can beat our next destination- Thailand!