Strange houses of the Vietnamese rich (9 photos). Interesting facts about Vietnam Vietnamese. Their morals

In this article I will tell you how to rent housing for a day or a month in Vietnam. About average prices for hotels, apartments, rooms in guesthouses. In what cases is it better to look for accommodation on the spot, and when to book in advance online.

Renting apartments, houses and hotels in Vietnam has its own characteristics, because the majority of Vietnamese people do not speak English. On popular resorts(Mui Ne, Nha Trang) local residents They speak Russian, which greatly simplifies the search.

In order to rent a house in Vietnam, I used a standard scheme that is also applicable in other Asian countries. Read more about it below.

Hotel in Vietnam

We are going on vacation to Vietnam for 2-3 weeks

✓ If you are flying on vacation to Vietnam and have planned your route in advance, it is better to book accommodation online so as not to waste time on the spot. We study reviews on booking sites, book accommodation and go enjoy your vacation.

✓ I usually check several sites at once and book where I find an option that is suitable in price and quality. Websites where it is safe to book accommodation in Vietnam:

  • Booking.com - guesthouses and hotels, payment on the spot
  • - the largest selection of housing in Vietnam. Sometimes they ask for 100% prepayment, but prices are lower than on other sites.

✓ Now even run-down guesthouses and hotels in Nha Trang, Mui Ne, Hanoi, Dalat, Ho Chi Minh City are presented on booking and other similar sites. The prices are the same as if you rented housing locally, so there is no point in wasting time searching when you arrive in the country.

✓ The most budget accommodation for tourists is rooms in guesthouses. Next come hotels, then bungalows and villas.


Room in 4* hotel Saigon Da Lat for $60
A room in a guesthouse in Vietnam. Bed, shower, toilet, balcony 8$+

✓ If there are no clear dates and route for the trip, then rooms in hotels and guesthouses can be found on the spot if your trip does not fall on New Year’s dates

✓ Domestic tourism is well developed in Vietnam. If you are traveling in winter, find out what dates Vietnamese falls on New Year(usually late January - early February). At this time, cheap housing in resorts popular among Vietnamese is 90% booked, and prices for what remains are doubled.

✓ In Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Dalat you can rent hotels and rooms in guest houses. At the coastal resorts you can find apartments, apartments, rooms in guesthouses, large villas and houses of both the Vietnamese type and those designed for tourists from Europe.

Hotels in cities of Vietnam

First you need to decide on the route. Below I list several Vietnamese cities and resorts where people usually go and provide a selection of hotels in these cities.

Hotels in Nha Trang

✓ Nha Trang is a resort city in the south of Vietnam, also popular among Russian travelers. The sea there is calmer and the infrastructure is better developed than in Mui Ne

Mui Ne and Phan Thiet hotels

Hotels in Hoi An

✓ Hoi An - a tourist city in the center of Vietnam, listed as a UNESCO site. The beaches are located 3-5 km from the city center. We'll have to choose. Either live in the center in inexpensive guest houses and go to the beach, or rent expensive housing by the sea and go to the city in the evenings. In winter (December-February) it is cold to swim in the sea ☞ Apartments and hotels in Hoi An

Hotels on Phu Quoc Island

✓ Phu Quoc - island in the Gulf of Thailand. Jungle, beaches

Hotels in other cities

✓ Hanoi- the capital of Vietnam, located in the north of the country ☞ Apartments and hotels in Hanoi

✓ Ho Chi Minh City is the second largest city in Vietnam, located in the south of the country. If you are planning a seaside holiday (in Nha Trang, Mui Ne, Vung Tau), it makes sense to buy air tickets to Ho Chi Minh City ☞ Apartments and hotels in Ho Chi Minh City

✓ Dalat- my favorite french city in the mountains of southern Vietnam. Strawberry plantations, coffee, a lot of Vietnamese and almost no foreigners ☞ Apartments and hotels in Dalat

✓ Danang- popular seaside resort in the center of Vietnam ☞ Guesthouses and hotels in Da Nang

Houses and apartments in Vietnam for a month +

If you cherish the dream of renting a cozy house with a kitchen and internet for... 200$ on the seashore and romantically living there all winter, then this is not about Vietnam.

Here you need to immediately come to terms with the fact that Vietnam is not Thailand. The choice of European quality housing in Vietnam is quite scarce, and prices for houses and apartments are higher than in Thailand.

If you need comfortable, spacious accommodation with air conditioning on the seashore, and even in resort area, then prices reach 1000-2000$ per month for a house, which in Thailand can be rented for 400-600$

The maximum you can expect in Vietnam for 200-300$ per month is a small room in a guesthouse with one or two beds and a refrigerator without a kitchen. Or a house (not near the sea) with a Vietnamese-style kitchen.

If you are going to Vietnam for the first time and plan to be there for a month or more, it makes sense to book a hotel room online in advance for the first few nights, come to the city, look around, and understand exactly which area you want to live in.

