At about the same time we started planning our trip I met another Vietnam veteran on line. He had also served with the 199th LIB, but was in country before my time there. Based on good advice from this new friend I began putting together an itinerary for the trip. This helped us better plan the places I wanted to visit and gave us a timetable and ultimately an intinerary. Eventually, I realized that in order to find the places I wanted to visit I would need some assistance from someone. We considered several touring veterans groups but the costs were much too high for our consideration. Besides, I wanted us to do this on our own without relying on a group agenda.
My online friend recommended that we contact "
Ann Tours" and this was decidedly a good decision. Ann Tours provided all of tours and they took me exactly to the places I wanted to revisit and more.
Passports and Visas
In order to return you obviously need a Passport and a visitors visa. The Passport is an relatively straightforward process that can be done at any main branch of the
US Post Office. The Visa is slightly more challenging but during our research we found that one may obtain a "
visa on arrival."
Getting the visa on arrival is also a relatively straight forward process. You can do your visa a couple of different ways. You can apply for your visa at the nearest Vietnamese Embassy by email who will in turn send you a visa application and eventually issue you a visa for the dates of your choosing.
Or, you can have a tour service (we used Ann Tours) get you whats know as a "Visa on Arrival" letter for you. If you choose the later it is a very easy process. You provide passport numbers, full name and address and they arrange it for you (for a small fee). In return you receive a visa approval letter from Vietnam Immigration services. Upon arrival you go to the airport immigration office present the letter and $45 dollars per passport and you are issued your Visa and passport stamps.
See the procedure here (near the middle of the page)
Travel within Vietnam
There are many ways to travel in country. Bus, Train, Air, Car and Motorbike or Scooter rental. I don't recommend car, motorbike or scooter based on the unorthodox way the Vietnamese obey traffic laws.
Our trip was to take us from the south to the north of the country. We decided that we would take the train for each leg of travel toward the north. This allowed us to see the countryside from the relative comfort of the train car, and also allowed us to interact with Vietnamese people along the way.
Train schedules are fairly flexible so choosing when to travel is relatively easy. Choosing your train itinerary will need to be done yourself if you are not going with a tour group. The train is an excellent way to not miss the scenery as opposed to being 30,000 feet in the air. Once our itineraries were worked out, we used a company called
Vietnam Impressive to purchase and deliver our train tickets. Vietnam Impressive delivered our tickets directly to our first hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. It was virtually seamless except for a small mistake on Vietnam Impressive's part, which they corrected quickly and with many apologies.
Our stay included several tours to areas I wanted to revisit. As a result of arranging the tours we had transportation to those places built in. Other than that we walked. A lot, averaging 3-5 miles a day.
Another caveat, Vietnam is NOT handicap friendly. There are no ramps into hotels, up curbs, into shops, on to trains, planes or into swimming pools. You will find a lot of stairs. Planes land on the tarmac with roll up stairs to board rather than a Jetway to get onto the aircraft. There is zero ADA type compliance anywhere. Take that into consideration when planning. Be aware that there is a significant amount of travel time involved in this trip (see below).
Our Itinerary:
Fayetteville, Arkansas to St. Louis, Missouri - Personal Car - 5 hours
St. Louis to Newark New Jersey - United Airlines - 5 hours
Newark to Hong Kong - United Airlines - 21 hours plus layovers
Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City - United Airlines - 4 hours
Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang - Reunification Express - 7 hours
Nha Trang to Hue - Reunification Express - 15 hours, night train and soft sleeper births
Hue to Hanoi -Reunification Express - 15 hours, day train and soft seats
Hanoi to Halong Bay and back - 8 hours
Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City - 4 hours -
Jet Star Airlines
Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong - 4 hours
Hong Kong to Chicago - 29 hours including layover
Chicago to St. Louis - 8 1/2 hours including layover
St Louis to Fayetteville - 5 hours
Total traveling time - 102 hours or 4+ days moving from place to place
The Reunification Express Train
The
Reunification Express Train was our conveyance for train travel. Don't let the word "Express" excite you. The train travels at a top speed of 45 miles per hour. You can book your own tickets with them but as I said above, it is much easier and very reasonably priced to have Vietnam Impressive to do it for you.
Your choices when booking space on the train are:
Hard Sleeper Births, (no bedding) 6 births to a room, no a/c
Hard Seats (park bench like seating), no a/c
Soft seats with a/c
Soft Sleeper Births, (4 births to a room) with a/c
Unless you are interested in 15 hours in a sauna, don't even consider any option without air conditioning. If you prefer privacy you will need to purchase all the births in the sleeper room.
