Getting Around in Vietnam — the Comprehensive Guide

Com­pared to its neigh­bor­ing coun­tries, Viet­nam offers a reli­able infra­struc­ture in almost all regions. Whether by train, bus, boat or on the back of a water buf­fa­lo, you will reach your des­ti­na­tion. This guide will help you choose the right means of trans­porta­tion for your upcom­ing trip to Viet­nam.

 

For a first approx­i­mate esti­mate of dura­tion and cost of your trip you can use these two great web­sites to com­pare var­i­ous meth­ods of trans­porta­tion: Bao­lau and Rome2Rio. Sim­ply enter your point of depar­ture and des­ti­na­tion as well as your trav­el dates. You will now see all avail­able trips with more detailed infor­ma­tion and a link to book the tick­ets online.

 

For more detailed infor­ma­tion read on:

Trains

Long-haul Busses

Local Busses

Planes

Taxis

Grab / Uber

Motor­bike

 

 

Trains

 

The main con­nec­tor of the north and the south is the so-called Reuni­fi­ca­tion Express. This 1726 km long rail­road con­nects Ho-Chi-Minh-City with Hanoi. Along the way it stops in most big cities, such as Phan Thi­et, Nha Trang, Da Nang and Hue. You can find a detailed sched­ule at Vietnam-railway.com.

In addi­tion to the North-South Rail­way, there are some short­er rail routes. They link Hanoi with Ha Long in the east and Sapa in the west.

Train Classes

Most trains offer five dif­fer­ent class­es:

• Hard Seat
  • quite lit­er­al­ly hard wood­en bench­es
  • usu­al­ly only equipped with fans

• Soft Seat
  • padded and reclin­ing seats, sim­i­lar to most trains in the west­ern world
  • air-con­di­tioned

• Hard Berth
  • a six-berth-cab­in with very nar­row, hard beds that are way too small for West­ern­ers

• Soft Berth
  • a four-berth-cab­in with decent beds

• VIP Berth
  • 2-berth-cab­in, lux­u­ri­ous facil­i­ties
  • not avail­able one all trains

 

Nat­u­ral­ly the prices vary dras­ti­cal­ly between the dif­fer­ent class­es. Hard Seat is the cheap­est option by far while the sleep­er cab­ins often­times cost twice as much.

On most train rides a Soft Seat should be suf­fi­cient. If you are tough it will also do for an overnight trip. I do, how­ev­er, rec­om­mend a sleep­er cab­in for longer train rides. If you can spare the mon­ey that is.

 

Preparation

For longer trips, pre­pare your­self and bring lots of snacks, warm clothes (it gets cold at night!), ear plugs and books or games against bore­dom. Luck­i­ly, free hot water is avail­able on almost all trains. We just brought a bunch of instant noo­dle soups (the ones in a cup) for a yum­my din­ner. Every hour or so, there will also be salesladies com­ing around with snacks and warm food. While we glad­ly bought some snacks off their trol­leys, we didn’t real­ly trust the look of the ‘prop­er‘ food. That’s why it’s bet­ter to gear up in advance.

Tip: If you can choose your seats, do not take the ones in the front or back. It might be tempt­ing not to have any­one seat­ed behind or in front of you but you prob­a­bly won’t find any sleep. Sit­ting in these seats will strain your ears with the loud nois­es com­ing from the con­nec­tors between the com­part­ments.

You can buy train tick­ets at all train sta­tions (often­times only in cash) or in advance on Viet­nam Rail­way or on Bao­lau. Tick­ets should be pur­chased two days pri­or to depar­ture as trains are often ful­ly booked on the day.

 

Long-haul Busses

 

Prob­a­bly the most com­mon way to trav­el Viet­nam is by bus. Wher­ev­er you want to go, you’ll find a bus that brings you there. While they nat­u­ral­ly take longer to get from A to B than trains, they do have their advan­tages:

• they are much qui­eter
• you have more space for lay­ing down (albeit no real space to put your lug­gage)
• on longer rides the bus will stop at one of the many motor­way mess halls where you can get a cheap meal
• you can get off inbe­tween cities if you tell the dri­ver before­hand
• tick­ets are cheap!