In life, everything looks different from the photos on the Internet. You may not like the beach; some nuances may appear on the spot that cannot be foreseen in advance. After you have lived in a hotel and explored the area a little, you can start looking for an apartment, a room in a guesthouse or a house by interviewing local residents (meaning Russian-speaking people who have lived in Vietnam for a long time).

If you don’t like this way of renting a house in Vietnam, then we are looking for specialized groups in social networks. networks. There are many groups in contact in which they publish advertisements for housing for rent at inflated prices. Intermediaries increase their markup, so I personally don’t think this method is promising or profitable, but it’s up to you.

Sometimes you can find really interesting options for renting rooms or apartments in public places, especially in Mui Ne or Nha Trang.

Recently, a lot of apartments have appeared on the Internet at quite reasonable prices. You can use the link to ask the price and book apartments online: apartments in Vietnam →→→

Prices for renting housing in Vietnam for a month

  • Private room in Mui Ne guest house - from 140$
  • A room in a guesthouse in Phan Thiet or Nha Trang - 300$
  • Studio in Mui Ne - from 200$ before 450$
  • One-room apartment in Nha Trang – 350-400$
  • Bungalow in Mui Ne without furniture near the sea - 200$
  • Vietnamese house in Mui Ne with furniture near the sea - from 300-400$
  • Vietnamese house in Nha Trang - from 400-500$

Helpful information!

✓ The longer the rental period, the lower the price. One month doesn't count in Vietnam long-term lease. Many places require 3-6 months advance payment for a house.

✓ For one month, it makes sense to look for a room in a hotel or guesthouse with a kitchen (which is rare) or at least with a refrigerator, then you can meet the average 250-300$ per month. This is the most budget-friendly and realistic option that can be rented in the resort of Vietnam (Mui Ne, Nha Trang) for one or two months.

✓ If you rent an apartment or house, you need to add electricity and internet bills to the rental price. Also the price depends on the season. IN new year holidays at the end of December - January, housing prices increase by 30-40%

✓ If you want to live cheaply near the sea in Mui Ne, then this is definitely just a room in a guesthouse. Without kitchen or with shared kitchen. Self-catering houses in Mui Ne, of which there are very few, are located far from the sea on the other side of the road. There are spacious houses near the sea in the area wild beaches, but the price they told me started from 900$

Immediately after Lena and I got married, we were in Vietnam. This is a story in pictures about how we drove across the country from north to south and back.

As usual, we bought tickets, got visas and mapped out a rough route. We took an evening Aeroflot flight to Hanoi. The plane was 90% filled with Vietnamese. The Vietnamese sitting behind us, anticipating a quick return to their homeland, took off their shoes and socks and stuck their feet into the spaces between our seats. I had to plug these gaps with pillows.

The next morning, having safely passed passport control, we got on a mini bus and went to old part city ​​to look for a hotel. Quite quickly we found a suitable hotel not far from the lake of the returned sword. In Vietnam, when checking into a hotel, they often require you to hand over your passport at the reception; we made do with photocopies. We dropped our things, rested a bit and went outside. We arrived on the eve of two major holidays: the fall of the Saigon regime and Labor Day. In this regard, the entire city was decorated with flags and looked festive. We had breakfast in a restaurant on the second floor of an old French building. This restaurant is no different from many others in Hanoi, it has the same friendly waiters and divine prices, but it has a highlight - music! There's always awesome American rock and roll playing there.

Hanoi. Vietnam is one of the convenient countries for independent travel, the tourist service is very highly developed; in every major city there are mini travel agencies that sell tours to all the attractions located in the surrounding area. Considering that the country stretches from north to south, it is very easy to travel around it, moving from one city to another. There is practically no risk of being deceived and buying tickets several times more expensive; all travel companies have similar routes and prices. We bought excursions to Sapa and Halong.

About architecture. Once upon a time there was a tax on the width of the facade of buildings, and the Vietnamese began to build narrow houses three, four floors, and sometimes higher. The average width of such a house is about three to four meters. Today there is no such tax, but over the years an idea has been formed of how a house should look, and that is how they build it to this day. But the facades of these buildings are beautifully decorated and varied. Inside the house there is always a massive wooden staircase with very steep steps, the railings sometimes go perpendicularly upward. Interesting houses built along the road that leads from the airport.

On the first day of our arrival, we rode a rickshaw through the streets of the old city. In Vietnam, as I have already noted, there is a desire to rationalize the entire living space. Therefore, the streets of the old city are very regular. Shoes are sold on one street, watches and gold on another, clothes on a third, and so on. Tombstones are sold at the intersection of Hang Bac and Hang Dao streets. The owner of one of the shops used a cunning marketing ploy to sell the product better: he put a tombstone with a photo of Britney Spears in the window. It’s interesting how the singer herself would react to this; she lives and doesn’t know that they are making money off her image in this way.

