I finished the first 28 days of my Vietnam adventures on February 11th, 2025.
I visited much of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC/Saigon) and the surrounding central and southern cities:
After two days of plane, bus, and ferry travel, I made it to my next destination, the island of Phu Quoc
Here is the walk from my hotel and my current situation.
I am always the first to say that traveling is awesome!
You get to visit amazing new places and meet fellow travelers worldwide. I love it 90% of the time but, you need to take the bad with the good.
It still beats going to work, I think!
Well, in the last few days, I experienced the good and the bad! The good always outweighs the bad long term but, this was some short-term suck for sure. It started with a self-inflicted 17-hour train ride up the coast from HCMC to Da Nang, Vietnam. I planned to go all the way North in one day and work my way back South slowly.
Great plan in theory!
I made it through the hellish train ride and had a great first day in beautiful Da Nang as I blogged here. The dragon bridge was neat to see too but it was just a bridge as blogged about here.
On day two, I woke up with a train hangover and sore throat and my body just hurt. The good news is that a massage can be had for about $12, I was able to fix my body with a couple of massages. The bad, my sore throat turned into a full-on chest cold, and I was coughing up nasties. This chest cold was different as I was coughing up the air pollution as well. Awesome!!
I was able to fight my way through it and made my way to Hoi, An as I blogged here.
It was a beautiful place to visit but, I was just not feeling well enough to enjoy it. After a couple of days, I planned my get-a-way to my next destination, Nah Trang. It would be another nasty 12-hour train ride South which was more than halfway home to HCMC.
Well, that turned to dog shit in a hurry!!
I took a 45-minute shuttle from Hoi An to the Da Nang train station to find out that the tickets were sold out. I begged the agent to help me as I was sickly, and she did her best. She put me on two different trains to get me to Da Nang and the train was scheduled to leave in an hour but delayed 45 minutes. Math tells me that is 1:45 minutes, right? RIGHT!!
The train pulls into the station and the waiting room heads to the platform; I hand my ticket to the train operator and settle in for the long ride. I ordered a few beers and a sandwich and enjoyed the ocean view on the EAST side of the train.
Most people would realize that they are headed north, nope, not this guy but look at that view!!
After a few hours of relaxing, we arrived at our first stop, and someone woke me up by asking if I was getting off in Hue. I was half asleep and three beers deep and, told him I was going to Nah Trang.
Well, suddenly the whole train knew English!
This train is going NORTH several people yelled while I frantically looked for my ticket. These trains only stop for five minutes so since I knew I fucked up: I got off the train without my phone charger and favorite hat.
FUCK!!
It took me a good 30 minutes to calm down and put a recovery plan in place.
First, I had to find a charger so I could use my phone which was easy, I bought one for five bucks. OK, so I had internet and started realizing my messy situation.
Second, I sheepishly went to the ticket counter to tell them what had happened which didn’t matter as they could not speak a lick of English. I google translated my story to blame the Railways for taking my ticket and allowing my dumbass to get on the wrong train. They were not buying my sad story, and they wanted the full $70 train fare again.
They ended up allowing me to use my original ticket, which was a small win, but I needed to be on a train for a total of 21 hours. I was fucking delusional most of the ride as I had zero sleep.
I like to think that I always win in the end when traveling, and this was no different and just another crazy story.
I am currently writing this blog drinking a $2 lemongrass peach bubble tea with an ocean view listing to the Oilers pregame show.
I am also staying in an amazing Airbnb for $15 a night to rest my old bones and feel better.
There are also many good-looking Russians and Ukrainians here fleeing the war. They walk on the beach, and you can tell by their language and good looks.
I also found a $75 flight to get back to HCMC to avoid another 10-hour train ride:
NAD for the bounce-back win in extra time!! 🤓
I made it home to Meza, AZ on the evening of April 7th!
How is this for my last week of travel (blogs hyperlinked)?
My flight home from Rome to Los Angeles was 12 hours followed by an hour flight to Phoenix.
It is time to enjoy the HOT Arizona and Mexico Summer and learn to edit!
Prior update:
After spending 70 days in Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Singapore) I will then leave Asia for the last time this trip on March 21st. It was an amazing experience living like a local in each country. I would rate them in this order:
1. Cambodia (Super cheap and a large EXPAT community with easy access to Vietnam and Thailand).
2. Vietnam (Although it was not as inexpensive as Cambodia, $2K goes a long way each month)
3. Thailand (It is a super nice Country with amazing beaches but it has become saturated with tourists and expensive)
4. Singapore (I only spent a few days in Singapore and do not need to return other than the airport, too expensive!).
I will start my European leg in Athens, Greece, and plan to crisscross Europe using my Wizz all-you-can-fly pass for three weeks. I have a flight from Rome, Italy heading home to Arizona on April the 7th. I cut the European trip three weeks short as I am ready to go home. You might want to check out this pass in the link above as it is a spectacular adventure!!
