Vietnam Holiday Photos

Published on Thursday, August 20, 2009 – 3:15 pm

Vietnam Photos

Throughout June and July I was on vacation travelling through Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam and New Zealand and as usual with any major trip, I share the photos and stories with you.

I posted the Cambodia photos a few weeks back and now I’ve finally had the chance to go through the Vietnam photos.

Circled in green below, you can see the places travelled to in Vietnam: Mekong Delta, Ho Chi Minh City, Cu Chi, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Halong Bay and Sapa along with Siem Riep & Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

Vietnam

This was the group I traveled with throughout Vietnam. I went through the travel company Contiki on their Vietnam Explorer tour. Contiki has a very strong Aussie backing (though is UK owned) and is aimed at the 18-35 year old traveler. High energy and endurance is a must.

This is snake wine. Rice wine soaked with snakes, spiders and scorpions.

Me drinking the snake rice wine. It was pretty bitter, with a rather strong “bitey” flavour.

Fish for lunch!

Housing along the river.

Floating market, each of these boats sell different goods. This photo doesn’t do the markets justice but there were hundreds of these boats each with their own goods.

Rice paper making - a family owned business.

Bike riding throughout the Mekong Delta. This was rather scary as the paths were tiny (about quarter of the size of the path above). At one stage we were riding over bridges about 1 foot wide and you had water on one side and barbed wire on the other. Very safe indeed.

A huge snake, and yes I do have a Bomber Man t shirt. I got it in Japan a few weeks earlier.

We had to get these boats to get to our guest house. Tried rowing myself - it’s a lot harder than you think!

Being a goof.

Cu Chi tunnels - a huge underground network of tunnels that housed the Viet Cong’s base of operations throughout the war.

Me trying to fit in the tunnel - only just and with a lot of effort.

One of the jungle booby traps used in the Vietnam War or what the Vietnamese call the “American War”.

Shooting a machine gun. Man was it loud!

Crawling through the tunnels. This is actually double the size of the original tunnel - this particular one was built for tourists.

Bombshells from the war.

Huge tank at the War Museum.

I’ve definitely got bigger guns, ahem.

Just one of the disturbing images found at the Vietnam War Museum.

Update: 22/8/09

“This is a wide known photo in Vietnam and it is a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War. The girl in this picture is Kim Phúc - one of many victims of Napalm bomb, this photo shows her at about age nine running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack.”

Thanks to TuanAnh for the above information.

Ordered chaos - telephone and electricity wires.

More telephone wires.

2 Lobsters, 500grams of King Prawns and 2 beers for AUD$25. (I hadn’t eaten all day) Now that is what I call a bargain!

You can tell I was enjoying it.

The Fish Tank is one lethal drink!

7 Hour Happy Hour! $1 drinks! Why not?

Lining up for the boats.

Jumping off the side of the boat.

Jet Skiing, gotta love it!

Now that is a feast!

Parasailing!

Ocean bar… Notice the barman in the middle?

Chillaxing!

While “relaxing” on the beach, little kids come around to you and sell stuff, but we ended up taking it off them and selling it back to them (all in good fun). They were in stitches.

Each of those red lanterns are actually burning coils that last for a month and give good luck and wishes to people who leave them there.

Our hotel’s entrance.

Bike riding in the countryside.

Trekking through rice fields.

The Lotus.

Oh the serenity.

Relaxing on the beach.

Jetstar anyone?

Vietnamese cooking class.

Doubles pool - part of the nightlife.

Oops, didn’t see that.

This guy could open 5 beers at once with just one karate chop! Check out the wall too.

Left my mark (Australian flag).

Cyclos are fun yet they kind of make you feel guilty - some guy riding you around everywhere.

Imperial Citadel, Hue. (The Forbidden City)

Got a line?

Who’s hungry?

Cruising along Halong Bay.

Huge underground caves.

Very buggered after climbing many, many, many stairs!

Afternoon.

Sunset.

Nightfall.

A wild monkey.

The overnight train we caught to Sapa.

Only in Vietnam would you get served take away iced coffee in a plastic bag.

Rice fields and clouds while driving up to Sapa.

Trying to get up a very muddy hill in a bus. It took us four times to get up the hill.

…and when we finally got up the hill, this bloody thing got in the way.

View from our guest house.

Local markets.

Walking with the locals.

One of my fav pictures.

The start of the 18km trek through Sapa.

The one on the right gave me a friendship band, made similar to the pattern on her red/yellow bag. Cute.

Children selling bracelets.

