Best & Worst, Vietnam

We will are introducing a new 'series' for your reading enjoyment. To help us process our journey, after we depart each country we will be posting the Best and Worst experiences we had in said country.  We will be posting about OUR experiences, so please take it all with a grain of salt and don't judge the entire country by our experiences alone. For example, we got food poisoning while we were in Vietnam... Please do not think that Vietnam is unclean, unsafe, or unhealthy. Consider instead that a particular Indian Restaurant in Vietnam has a nasty lamb dish to avoid (which could be said for several restaurants/dishes regardless of country borders). Please use these as a point of inspiration to go seek YOUR OWN experiences to truley assess and evaluate a country itself.

To get us started, our first destination was Vietnam...

Best

• Having our friends with us
• Staying in a Villa! and renting a motorscooter
• Arriving in Saigon during Tet (Chinese New Year)
• Rooftop Terraces everywhere to enjoy an outdoor meal or drink
• Friendly People; our guide, Kevin and the school children who talked to us to practice their English (What do you like, juice?!)
• Famous Boyfriend, being 6'2"- Denton had a lot of attention and even posed in pictures
• Exchange Rate was definitely in our favor and made many things incredibly affordable

Worst

• Getting food poisoning
• Follower / "Our Minder"- we had a strange lady follow us a few blocks and into a restaurant. We joked that she was a minder, sent from the government to keep an eye on us!
• Litter and garbage - the government lacks the infrastructure to properly dispose of garbage. The cultural attitude is so relaxed that the people frequently litter and it's completely socially acceptable.
• The Visa! We had to apply for an expensive visa in San Francisco, before we could depart.
• We were forced to show onward travel, in the rare instance that the Vietanamese Customs agent requests it (which they didn't), so we shelled out $220 before we even boarded our flight from SFO.