For us, we felt the train was an excellent choice for many reasons. The scenery was wonderful, especially from Nha Trang to Hue where on your left are the mountains of the central highlands and on the right there are the beautiful seascapes of the South China Sea coastline.
*About the "Air Conditioning. Be aware that on the Reunification Express the term "air conditioning" is a relative term but still better than no air conditioning at all.
Conditions on the train
If you have a weak stomach or if crowds bother you, then the train may not be for you. The Reunification Express is rated one of the top ten hardest trains to travel on because of the crush of people, the smells and the general conditions in which you travel. If this doesn't bother you, you will enjoy the ride.
The conditions are not stellar by any means. We constantly saw small cockroaches crawling up the cabin walls. The toilets include western style toilets and squat pit toilets.
The toilets were overused and the holding tanks tend to get too full, (use your own imagination here) the floors were filthy from overflowing toilets. The sink was awful and I wouldn't touch them to wash my hands. Toilet paper was non-existent.
If you go on the train or to Vietnam for that matter, do yourself a favor and carry toilet paper and wipes. Once you start traveling in Vietnam you will find that toilet paper is very scarce as are most paper products including napkins and tissues. A small bottle of hand sanitizer would probably be pretty nice to have, too.
On the train the Vietnamese tend to carry all of their food for the trip with them. I guarantee that you smell things you never smelled before. What is harder to imagine is that people are eating those foul smelling things. Some of the food was just downright awful in the confined space of the train cars.
The sleeper cars are a little bit better except for the bathrooms, they are the same. The linens were worn but clean.
Tours
If you are a Vietnam Vet and have not been back since your tour in Vietnam, I cannot over emphasize the importance of using a tour service to get you where you want to be. They know how to get you there, and provide many historical facts for you to consider once you are there. We used Ann Tours. They were absolutely fantastic. Our drivers were experts in navigating the insane traffic and our guides were English speaking and very much the historians.
The tours of importance to me were in difficult but not impossible to find places. Time had definitely changed and erased what I had remembered. Without guidance to them I would have never found them again. This was especially evident at two of the venues I chose to visit. The first was the rear support base of the 199th LIB. This is now a huge industrial park. It looks absolutely nothing like it did when we were there. The second was the Horse Race track in Cholon. All that remains is a column with the bronze horse and a half an entrance gate. The entire venue was demolished and in it's place is a huge sports complex that now hosts events like the Asia Games. I highly recommend that you get a tour guide to help you.
What will it cost you to go
This isn't an expensive trip by world travel standards. But for us, it was definitely a financial stretch. What follows is a break down of our costs. This is as close as we can define it.
Passports and Visas
Passports - $250 - One renewal @ $110 and one new passport @ $140
Visa on Arrival Letter - Covering both of us - $25 - Facilitated by Ann Tours
In country Visa issuance - $90 for both of us - Actual issuance of the Visas and stamps in your passport.
Total - $365 USD
Air Fare
Shop around, you are likely to get a better price if you shop 6 or more months in advance. Lock in the lowest airfare and seating you can find that fits your needs. We even booked our Vietnam domestic flight in advance. We locked in a really low cost air fare by shopping 7 months prior to departure.
An aside, if you are big or tall you may want to book business class. We were on 777's both ways for our the long legs of our flights between the US and Hong Kong. We had economy seating but chose aisle seats to allow us to stretch out a bit. Remember, you will be on some of these flight's for 15+ hours each way.
United Airlines - Round trip air fare for two from St. Louis, Missouri to Vietnam and one in country flight for two
Air fare for two - $1747
Train Travel
We booked these in advance but we only booked the train trips one month in advance as there are no discounts available. However, do book somewhat in advance so that you have seating choices as the train is really, really crowded. See my review of the train conditions in the "Travel within Vietnam" section above.
Our trip included the following legs: Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang, Nha Trang to Hue and Hue to Hanoi. We booked the tickets through
Vietnam Impressive who in turn confirmed the bookings via email along with a receipt for the expenditure. Thy sent the tickets to our first hotel in Ho Chi Minh City at our request. .
Train costs for two - $259 USD
Tours
Our tours were arranged by
Ann Tours. They took me back to the precise location of places that were important to me. Martha and I also decided that we would save up for a three day cruise on Halong Bay which was also arranged by Ann Tours.
Tour Costs - $1280 USD
Hotels
We booked hotels seven months in advance through
Hotels.com. While I am sure we did quite well with hotel costs I am equally sure that hotel costs could have been much lower if we had known what to expect in country. We decided that because we don't speak Vietnamese it was to our advantage to stay at hotels 4 and 5 star ratings. We were glad we did. Research and reading reviews revealed that these hotels all had English speaking staff and a concierge to help guide us to where we wanted to go and to recommend restaurants and shops.