Then we walked around the lake of the returned sword. There is a pleasant atmosphere near the lake, they don’t bite seeds, they don’t drink beer while sitting on the backs of benches, they don’t throw trash cans into the lake, not like us. In general, Hanoi is considered the safest capital in the world, and I agree with this. Before the trip, I read a lot of travel reports; there is even a thread on the Vinsky forum “Why I won’t go to Vietnam anymore.” The authors intimidated as best they could: they say that bags are torn off, they are robbed, they are crushed with bikes, taxi drivers do not allow passage. Zharov actually wrote such things about Vietnam that it seems that in some places it was written by some spoiled girl, and not by a man who has traveled half the world. I agree that in terms of man-made attractions, Vietnam is inferior to many countries in Southeast Asia, but in terms of nature, beach holiday, food, service very good. In general, it’s strange where such reviews come from; perhaps everything is learned by comparison. If you have been to India, then the issue of intrusiveness of drivers, poor service in restaurants, cleanliness and comfort of hotels will not arise in Vietnam. And the level of organization exceeds many countries in Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese are a very hardworking people, and Vietnam's economy is one of the fastest growing in the world.

The next morning, waking up early, we went to have breakfast; restaurants for foreigners were still closed and I dragged Lena into a cafe for locals. The choice was small, we took Pho Bo - a soup with wide flat rice noodles with beef and herbs. The soup tasted of something rotten, even a little like sabaka, after tasting it, I realized that there was nothing rotten in it, perhaps it was seasoned with nyok mam - a sauce made from rotten fry. There was a long journey ahead to Ha Long, so I crushed the whole bowl. It is noteworthy that in the first days we were often heated, and this time for such a breakfast they charged us 70,000 dong, although the real price of the ball was no more than 30,000. But considering that one dollar is equal to 16,000 dong, this is not much for us tensed. By the way, new style dongs are made on plastic film, this is very convenient in a country with a hot, humid climate. I even swam with money in the pocket.

Soon a minivan pulled up, we loaded up and hit the road. In theory, the drive was about two hours, but because of the holidays, many Vietnamese decided to go to Ha Long, as a result, at the entrance to the pier we got into a traffic jam, or rather, our driver greatly contributed to its occurrence. The road was narrow, one lane in each direction. The main direction and the side of the road were already occupied, and the driver drove along the oncoming lane where, without driving even twenty meters, he met with oncoming traffic. The place was narrow. There was already a queue behind us and behind the oncoming car; no one could back up. And the small gaps between cars and buses were instantly filled with motorbikes. And everything stopped, and those on motorbikes deliberately intervened to be part of the moment. What is surprising is that no one swears, yells, or threatens to perform sexual acts with the relatives of neighbors in a traffic jam. And everyone stands, honks, and smiles. Then a guy got out of a car and slowly resolved the situation.

While still in the minivan, our guide collected everyone’s passports, and upon arrival, he immediately rushed with them towards the ticket office located on the pier. Ostensibly to buy tickets, in fact he needed passports for something else - during a two-day trip on a ship, the price of the tour includes: transfer, accommodation, tickets, food, but not drinks. And when it comes time to pay for drinks, a pawned passport is a compelling argument.

Jonky. Once upon a time, as a child, I had an illustrated book about ships. On the last page of this book, against the background of the setting sun, was drawn a ship with low wooden sides and webbed sails, unlike anything else. I have always wanted to see such a boat with my own eyes, and going sailing is just a dream! And here we are on the pier chock full of junks, coming up one after another, pushing each other, boarding and disembarking passengers... My thoughts were interrupted by the returning guide and we, following him, jumping from one ship to another, reached ours. The junk moved away from the shore towards Halong Bay, the tables were set and we began to dine. Halong is unique a natural phenomenon protected by UNESCO. The bay is home to about 2,000 islands of varying sizes and shapes, most of them inaccessible cliffs overgrown with bushes. The water is quiet, calm, transparent and has an unusual turquoise color. The junks stop at the floating houses of local fishermen selling live sea food. The bay is home to countless marine inhabitants for every taste and color. The purchased ones, I don’t know what to call them, are prepared on the ship especially for the one who bought them.

On the first day we were on an island on which there are caves with stalactites illuminated in different colors. The guide persistently showed us images of creatures created by nature, but I didn’t really notice anything. We spent the night on a junk; the cabin had a double bed, shower, and toilet. The next day we went kayaking around the bay. The entire two days we spent in Ha Long were foggy, and sometimes the sun broke through, which made the bay seem mysterious and unexplored.

We were traveling back to Hanoi by bus, but the bus broke down. And here we are standing under the hot sun and thinking: “Everyone is in trouble, where can you find an empty bus in the middle of the road?!” But it was not there! Not even five minutes had passed before three minivans drove up to us. Service.

