Dates: 05/09/08 to 20/10/08
Flight details:
London Heathrow – HCMC via Doha (Qatar) with Qatar Airways. Price was £590 bought 2 months and a half in advance. The plane was a Airbus A330, very clean and new and the service was excellent. QA is definitely one of the best airlines I have flown with.
During the 2 months since I bought the flight till I was going to take the plane my credit card expired and I got a new one. When I went to check in they asked me for the credit card I had used for the booking “for security reasons” and when I gave them the replacement one the system did not recognise it, so they made me buy on the spot new tickets. Once I returned I went to QA offices and got a refund after showing the credit card statement with the first booking, but beware of this.
In Doha we had to wait for 8 hours in the transit area (you don’t pass the passport control). The transit area is very big, modern and clean. There are “silent rooms” with special chairs to sleep. Almost of the passengers from our plane were waiting for their connection flight, just a very few entered the country. Same happened with other flights, mainly from big cities.
Visa: a visa is needed to enter Vietnam if you have a spanish or a british passport. I decided to get a service called visa-on-arrival through a company called Hotels-in-Vietnam
http://www.hotels-in-vietnam.com
It was a great success. They send you a pre-approval letter confirming that the visa procedure has started, you have to print and present the letter when checking in. Without it (or without a valid visa) you will not be allowed to board. Once landed and before going through the passport check, you have to go to a window clearly signposted and get the Visa (we waited around 20 minutes or so).
It also turned out to be much cheaper: Visa in the vietnamese consulate in London was £50. Visa on arrival was US$20 for the approval letter plus US$25 for the final visa in Vietnam (US$45 in total, almost half price at the time).
Itinerary: HCMC, Mekong Delta, Phu Quoc, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Ninh Binh, Hue, Hoi An.
Internal flights:
– HCMC to Phu Cuoc (return): with Vietnam Airlines. US$120. Plane was an ATR72 propeller. Flight duration is 55min (we flew over the Mekong Delta rice pads and it was beautiful). Bought in a travel agency in HCMC.
– HCMC to Hanoi (one way): with Vietnam Airlines. US$120. Plane was a Boeing 757. Flight duration was 1:45min. Bought in a travel agency in HCMC.
-Da Nang to HCMC (one way): with JetStar. US$67. Plane was an Airbus A320. Flight duration 1h10m. Bought in a travel agency in Hanoi.
HO CHI MINH CITY (Saigon):
Once we made our way through customs and got the luggage was already midnight. We had booked a cab with the hotel. Price was US$5 per person, US$15 in total. We took a taxi on the way back to the airport, this time a random one with meter reading and final price was 80.000 VD (less than US$5).
Accommodation:
Hotel Bich Duyen (http://www.hotels-in-vietnam.com/hotels/saigon/bichduyen_hotel.html)
283/4 Pham Ngu Lao Street, 1st District, Ho Chi Minh ph. +84 8 8374588 BICHDUYENHOTEL@YAHOO.COM
Triple room with private bathroom was US$27. Neatly clean, great location (in Pham Ngu Lao, the heart of the backpackers area), breakfast included, very friendly and helpful staff, free internet…
Fantastic value for money. Booked it in advance through http://www.hostels.com and using tripadvisor (it got great reviews in both webs, it is #2 in tripadvisor list out of the 238 hotels/hostels in HCMC).
Eating
Quan An Ngon Restaurant
Before in 138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia , District 1, Saigon. Moved to 160 Pasteur St, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Phone 08/829-9449
Very close to the old presidential palace in the heart of HCMC, this restaurant is recommended in every guide as a must stop while walking around the centre. I loved it so much I repeated for my last meal of the trip on the way back. From the building itself to the excellent food all was great. And so cheap, we just paid US$24 for 3 people eating and drinking abundantly (!!).
Important note: Lukevn from the Lonely Planet Forum has been kind enough to advise the following:
“the original Quan An Ngon on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia street has changed its name to Nha hang Ngon (Ngon Restaurant) and moved to a new location at 160 Pasteur street when its house lease contract expired end of September 2009.
The greedy house owner on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia street built a new building and named his own restaurant as “Quan An Ngon 138″ which he tried to make people mistaken with the old name”.
We also tried Pho2000 and it was good and cheap for a quick bowl of noddles.
Sightseeing and others:
We went for a walking tour recommended in the Lonely Planet and it was fine. I don’t think HCMC is a very attractive city. Most buildings are quite new and urbanism is chaotic. Within the central area my favourite bits were the colonial style Post Office building (still a post office nowadays), the town hall (Hotel de Ville) and having a drink while enjoying the views from the 23rd floor bar at the Sheraton Hotel (western prices, some US$30 for 4 drinks).
The most interesting part of HCMC for me was to see people’s daily life, the millions of scooters and how, miraculously, there were almost no accidents between them. 1 full day is enough to see most of the things around.
As a highlight we went for a massage to L’Occitane (a japanese leisure guide said it was the best place in town for a massage). Price for a full body massage was 420.000 VD for 1h30m, very cheap. They let you have a shower once finished. The massage was fantastic. Worth going.
Location: L’Occitane is inside New World Hotel at 76 Le Lai St, District 1.


March 5, 2015 at 11:10 am
Information with flight details were amazing. Most of the post miss those information. Happy to find these information.