 

In Viet­nam you have two dif­fer­ent options when it comes to busses: Reg­u­lar busses and Sleep­er busses.

 

Regular busses

The reg­u­lar busses are…well, pret­ty reg­u­lar. Two seats to each side of a small aisle with about 20 rows. The seats can be reclined and are equipped with a small tray table in front of it. The win­dows can be closed with cur­tains and there is air-con­di­tion and a read­ing light above the seat.

They are quite com­fort­able but for any trip that takes longer than one or two hours I would rec­om­mend to get on a Sleep­er bus.

 

Sleeper Busses

Sleep­er busses do not just dri­ve dur­ing the night but usu­al­ly also dur­ing the day. You sit in small couchette-like seats arranged in three rows with two floors each. The seats can be reclined so you can sit in some­what of an upright posi­tion (with your legs still straight­ened). The big deal, how­ev­er, is that you can make them almost com­plete­ly flat which allows for a com­fort­able nap.

Anoth­er plus is that there is a small toi­let on board the Sleep­er busses. Also (most impor­tant­ly) you are allowed to eat on these busses where­as on reg­u­lar busses food is not per­mit­ted. We didn’t know that on our first ride in a reg­u­lar bus and got into quite some trou­ble with the bus driver…awkward.

The only prob­lem with the Sleep­er busses is the lug­gage space. Your big back­packs and suit­cas­es must be stored in the com­part­ments beneath the bus. But you will prob­a­bly also have a hand­bag or small back­pack with your valu­ables with you. If you snatch a bot­tom floor seat you can put them on the ground in the aisle. On the upper floor seats, how­ev­er, you can only keep them in the small box where you’re sup­posed to put your feet or uncom­fort­ably sleep with your back­pack on your chest or legs.

One workaround Ben and I found was to board the bus as one of the first and con­quer the last row of seats. Due to the mini toi­let in the back that row con­sists of three joint seats with­out the sep­a­rat­ing aisle. That way you can enjoy three seats at your dis­pos­al, unless the bus is ful­ly booked of course. We would always put our bags on the mid­dle seat and then use them as a small table between us for play­ing cards.

Beware: Always pay atten­tion to your lug­gage. We once almost lost our bags due to the bus dri­ver not let­ting us board although our lug­gage was already stowed beneath the bus. If there are two of you it’s best when one per­son puts the bags in the com­part­ment and the oth­er one boards the bus and reserves seats.

 

Bus Tickets

There are var­i­ous com­pa­nies offer­ing bus rides in the coun­try so you need to com­pare offers and prices. Per­son­al­ly, I can rec­om­mend Futabus, espe­cial­ly when trav­el­ing in the south. We trav­eled with them plen­ty of times and nev­er had any­thing to com­plain about. There are Futabus tick­et offices in all big­ger cities and the main bus sta­tions but you can also get tick­ets online.

Many back­pack­ers also chose to get one of the so-called Open Bus Tick­ets. With these you only pay a one time fee and can then trav­el a spec­i­fied route, usu­al­ly from Hanoi to Ho-Chi-Minh-City (or reversed). Along the way it also stops at a num­ber of small­er cities (usu­al­ly Ninh Binh, Hue and Nha Trang). While this might be a com­fort­able and cheap solu­tion for the enthu­si­as­tic sched­uler I, per­son­al­ly, would advise against it. If you buy sin­gle tick­ets for each trip you will spent only a neg­li­gi­ble amount of mon­ey more but will be much more flex­i­ble in your trav­el route.