Hanoi again. We had 7 hours before the train to Sapa. A very unpleasant thing turned out to be the case - I forgot the adapter for charging the camera in Moscow and, therefore, we can assume that we don’t have a camera. Leaving Lena in the restaurant with our backpack, I, pretty drunk, set out in search of an adapter. We had not yet bought a local SIM card, and for some reason Lenin’s phone did not work in roaming and, therefore, we had no connection with each other. And I also needed to change money. And so I gallop from one electronics store to another and everywhere it’s the same thing: “Wow, what a camera you have, sir! We don’t have those.” I had to buy a new camera. This was also a whole story. As a result, I caught a motorbiker and rushed through the evening city, illuminated by lanterns, headlights of cars and motorbikes, moving in all directions at the same time, back to the restaurant. Many people describe traffic in Vietnam as the worst possible chaos on the road, but in reality it is not. You don’t have to travel far to be convinced of this; Cambodia is nearby and even less rules are followed there. There was time left before the train, so we went to wander around the city, bought a SIM card, this is done very simply, you don’t even need to register for any document, exchanged money, and ate again. And then they took us to the station in a minivan.

In Vietnam, narrow gauge Railway, because of this the trains are narrower than ours, but at the same time on the shelves in compartment carriages there is a lot of space. We traveled to Sapa with Australian pensioners from the island of Tasmania.Very entertaining old travelers. They had a three month trip through Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. We found many things in common with them, and we drank beer with my grandfather. In the morning the train arrived in the city of Lao Cai. This city is located on the border with China, and there are buses from it to the city of Sapa. It was raining outside. A hotel representative was already waiting for us at the station building.

Sapa. Judging by the photographs that I saw on the Internet before the trip, everything in Sapa is monotonous: mountains, hills, stepped fields, waterfalls. Based on this, I planned a trip for one day. And in vain. Because you can easily spend a week in Sapa. Thanks to the mild climate, there is a special atmosphere, stunning nature, very hospitable people, and delicious food, like everywhere else in Vietnam. The city is located in a mountainous region at an altitude of about one and a half thousand meters above sea level nearby, the most high mountain Vietnam - about three and a half thousand meters. When the bus travels to Sapa for several hours, my ears begin to pop, like on an airplane. Despite the fact that it is raining below, the sun is shining in the city, the air is fresh and fragrant with the aromas of flowers. In the vicinity of Sapa there are many villages in which small nationalities of Vietnam live, some of them are immigrants from Siberia who passed through China many centuries ago. After breakfast, we went to the nearest village to the Black Hmong. The Hmong tribe is the largest, with about three hundred and fifty thousand people. They dress in dark blue clothes embroidered with multi-colored patterns, they have large baskets behind them, in their hands they hold dry hemp from which they twist a thread, from which they then make clothes. Very nice smiling people. Hmong houses are made of planks, heated by fire, and because of this they are heavily smoky. But in the houses there are televisions and DVD players. The Hmong sell a variety of crafts: clothing, knives, musical instruments, snake infusions. I bought myself something like a khomus, and amazed all the tourists with my virtuoso playing of a musical instrument unfamiliar to them. Lena bought herself a cool bracelet. Having passed through the village, we found ourselves at a waterfall, next to a spinning wheel of a mini hydroelectric power station and a cool bamboo swing, turning over under the weight of the water of small streams flowing from the hills. And there are bamboo thickets around.

All this time we were going down the hill, and to get back there were two options: either walk up the mountain for two hours or ride a motorcycle along the road in twenty minutes. We hired a local driver and the three of us rushed along the narrow mountain serpentine. The road was winding and covered with sand, but it was necessary to drive quickly, otherwise the bike would not have reached the mountains. Trucks sometimes drove to the meeting. We rode like a breeze, bringing tears to our eyes. There are especially many Minsks in Sapa; some came to Vietnam back in Soviet times, some are still supplied today. In general, there is a lot of our equipment in northern Vietnam; Kamaz and UAZ vehicles are often found.

After lunch, our program included a silver waterfall, to which we were supposed to be taken by JEEP. A broken-down army UAZ from the seventies arrived, in which we, Lena, the guide and the driver in flip-flops, went to the waterfall. The journey took less than an hour. The waterfall turned out to be really high, but not too deep. On special floorings you can climb up to one third of the entire height of the waterfall, where a bridge made of chrome-plated pipes is thrown over the waterfall. In principle, you can climb higher on the rocks. When leaving the waterfall, we bought sweet green tea; you don’t need to add sugar to it, you just brew it, and it’s already sweet. On the way to the waterfall, stunning views open up; if you are there, ask the driver to brake on the serpentine road, get out of the car and enjoy the vastness of the world around us.

The day spent in Sapa came to an end; there were four hours left before the bus that was supposed to take us to Lao Kai station, which we spent walking around the city. In terms of richness of impressions, one day in Sapa surpassed two days in Ha Long. Sitting in a cafe in the city of Lao Kai, I got drunk into unconsciousness from a very, very tasty beer of the same name. Consciousness was excited and demanded continuation, but the legs could no longer move. I don’t remember how we got to Hanoi.