The crew who came on the 18km trek though Sapa. This was probably my highlight of the tour, it was such a great experience, though bloody hot!

The end of the trek had this very refreshing & beautiful waterfall / stream.

Is it just me or does this buffalo look like a bull about to charge?

Aussie pride… and my goofy hired hiking boots.

The last day it rained (only day it did) and boy did it rain. This is the road outside our hotel’s doorstep!

Exhausted. The trip’s over.

I will post the photos from Japan and New Zealand once I get a chance to go through them. You may be interested in my photos from: Fiji, Europe, Australia, Thailand or  Cambodia. Have you been to Vietnam? Any stories to share?


Bookmark and Share

Related Articles:

Sponsors:



Tags: ,
Posted in: Personal


29 Responses to “Vietnam Holiday Photos”

  1. Odin on Aug 20, 2009 said:

    The rain you experienced is far from the worst :D But hey! I didn’t see many photos of Ho Chi Minh city.

  2. NBK on Aug 20, 2009 said:

    Looks like you had a great time. Great pictures. Makes me want to go back soon! And yeah, I didn’t see many pictures of Saigon.

  3. Michelle on Aug 20, 2009 said:

    I love your photos and was inspired, I just requested contiki.com to send me information on the Vietnam trip. Thanks a lot !! :->

  4. Ashely Adams : Sticker Printing on Aug 20, 2009 said:

    hey the pictures look very good! some of the pictures could actually be used professionally.looking forward to more pictures from you in Japan.

  5. Lambros on Aug 20, 2009 said:

    Amazing photos!!! It looks you had great holidays!

  6. Danny | dannyhinde.com on Aug 20, 2009 said:

    Great photos! Nice to see some photos from Vietnam, normally when I think of it all I can think of is war! I have to say I’d rather a snakebite cider than the snake wine!!

  7. Gino on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    nice pics! especially love the one of the fish (koi?) p.s. they also serve drinks in plastic bags in the philippines :-) maybe your next trip should be there. hehe

  8. BebopDesigner on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    Wow! Crazy fascinating places… lucky you. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

  9. Kiren on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    You lucky guy! I haven’t been out of the country in 7 years! Damn work and no vacation for part time workers,like myself:( Just curious, did you get a package deal for these trips or was this planned with a group of friends?

  10. Quan Vu on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    These pictures are beautiful. I haven’t been back there since I was little. I think I have to make a trip back to Vietname now since I saw these pictures.

    Thank you so much for the pictures!

    Quan Vu

  11. Jacob Cass on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    Odin,
    So I’ve been told. We were very lucky with the weather, especially considering we were travelling in the wet season.

    NBK,
    Didn’t realise I skipped so many pics from Saigon… I actually do have quite a few but just didn’t feature them here.

    Michelle,
    I highly recommend Contiki, especially the European tours. The Contiki Asian tours are still very new so they are still working out the best routes / destinations / partner tour companies but it was still awesome.

    Ashley,
    They were all taken on a small Olympus handy cam, nothing flash.

    Danny,
    I really had no clue about Vietnam before going there though Lonely planet helped a ton - a country worth visiting indeed. And the good ol’ Snakebite cider - it seems only Aussies who have travelled know what that is (mainly to UK). Not my drink of choice except maybe when at the Walkabout bars scattered across London.

    Gino,
    Yeah so many fish eh! I’ve actually been to Philippines but I was quite young so don’t remember much - plus I was in a resort for most of the time. Though I remember the people were very friendly.

    Kiren,
    Travelling is a great way to have a break and refresh your juices. I highly recommend it, though you may get hooked so watch out!

    For the whole trip it was a bit of everything. I went to Japan with my mother (for my 21st), a tour company called Geckos for Cambodia, a tour company called Contiki for Vietnam and New Zealand with 18 old school friends.

  12. Elisa on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    I think you should def’s come to the philippines!!!!

  13. Vienzzion on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    hey dude how come you didn’t visit lao? I’m from there

  14. Ace Web Design Adelaide on Aug 21, 2009 said:

    Thanks for sharing the photos. Looks like a great place to visit. Would love to go there one day.

  15. TuanAnh on Aug 22, 2009 said:

    “Just one of the disturbing images found at the Vietnam War Museum” ==>

    This is a wide known photo in Vietnam and it is n Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War.It show how bad the war bring to us.

    “The girl in this picture is Kim Phúc - one of many victims of Napalm bomb, this photo shows her at about age nine running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack.”