 

Local Busses

 

Apart from the Long-haul busses, every big­ger town offers local busses that run with­in the city and its sur­round­ing area. They are a great means of trans­porta­tion if you need to get around a city but don’t want to use Taxis or Grab. Also, they’re prob­a­bly the cheap­est way to trav­el besides walk­ing.

For for­eign trav­el­ers these busses can often­times be very con­fus­ing so it’s best to ask some­one knowl­edge­able like your hotel recep­tion staff. Let them write down the bus line, direc­tion, name of the sta­tion you have to alight and direc­tions to the bus stop where you have to get on the bus. It’s also always a good idea to ask for the esti­mat­ed dura­tion of the trip. This will help you deter­min­ing which sta­tion to get out at in case the bus doesn’t have dis­plays (which they usu­al­ly don’t). Anoth­er option is to show your des­ti­na­tion to the bus dri­ver and ask him to noti­fy you when you have reached it.

 

Planes

 

While most trav­el­ers arrive to Viet­nam by plane, not many make use of them while trav­el­ing with­in the coun­try. With 11 inter­na­tion­al and 12 domes­tic air­ports Viet­nam offers a good air trav­el net­work that allows for cheap trav­el­ing, espe­cial­ly with low-cost air­lines like Viet­Jet Air or Jet­star Pacif­ic.

A great way to make the most of your time in Viet­nam is to go by plane; par­tic­u­lar­ly, if you want to see the whole coun­try instead of focus­ing on a spe­cif­ic region.  Sur­pris­ing­ly, plane tick­ets can some­times be cheap­er than trains and will also get you to your des­ti­na­tion much faster and more com­fort­able.

One-way flights from Hanoi to Ho-Chi-Minh-City (or reversed) start as low as 40€ (~47US$/36£) and save you more than 30 hours of train trav­el. Find more infor­ma­tion about how to book cheap flights here.

 

Taxis

 

Like in most Asian coun­tries, tak­ing a cab in incred­i­bly cheap. Espe­cial­ly for peo­ple with a high­er bud­get or those who sim­ply don’t like pub­lic trans­porta­tion, taxis are a great way to get around with­in cities. Even if you are on a bud­get you might still want to con­sid­er tak­ing a taxi on the “trav­el­ing” days when you need to get from the air­port to the hotel or vice ver­sa.

To be safe and not get ripped off, bear in mind the fol­low­ing tips:

 

• Only ever get in a cab of an approved and trust­wor­thy com­pa­ny like Mai Linh (green taxis) or Vina­sun (white taxis).

 

• Inform your­self before­hand about reg­u­lar­ly used taxi scams.

 

• Look close­ly at the dri­ver and the car before get­ting in. As always: if some­thing doesn’t feel right go with your gut. It is usu­al­ly right.

 

• Have one per­son sit in the front seat and demon­stra­tive­ly open up Google Maps or the like. Know­ing that you are aware of the best route will dis­cour­age the dri­ver to take any unnec­es­sary detours.

 

• Lots of dri­vers don’t speak any Eng­lish so it’s best to be on the safe side and have some­one knowl­edge­able write down your des­ti­na­tion address in Viet­namese in advance.

 

• ALWAYS use a taxime­ter. No mat­ter how con­vinc­ing­ly your dri­ver tries to per­suade that a fixed price is cheap­er, always insist on the taxime­ter (Excep­tions apply when you go long-dis­tance. In these cas­es you often­times have to nego­ti­ate a fixed price before­hand).

 

• Do not ever ask a taxi dri­ver for direc­tions or let them talk insis­tent­ly to you when you are obvi­ous­ly lost. There are lots of dri­vers who are ruth­less enough to use your help­less­ness. While they will prob­a­bly know the way you need to go, they will also try to con­vince you to let them dri­ve you there. We once asked a taxi dri­ver for the way and he told us he could bring us because it was too far for walk­ing and would take 40 min­utes by car. Even though we per­sist­ed that we were just a cou­ple of streets away from our des­ti­na­tion, he insist­ed that this street was “very far” away. Long sto­ry short, we ditched him and short­ly after found the place, just two streets over.