Hanoi again. The next morning, we arrived in Hanoi. We had already purchased tickets for the evening train to Hue. And we actually didn’t have any business in Hanoi. Therefore, after taking a shower and leaving our things at the hotel, we took a rickshaw to Grandfather Ho's mausoleum. I liked the organization of the passage to the mausoleum, people walk exactly along the lines in a column of two people, if someone starts to joke, the guys in a formal white uniform explain to him how to behave in a civil manner, so no one climbs forward through the bushes and the line goes quickly, not like we have. Just as quickly, everyone passes inside; in the center of the main hall there is a glass sarcophagus, demonically illuminated with red light. In it lies Ho Chi Minh City in rubber galoshes. He did not want to be embalmed, but the nation needed a creed, and Ho's followers provided it.

Ho Chi Minh City great person, who managed to liberate Vietnam from the French and contributed to the unification of north and south. During the war against the Americans, showing miracles of diplomacy, he managed to negotiate help with the USSR and China, which at that moment were on the brink of war among themselves. Thanks to this, Vietnam is currently a single state, but it could be like in Korea.

Next to the mausoleum stands the yellow presidential palace - the former governor's palace, built by the French. In the park nearby there is a wooden house in which Ho Chi Minh City lived when the Americans bombed Hanoi. The pond in the park there is full of fish. Not far from that place is the Ho Chi Minh City Museum and the pagoda on one pillar.

After snacking on fruit in the garden near the pagoda on one pillar, we walked north to the temple, in which there is a figure of a deity personifying the wind.

From there, again on foot, but in the other direction, we reached the Temple of Literature. I walked barefoot because the streets in Hanoi are clean and the sidewalks are warm. A rickshaw driver was driving nearby and begging for a lot of money for a ride that we didn’t agree to.

The Temple of Literature is a smaller copy of the Chinese Temple of Confucius. Mandarins - officials - were trained in this temple. On the territory of the temple there are stone turtles, on whose shells stand stone slabs with the names of graduates.

On the way back to our hotel, we ate at KFC and went for a foot massage. Vietnamese massage is not as good as Khmer and certainly not as good as Thai. Although they crumple their legs, it’s okay. After a massage, masseuses always persistently ask for tips, and this is the situation in all cities of Vietnam.

The layout of the house, it would seem, implies a vast territory on which all the necessary parts of the future home can be located, plus space for an extension, a patio and some free space around the house. But what to do if very little space has been allocated for construction, is it really worth completely abandoning the idea of ​​​​building a house on a limited footage? Our article today will show you how, at all times, it would seem, small area You can build quite comfortable and original housing if you resort to the help of designers and architects.

The plot allocated for the construction of this house allowed the construction of a building only three meters wide, but specialists from DD concept were able to create unusual house three floors high, which may well become comfortable and cozy place for the life of a small family. Its interior is no less original than its exterior.

The layout of the building is very carefully thought out and follows the logic of everyday life. Therefore, right from the threshold you can get into the social zone, then into the sanitary zone, and only after that you can go up to the bedroom. It is noteworthy that another flight higher, on the roof, there is an impromptu summer garden.

The facades of the building are decorated with gratings of different structures, due to which in hot climates the house better retains the coolness of the interior. At the same time, sunlight penetrates into the rooms, creating a pleasant atmosphere, rich in natural warmth and natural light. This is not only a functional solution, but also a modern decorative element. It looks good in combination with concrete surfaces, because the walls and floors here are polished and left without additional finishing. Neutral gray is ideal for such an interior and contrasts with the colorful streets and excessive brightness of outside life.

Wood has become the best addition to such a base; almost all furniture is made from it. Its simple, uncomplicated forms allow you to visually expand the space without loading it with unnecessary details. And the greenery of the garden, grown on a pebble cushion, looks simply charming.

Just recently, we returned from a two-week trip to Vietnam, which made a very positive impression on us.

Lately we prefer to spend new country at least a month to get to know its culture better, but we heard so many different (including many negative) reviews about Vietnam that we decided to limit our acquaintance to a couple of weeks.

Literally from the first days of the trip, we regretted that we had allocated so little time, because Vietnam undoubtedly deserves much more attention, so we decided for ourselves that this was definitely not our last meeting.

Despite the fact that we spent only two weeks in the country, we tried to pay maximum attention to details and notice interesting features. There were so many such features that we decided to start our stories about Vietnam with them.

We only managed to capture southern part countries, therefore our observations are not generalizing, but relate only to those places that we visited.

Arriving in Vietnam, we instantly became “dong millionaires” - the local currency is called Vietnamese dong and its exchange rate is 1 USD = 21,100 VND, i.e. for $100 we received more than 2 million dong. 1000 VND = 1.57 RUB and in order to quickly figure out the price, you can discard 3 zeros and multiply by 1.5 - you get the rough cost in rubles.

One of the remarkable features of dongs is that they are made not of paper, but of thin plastic and, therefore, their service life is much longer - they do not burn in fire and do not drown in water do not get wet and do not tear. Each banknote depicts the Vietnamese equivalent of Lenin - Grandfather Ho Chi Minh City.

Food

The most popular dish in Vietnam is Pho soup, with rice noodles, bean sprouts, mint and basil. Usually, it is made with beef, it also happens with chicken and fish, but the base, most often, is still the same, using beef broth.