    If you want to come back to Vietnam, you should visit Nha Trang gulf, Ba Na cable( Da Nang) :)

  16. Briana on Aug 22, 2009 said:

    Wow, makes me want to quit my job and go travel again. I’ve never had the desire to visit Vietnam but you make it look so interesting. Thanks for sharing.

  17. Caroline Coyle on Aug 22, 2009 said:

    Wow! Amazing photos. Have only looked at the Vietnam ones but am going to look at Cambodia now.
    Can’t wait for the Japanese ones to be uploaded too! I live in Osaka, and have a travelled a lot here, so will be interesting!
    Thanks for your great page!
    (You should upload it whilst the Ashes is on… you might be too disappointed after!!)

  18. Andrew Keir on Aug 23, 2009 said:

    That snake wine *shudder*.

    I’ve tried a local made whiskey that had a cobra in it. So, so bad.

    I think I was hung over before I’d finished drinking it.

  19. Jacob Cass on Aug 23, 2009 said:

    Elisa,
    I have been - see my comment to Gino.

    Vienzzion,
    Wasn’t on the schedule, that’s all.

    TuanAnh,
    Thanks for the information on that picture - I’ve seen it so many times before but never knew it was a Pulitzer Prize winner.

    Briana,
    It’s tempting heh!

    Caroline,
    Cricket doesn’t gel with me so not really fussed about that, but on the other hand we just lost to New Zealand in the rugby last night in the last minute by a field goal.

    Andrew,
    It’s got quite a punch!

  20. Mandy on Aug 24, 2009 said:

    Great photos. Sapa looks amazing, I didn’t get chance to visit there when I went to Vietnam. I also fancied doing a home stay on the Mekong Delta but unfortunately ran out of time. Oh well I will just have to go back!

  21. Minh Quan on Aug 25, 2009 said:

    Wao, amazing photos and an interesting long trip.I’m Vietnamese, live in Saigon but I haven’t travelled as much as you have. Did you enjoy SaiGon ? If you have free time let’s upload those SG photos so I would know how you think about my city :D

    -@ All : Our Country is small but it has many many worth-to-see things, and our love for the visitors is very intense. I recommend you to pay a visit to SaiGon, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Ha Noi, HaLong Bay and Sapa,which has scenes you’ve never seen :)

  22. cathy on Aug 25, 2009 said:

    amazing trip photos..fun trip ^^
    the one u been eaten by the frog was a very creative one :D

  23. mochilero on Aug 26, 2009 said:

    Man, great trip, I hope I’ll be able to make one of this not so long.

  24. Kyan Blue on Aug 27, 2009 said:

    Awesome. I’ve been to Vietnam quite a few times (visiting family)…I hope you took advantage of the great cheap food and ate some interesting stuff there. Did you find any favourite dishes?

    Yes, definitely go to Da Nang in a future visit (when I stayed there, I went to the beach twice a day!). There are jellyfish that swim around the beach, which is pretty exciting/scary (if you’re not a jellyfish person).

    The beaches in Da Nang are gorgeous, and so nice. In a few decades they’ll be infested by tourists, but for now you can have it practically all to yourself at around 8 or 9 in the morning. When I went, most of the locals cleverly avoided the heat by going at dawn or dusk.

  25. Jacob Cass on Aug 28, 2009 said:

    Mandy,
    If you ever do go back I highly, highly recommend doing Sapa!

    Minh,
    Saigon had a lot to offer but it was too busy for my liking. And although your country is small, you are right, it does have a lot to see. I didn’t get to Da Nang - what did I miss?

    Cathy,
    Sillyness never hurt anyone… except maybe the one being silly.

    Kyan,
    Yeah of course! Loved the food! No favourite dishes, but I did try something different every time. Couldn’t go past the cheap lobster dish either.

    Da Nang sounds interesting… not so keen about swimming with Jellyfish, had enough of that in HaLong Bay. Will have to go there next time though.

  26. raleigh divorce lawyer on Nov 4, 2009 said:

    These photos are great. It looks like you had a blast. I have had many friends travel to Vietnam and I have always wanted to visit.

  27. Nhung on Nov 11, 2009 said:

    Great pics…remind me when i pass all that places. Remember next time when you come back to VN (Ho Chi Minh city), you have one more friend here, Jacop :)

  1. 2 Trackback(s)

  2. Oct 1, 2009: Japan & New Zealand Holiday Photos
  3. Oct 10, 2009: Logo Design - Logo Designer Australia

Unlimited Freelancer
(I recommend the Unlimited Freelancer book - read my review here)


Post a Comment

Please keep comments constructive. Key words in the name field will be removed.