 

• Watch the taxime­ter. If it makes ran­dom jumps it was prob­a­bly tam­pered with. Inform the dri­ver imme­di­ate­ly and if he isn’t under­stand­ing, demand to bet let out at once.

 

• Kind­ly refuse the taxi dri­vers offer­ing you a “cheap” ride at air­ports or train sta­tions. If they have to adver­tise, they are prob­a­bly not legit­i­mate. Get a taxi at the des­ig­nat­ed spots.

 

• Snap a pho­to of the license plate and the driver’s license when you get in and do so demon­stra­tive­ly. The dri­ver is less like­ly to pull any stunts on you when he knows that you could pos­si­bly report him.

 

• Don’t pay the dri­ver before you got out of the car and took all your lug­gage from the trunk to pre­vent him from dri­ving off with your bags.

 

• If you do get scammed don’t hes­i­tate to report the dri­ver.

 

• On the oth­er hand, when your dri­ver is hon­est and kind tip him well.

 

 

Grab / Uber

 

This will be your LIFESAVER in Viet­nam. Or at least a big mon­ey saver. Find­ing out about Grab and Uber was prob­a­bly the sin­gle best secret tip we got dur­ing our trip. I can’t stress this enough, this will save you sooo much mon­ey!

While most peo­ple know about Uber, they prob­a­bly haven’t heard about Grab yet. It works pret­ty much the same way and is avail­able in Sin­ga­pore, Malaysia, Indone­sia, Thai­land, Philip­pines, Myan­mar and Viet­nam.

If you don’t know what Uber is: It is a smart­phone app that lets its users request a ride from ver­i­fied Uber dri­vers (they don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to be taxi dri­vers though). You can enter your des­ti­na­tion address and the app will auto­mat­i­cal­ly cal­cu­late your fare. If you accept, a dri­ver close by will be noti­fied to pick you up, With­in the app you can now see more infor­ma­tion about your dri­ver like his name, car type and license plate num­ber. You will auto­mat­i­cal­ly pay in advance with a cred­it card that you must reg­is­ter when sign­ing up for the app.

Sim­ply down­load one of the two apps avail­able at the App Store and Google Play Store, type in your des­ti­na­tion address and wait for your dri­ver to arrive.

The great thing about Grab and Uber is that you know exact­ly how much you will have to pay. No argu­ing with the dri­ver, no coun­ter­feit­ed taxime­ters, no has­sle. Your dri­ver already knows where you wan­na go, so you needn’t strug­gle with the lan­guage bar­ri­er either. You will arrive at your des­ti­na­tion absolute­ly stress free. How won­der­ful is that?

On top of that there are plen­ty of options to chose from in the Grab app. Fan­cy a motor­bike taxi or a VIP lim­ou­sine? They’ve got you cov­ered. Wan­na order a reg­u­lar licensed taxi or only need a dis­patch rid­er? The options are at your fin­ger­tips. Sim­ply com­pare the fares and chose one of the options and you’re good to go.

 

Motorbikes

 

One of Ben’s and my favourite when­ev­er we trav­el in South­east Asia. Espe­cial­ly in rur­al areas, motor­bikes are the sin­gle best way to get around, giv­ing you all the free­dom to dis­cov­er the coun­try at your own pace.

You can rent a motor­bike in pret­ty much any town, often­times straight from the hos­tel you are stay­ing in. With a reli­able road infra­struc­ture you can eas­i­ly reach most touris­tic high­lights but can also ven­ture deep into authen­tic Viet­nam when trav­el­ing off the beat­en path.

While we usu­al­ly only rent­ed a motor­bike for a cou­ple of days to explore the sur­round­ing area, it has become more and more pop­u­lar among the tough­est trav­el­ers to do their whole trip on a bike. They strap their bags on the lug­gage rack and off they go. It is, how­ev­er, per­fect­ly fine to just rent a bike every now and then for that spe­cif­ic area and use the oth­er means of trans­port for longer dis­tances.