In addition to rice, the Vietnamese are no strangers to baked goods - they feel the consequences of French colonization. Various pastry shops with a variety of pastries and French baguettes are quite popular. The latter are especially popular - we often saw queues in stores lining up to grab hot bread straight from the oven. They are also sold in markets; mini-baguettes are in particular demand

It is worth noting that in tourist places, Vietnamese cuisine is very diverse - here you can try crocodile or ostrich steaks, eat cobra heart, frog legs, not to mention a variety of seafood. We tried frogs and crocodile meat :)

Another popular dish is “hot pot”. More precisely, this is not even a dish, but a whole process, which consists of the exciting independent preparation of soup right at the table, in a pot on a gas stove. We ate them with seafood and fish, but hotpots with beef, again, are more popular.

Basically, Vietnamese dishes (with the exception of numerous seafood and fish), which the locals eat every day, are not for everybody.

We will also have a separate culinary post dedicated to Vietnamese cuisine, so we won’t give away all the secrets now :)

One of the features that immediately caught our eye is the local cafes, which very often use small, “children’s” chairs and tables - it looks like a canteen in a kindergarten

Fruits

Vietnam will certainly appeal to fruit lovers - their selection here is 1.5 times greater than in Vietnam. They are sold in fruit shops or from hands/bicycles, we ate pink and star (yogurt) apples, durians, mangosteens, rambutans and mangoes, tried 2 new fruits - sugar apple (annona)

and a type of melon with an unpronounceable name, we will soon add them to our book" Asian exotica"

At local markets, traders sometimes told us, as foreigners, prices were twice as high. To find out the real price, we usually asked buyers, and often, in this case, sellers began to swear at such tipsters, which prevented them from doing business.

For example, in Dalat they refused to sell us strawberries at a price for locals - according to their logic, it turned out that it was better not to sell the product at all than to sell it to a European at the usual price.
Fortunately, not all sellers are like this, and we usually bought fruit at reasonable prices.

In chain supermarkets, prices for fruit are also good, sometimes lower than in the markets. So, for example, in Dalat there is “Big C”, which we also know because locals buy vegetables/fruits/seafood there, which means the prices are justified. By the way, prices for fruits, in general, are lower in Vietnam than in.

Coffee

Vietnam is real paradise For coffee lovers, coffee consumption here has been elevated to the rank of a cult. There is even traditional way The preparation of this attractive drink cannot be described in a nutshell - in the near future we will publish a separate article about the coffee traditions of Vietnam, where we will tell you everything in detail (so as not to miss it, do not forget to subscribe to blog updates).

Looking ahead, I would like to say that we are not coffee lovers at all, but ordinary life We drink coffee quite rarely, once every 1-2 weeks, and more often cappuccino and mocha. But on this trip we were “covered”)) we drank 2 cups a day, and bought a couple of kilograms with us :)

The Vietnamese know a lot about coffee; they drink it very strong, in small doses, most often with condensed milk and almost always with ice.

We, not accustomed to such a strength, almost always diluted it a little.

Oh, yes - what we also really liked is that when you order coffee, almost everywhere, you get green tea for free, or 2 cups or a whole kettle

Housing

Throughout the route we stayed in small cozy hotels and guesthouses - all rooms, even in Saigon, cost us $10. At the same time, we didn’t try too hard to save money (if we wanted, we could have found it cheaper) – we just chose it based on comfort and always got a room with air conditioning, a refrigerator, a TV, wi-fi, a balcony, and towels (which were also changed every day) , hygiene items (soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes) and slippers =)

Speaking of slippers 🙂 Flip flops are the name given not only to women in Vietnam, but also to flip flops (aka flip flops). They are so popular here that they are mandatory in almost any hotel. We always came across blue ones, apparently this is the general standard. It is very convenient, especially when traveling light, to find flip-flops in your room - we wore them to the beach and went on excursions around the islands.

An interesting architectural feature is that guesthouses in Vietnam are often narrow buildings, one room wide; houses are often built close to each other, so that they have common walls. From the outside it even seemed to us that there was one building in front of us, but in fact there were 4 different guesthouses

Beaches

The South China Sea, which we saw in Vietnam, unfortunately, did not sink into our souls.

We first met him in the town of Vung Tau, which is located 100 km south of Ho Chi Minh City. The sea there is gray and ugly, and the beaches are strewn with crowds of people - this is the closest resort to the southern capital, so the capital's residents have chosen the local beaches; on weekends it is not crowded at all.

The beaches are not very well-groomed; in a day and a half in the city, we managed to see the main ones, but the thought of swimming did not arise

We also didn’t really like the beaches in Mui Ne - this is a Mecca for kitesurfers, there is excellent wind and waves, and for those who are not keen on kites, this, in our opinion, is far from the best place

The beach is long and good for running, but the sea near the shore is kind of gray and the scenery is completely unattractive.