That will total 84 days of travel this time around which was fun and exhausting at the same time.
I visited these Countries the first time I used my pass earlier this year: Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Cypress, London, and the United Emirates. Starting next week, I hope to expand this list by four to seven Countries.
I am currently touring Athens; Greece and I have booked my first two flights on my pass.
Headed off to London for a pint and some fish and chips on an eight-hour layover. I will back to the airport and off to amazing Istanbul, Turkey for 20 Euro/USD!
It is a seven-hour flight so I can catch up on my sleep in the air which is how it should be done.
The standby flight options are endless including Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East:
After spending a few days in Da Nang, it was time to shuttle down the road to Hoi An.
It was a $6, 45-minute shuttle from Airbnb to Airbnb which is pretty cool that both amazing cities are that close together. They are totally different vibes too which is great if you get tired of the melting pot of Dang or the more touristy Hoi An. As of now, I will call it a tie as it is really laid back here in Hoi An.
Just the dragon bridge in Dan, Nang the go to place in Hoi An is the river. I have never seen anything quite like it except on YouTube. There were hundreds of boats and floating lanterns everywhere. Here are a few videos to give you an idea of how unreal a sight it is to see.
It is almost impossible to watch YouTube on Vietnam without the Dragon Bridge as a must-visit.
Well, February 2nd, 2025, was that day for me on my second full day in Da Nang.
The Dragon Bridge only does its fire and water breathing show on Saturday and Sunday at 9 PM so if it was going to happen, it had to be today
Just like every other tourist trap, the lead-up was better than the actual show but glad I went. I was able to walk to the bridge from my Airbnb in Da Nang as it was only two miles.
Here are some videos of the amazing walk:
Once I arrived at the bridge, put myself in the middle of the maze of people to prepare for some pictures. I have to say that some Vietnamese people have zero clue on how normal shit works. They just parked in the front when they arrived five minutes before the show.
Here are some more videos before I threw a few of them in the river:
After a 17-hour train ride, I blogged about here and YouTube videos here, I made it to Da Nang, Vietnam!
I planned to do voiceovers with the YouTube videos, but I have not grasped the challenge, yet.
Maybe if I start getting more views, I will step up my game! HINT!! LOL
I have 259 videos, and almost 10K views in the first month of my channel and my website:
Let me make this easy for you sitting on the fence. Here are the links you just need to CLICK:
www.NorthAmericanDarrell.com to bookmark and YouTube link to subscribe or here to buy me a beer!
I never thought anyone would buy me a beer let alone watch my videos, but it’s been a lot of fun:
YouTube pays for the advertising clicks, not the actual site visits so it is impossible to make money without millions and millions of views. Plus, YouTube pays you for the amount of ad views your video gets. If your video has a million views but no advertising on it, you won’t be making any money. If your video has a million views but only 10,000 ad views, you’ll be making money only on the 10,000 ad views.
OK – selfless plug complete and back to the regularly programmed blog on Da Nang, Vietnam:
There is a very North American feel to Da Nang. It is a hot spot for a lot of Europeans leaving the cold wanting a cheaper way of life in paradise from what I am told.
This was a microbrewery on the beach and the second one visited already with $5 pints of goodness. I had a $7 burger and fries with coffee and carrot cake for dessert for USD 23. It is not super cheap but for a beach. 🤑
One of the biggest things when traveling is the walkability of the area. Most nice beaches have a boardwalk or Malecon as they call it in Mexico. Da Nag is no different, but it just seems much more inviting.
Besides the countless inexpensive coffee/tea shops, street food, and restaurants there is hiking on the mountain in the bay. The hiking can take you to other remote areas on the beach along with a large statue of Lady Buddha on the oceanfront which looks spectacular from the boardwalk.
I have not visited there yet so here are pictures from the internet and the supporting blog:
“From the East coast, visitors can see an enormous white statue with a mountain backdrop, that is the Lady Buddha Da Nang. Located on the ground of Linh Ung Pagoda, she was sculpted by artisans in a Non-Nuoc marble village. Thanks to its huge size and importance in local belief, hundreds of visitors come to this statue daily. That makes it one of the top tourist attractions in the city. So why did people place it there? What does it mean? Or why Lady Buddha? are frequently asked questions. Now, all secrets are opened, to help visitors to know better about the monument and everything around it.”
My best travel days always start by hitting my 10K steps followed by a local coffee. This place is perfect for me as there are so many options for my morning walk/hike and coffee. Day one was absolutely perfect, but I replaced the coffee with two micro-brewery which is a great substitute for a couple of days a week!
The last video started with a roofie or in this case a 7% IPA! Look at that amazing view with the mountain in the background. Also, If you drive the opposite way, the amazing city of Hoi An is about a 30-minute drive making it a two-for-one destination.