If there are two of you, it is pos­si­ble to rent just one bike and have one per­son sit behind the oth­er one. While this might not be the most com­fort­able way of trav­el­ing it shouldn’t be a prob­lem on short­er rides. We always do this because I’m not as com­fort­able rid­ing a bike as Ben is; espe­cial­ly in hilly regions.

 

Renting a Motorbike

Before you rent a bike, how­ev­er, note the fol­low­ing tips:

 

• You will obvi­ous­ly need to have a driver’s license, even if the renters usu­al­ly won’t ask for it. Addi­tion­al­ly you should ide­al­ly know how to ride a bike before­hand as Viet­nam real­ly isn’t the place to learn it.

 

• Only rent motor­bikes at trust­wor­thy shops. Ask for rec­om­men­da­tions at your accom­mo­da­tion or check online on Tri­pad­vi­sor.

 

• Ask for the total price of rental for your desired amount of days and don’t for­get to hag­gle! A typ­i­cal bike should nev­er cost your more than 230.000 VND (~10US$/8.5€/8£) for a day and can get as cheap as 110.000 VND (~5US$/4€/3.5£). Let them write down the price on a piece of paper so you have it as a proof if they try to over­charge you after you return the bike.

 

• Take pho­tos of the bike before you leave, in case they try to charge you for dam­ages that were already there.

 

• Always ask for hel­mets. You are legal­ly required to wear a hel­met at all times and the renter should pro­vide it. If they don’t have any prop­er ones, go to anoth­er shop.

 

• Do a quick motor­bike test before agree­ing to rent. Motorbikewriter.com has pub­lished a great Pre-Ride Check­list or you can refer to the T-CLOCS Inspec­tion Check­list.

 

• Only ever get gas at offi­cial gas sta­tions like Petrolimex or at one of the small­er pri­vate gas sta­tions where they pump the fuel from big glass cylin­ders. Do not buy gas from street ven­dors that sell it in plas­tic bot­tles. We did that once and the “full tank” last­ed for about 20 min­utes.

 

• Always car­ry your driver’s license and inter­na­tion­al driver’s license with you. If the police catch­es you with­out it, you will need to pay a high fine.

 

• As usu­al: be informed which scams are out there and pre­pare for them.

 

Stay Safe

Because I LOVED to explore Viet­nam on a motor­bike I’m prob­a­bly a bit blind­ed by it. Nev­er­the­less, be aware that Viet­nam is a coun­try with one of the high­est rates of acci­dents and road deaths in the world. You won’t believe the traf­fic chaos, espe­cial­ly in the big cities like Ho-Chi-Minh-City or Hanoi, until you have seen it with your own two eyes.

That’s why I advise to only ride a motor­bike in rur­al areas, even if you’re an expe­ri­enced rid­er. Always wear your hel­met, prefer­ably long pants and a shirt, as well as prop­er shoes. I can’t count how many young trav­el­ers we saw dur­ing our trip with ban­daged legs, head wounds or skinned arms — so dri­ve care­ful­ly!

Notwith­stand­ing, I would def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend to every­one to dri­ve a motor­bike at least once when in Viet­nam. It is a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence and will make you that much more flex­i­ble and inde­pen­dent.

 

 

Whew! Anoth­er 3000 word ency­clo­pe­dia… I sure hope this helps you with your trav­el plan­ning. I remem­ber that I was super con­fused about all the dif­fer­ent train class­es, bus sched­ules and motor­bike rental pro­ce­dures when I vis­it­ed Viet­nam, so hope­ful­ly this doesn’t hap­pen to you.

 

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Which method of trav­el­ing did you pre­fer in Viet­nam and why? Do you have any oth­er valu­able tips for your fel­low adven­tures? Share them in the com­ments below!