In general, Mui Ne is a fishing village, of course it can’t be compared with the assortment, but we still came to look at the morning catch

Perhaps for this you need to go to the north of the country, to Halong Bay, but according to reviews from travelers, not everything there is as beautiful and wonderful as the guidebooks describe.

In terms of infrastructure, the beach line is good, which is quite suitable for tourists coming from winter. We’ve apparently seen enough of this already, and we expect to see yet more heavenly coves of incredible beauty.

But we liked the beach in Nha Trang more,

despite the fact that it is urban, the color of the water there is surprisingly beautiful, and the sand is pleasant, although yellow. The beach is clean, wide, very long, and most interestingly, very lively, especially in the morning - there will probably be a separate post about this

There are also beaches outside the city, we didn’t go there, but something tells us that it should be nice there.

Most Vietnamese tourists did not go into the water at all, limiting themselves to a trip on a boat with a transparent bottom.

People

Here are completely ambiguous conclusions - on the one hand, we met many friendly Vietnamese, and not only Vietnamese, but also ordinary local residents. On the other hand, we often met indifferent people, with gloomy faces, and completely embittered by something.

Even in the tourism service, where it would seem that income is directly tied to the attitude towards tourists, not everyone accepts this. There are, for example, those who speak excellent Russian, are hospitable, and smiling - this was mainly the case with the guides in Mui Ne and Nha Trang. Or pedicabs offering rides around the city - they often burst into smiles and did not resist taking photos

And it also happened that even at the hotel reception or at the train station at the ticket office, they simply did not understand us and did not even try to understand us. They simply lazily brushed us aside and didn’t want to solve anything - it was easier for them not to sell us a hotel room or a bus ticket and continue to pick their noses than to try to somehow understand white tourist, help him and at the same time earn money yourself.

So, one day, he rushed past us tourist bus(late, by the way, by 40 minutes). We stood right on the road and even waved our tickets to the driver, but for some reason he ignored us, although a transfer from the hotel had been arranged. When the three of us, rushing at speed, on a moped with a travel agency employee and backpacks, caught up with the bus, the driver swore very much, claiming that he did not see us :)

In the sales area, those sellers from whom we bought something smiled, or at least did not turn away from the camera,

and many reacted in the style of “if you don’t buy it, there’s nothing to photograph”


Is it the case, for them a photo of a “white” is an additional plus to karma))

In Saigon we met different people - friendly, attentive people interested in other cultures, and had a great time together.

If we don’t talk about the Vietnamese themselves, we also met Russian guys, some have been living in Vietnam for a long time completely and completely in love with it, and some have traveled like us, and with both of them we enjoyed spending time together , chatted, had dinner, drank coffee.

Color

Vietnam pleased us, among other things, with its culture. We always try to find some ideal (for us) balance between civilization and flavor - we want, at the same time, comfort and culture, but, unfortunately, these are two opposite poles. So, for example, in - everything is very civilized, but there is almost no originality left, and in - everything is exactly the opposite.

For us, the optimal ratio so far has been, but Vietnam also seemed interesting in this regard. Small nationalities preserved in the villages,

pioneers in ties,

street vendors in triangular straw hats, traditional games of dominoes and checkers,

coffee and cafes with “toy” chairs are all signs that globalization, although spreading wider and wider, is moving across the planet at uneven steps.


Language

Names and menus in restaurants are duplicated in Russian. Even in an Indian restaurant they brought us a menu in which the familiar names of Indian dishes were distorted by Russian translation.

Transport

On long intercity journeys (more than 4 hours), slipper buses are popular, with folding shelves on 2 floors - they are convenient to cover long distances. I was surprised that when boarding such buses, you need to take off your shoes :)

We had one night trip of 6 hours and one day trip of 5.5 hours on slippers; the rest of the distances were shorter; we covered them in the usual seated buses. Travel is cheap, 200 km costs approximately 130 rubles.

We also went to public transport around the city, travel starts from 8 rubles, usually the price depends on the distance, and by taxi, by European standards, it turned out to be quite cheap (for 5 km, we paid 80,000 dong - 120 rubles).

Also, motorcycle taxis are very popular, the price is negotiable. Motorcycle taxi drivers love to sleep right at their workplace, during the trip we have a whole selection of such “sleepy kingdom” formed))


In more or less major cities we saw rickshaws, the appearance of which constantly reminded us of India =)

Motorbikes are extremely popular in Vietnam; there are many more of them than cars. This is especially felt in the southern capital, Ho Chi Minh City, where they make up the overwhelming bulk of traffic


At first, it seemed to us that it was simply impossible to cross the road - a pedestrian crossing for motorcyclists was like an empty place)) But we quickly realized that you can cross the road absolutely anywhere - the main thing is to walk confidently and slowly. Motorcyclists are very maneuverable, they will definitely go around, the main thing is not to get nervous and not to speed up your pace. So every time we crossed the road, it was as if we had accomplished a small feat))

IN modern cities, especially among young people, fashionable electric bikes are popular, but older people prefer regular city bikes

It looks like Hundertwasser, Dali and Gaudi can smoke on the sidelines. Because it’s not for nothing that the Madhouse Hotel is one of the ten strangest buildings in the world.
Each building in it is unique, each room is unique. However, so is the history of its creation. Because this hotel was invented and built by the daughter of the general secretary Communist Party Vietnam, which, in my opinion, just adds another layer of madness to this. So, the architect of this creation is the Vietnamese Dang Viet Nga (a good name that says: Viet is the indigenous people of Vietnam, and Nga is Russia). Her biography is largely determined by the fact that she is the daughter of Truong Tinh, who for many years was the right hand of Ho Chi Minh, so I will tell you a little about him. Interestingly, Truong Tinh, which means “Long March,” is a pseudonym he took in his youth, during the period of his fascination with Mao’s ideology. True, as a result of this hobby and his agrarian reform, famine began in the country, and after the Soviet-Chinese split he was demoted for this deviation. But in the 80s he returned again and became the president of Vietnam. His real name is Dang Xuan Khu (the Vietnamese always have their surname first). Dang Viet Nga was born in Hanoi in 1940, but lived for 14 years in Russia. From 1959 to 1972, she studied in Moscow, at the Moscow Architectural Institute and in graduate school there, defended her PhD thesis in architecture and as a result... brought home a love for the hippie style and ideology.
After returning to Vietnam, she worked in Hanoi, designing buildings for the government (regular, not crazy buildings) for many years.
And then she settled in Dalat, which charmed her with its cool mountain climate, amazing scenery and pleasant disposition of local residents. And in 1990, she began construction here of her favorite brainchild called “Moon Villa,” which she conceived as a hotel for lovers.
She declares that the mission of the building is to return us to nature, which was largely destroyed by previous generations (and ours too).
The architecture of the villa is indeed oversaturated with elements of nature - both flora and fauna.
Caves, tree roots, vines, labyrinths... It seems that there is not a single straight line, not a single right angle. Here is the passage from one building to another, painted to look like a cow, and even entwined with vines and dripping with milk...
Continuous bends, weaves and labyrinths are a striking contrast with typical Vietnamese houses with their narrow, elongated upward facades 3–5 meters wide, joining tightly to each other. I will show them later, they are also very beautiful... but in a different way.
Round shapes and complete unpredictability dominate here - you never know what awaits you ahead, the villa is filled with secluded corners and unexpected turns, descents and ascents. Where did the second name come from: the architectural structure was so fantastic that the first guests who visited it exclaimed “Crazy house!”, which translated means “crazy house!” Since then it has been called that. By the way, local residents were sure for many years that this is exactly how they build in Russia. The stairs here are also unusual - Viet Nga really likes to make them in the form of stumps.
Each of the ten rooms in the hotel is dedicated to its own totem animal, and they also symbolize a certain country: for example, the bear above is Russia (you probably noticed the motifs of a Russian hut there), the tiger is China (it will appear later), and this one eagle (or rather toucan?) - America. Maybe South, judging by other details.
The rooms are furnished with unique furniture. Each totem animal is also a fireplace.
The villa is changing all the time, just like a living organism; after 22 years it has not yet been fully completed. We recently finished building transitions between buildings. Under the glass dome there are underground floors, they are not yet ready at all. The rooms are equipped with modern bathrooms, but also in an interesting design. And mirrors are often located above the beds - Viet Nga believes that this promotes love.
All ten rooms are rented out for accommodation, and for relatively little money for foreigners - about one hundred dollars per night. But it’s better not to leave the room after dark, especially when drunk: due to the indescribable geometry of the transitions, I got completely lost there several times, even when sober and in daylight
In addition, guests cannot completely close the doors to their rooms during the day, they can only limit access to the rooms, and there are at least several hundred tourists here every day, so residents go somewhere for the day. But I would still like to spend at least one night here, it’s a pity that time didn’t allow it.
Wash basin. You can meditate on it for several hours. There are not only big buildings here. Here is a detached cottage with miniature two-story apartments. In general, the rooms are very different in size - some are for large families, and some are for couples in love.
This one is small. On the first floor on the right is the entrance to the toilet, on the left is the staircase to the second floor. There is also a small table nearby and that’s it. Bedroom on the second floor. But the space is so intricately organized that you don’t notice the cramped space. Entrance to the adjacent building. By the way, I also found a number of caves (or even hollows) with small tables and benches - apparently for meetings and conversations. And all this is not only incredible, it is also very beautiful. And here is Dang Viet Nga herself (this photo is not mine, but I really want to show it to you). She is 72 years old and still dresses in hippie style, speaks good Russian, drives an old Soviet car and sells tickets at the box office of her villa, and spends her free time with her boyfriend.
It’s a pity that I didn’t know any of this when we arrived there. I had no idea that we could meet the author himself. But if you get there, having already read my post, you will have the chance to meet one of the most remarkable women in the world! And what a blessing that the authorities did not demolish her villa, as they did with the “house of a hundred roofs” by another equally insane architect. He just didn't have that kind of dad. Now they want to restore his house...

 

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