Our last hotel during our layover in Ho Chi Minh before flying home was only $20 USD including tax. It was clean, comfortable and located near the airport, but nobody spoke English so communications were a major issue.
In Vietnam, a 4 or 5 star hotel is a really nice hotel...but they are very inexpensive by American standards, given the amenities and free breakfasts at each one we stayed at.
Our most expensive hotel was $62 USD per night with the rest averaging about $50 plus tax a night. But if you are adventurous and don't require all the amenities you could stay in Hostels for a fraction of the hotel cost per night.
Hotel costs - $848 for 13 nights
Food and drink
Food is extremely fresh and quite good in Vietnam. You will be pleasantly surprised at the presentation and pride with which food is prepared. This is even somewhat true with street food. If you are a foodie you will love this place. Pho restaurants are very cheap at about $15 for two meals but you can spend up to $50 for a gourmet meal including appetizers and drinks at more upscale places.
Food and drink total - $700
Laundry
We went over thinking that since we bought light weight easy to pack clothing (we only had carry on sized back packs and small personal bags) that we would do our wash in hotel sinks. This proved (for us) not to be viable. We tried to do our wash by hand at the first hotel, but we found that the effects of eating fish sauce and walking around in 100 degree temperatures resulted in the clothes still smelling sweaty and mildewed. We opted to send our clothes to the hotel laundries at the next few stops. This process just takes a few hours...they pick it up in the morning and drop it off in the evening.... and we didn't have to mess with it. Besides, we were on the move a lot and drying in time was an issue.
Laundry costs - $55
Miscellaneous Expenses
The Vietnamese do not expect tips and guide books will tell you that. The reality is they work very long hours and are always very eager to help you. So, we tipped. The gas shown below was our gas to get us to and from St. Louis (our departure and arrival point).
Gas, tips, cabs costs - $150
Massages
Extravagant? Not really. Massages in Vietnam are dirt cheap and very professional. Martha is a Licensed Massage Therapist and really wanted to compare techniques and we both needed to have the kinks worked out after all the air travel, tours, walking and boat trips.
Massage costs - $150 for 10 massages (avg $15 each)
Souvenirs
We purchased souvenirs for our friends and family
Souvenir costs - $200
Our grand total for the trip (aprox) $5,604.00 USD
What to expect from Vietnamese people
One of my concerns was whether or not I would be welcomed back to their country as a visiting American. Would we be hated? My online friend told me this wouldn't be an issue early on. But, I had to experience it myself. You probably will go with the same ideas and concerns. What I experienced from the Vietnamese was amazing. Every one of them I interacted with was very gracious and kind. When I was asked if I had been to Vietnam before, they invariably had to touch me and say things like "I am glad you came back", "we are over the war", "we are better now", "you should forget how it was."
To clarify why I feel that they hold no animosity, you have to first understand that the median age in Vietnam is 30.3 years old. They weren't even alive during the war. They know it happened, they know the history, they certainly know what it did to their country but, the current generation has moved on. They are now very focused on improving their country, its economic status, repairing and renewing by way of modernization of infrastructure and of course improving their personal status.
After seeing and experiencing all of this first hand I can tell you it's not the Vietnam I knew during the war. In fact it isn't even close.
So, you might be thinking does this relaxed attitude toward Americans exist in the entire country? Yes, I think it does. But for me I have one personal caveat, Hanoi.
While I found the people in Hanoi just as friendly and enthusiastic I sensed a more guarded attitude when I spoke with them. Martha quickly points out, it was my attitude that changed when I got closer to Hanoi. The name of the city still carries a stigma for me as an American veteran. The name "Hanoi" raises my hackles so to speak. The real truth is that there just wasn't anything to substantiate how I felt.
Visiting places important to you
This is where it got weird for me. As I stated above most of my memories were really just fragments of memories. I needed to go back to the places where these memories took place. I needed to say my final goodbyes. But the places I knew so long ago were changed or simply non-existent. This is tough to accept but in the same instance somewhat calming. There were no military vehicles on the road, no smells of diesel exhaust and the ever present Lambretta's had gone missing. It was nothing like I remember.
This was to be the theme for nearly all of my visit. Nothing was the same. I should have known it wasn't going to be the same, but, in my brain I only remembered the war torn country and places that I knew forty six years ago. Some of these places were etched into my brain through reoccurring nightmares. Some places looked and felt familiar but for the most part the sites had changed so radically they were unrecognizable. Which in my mind is further proof that the Vietnamese have moved on.
The Communist presence
As you know the communist government is still in control today. But back in the mid eighties the country had stagnant economic growth and very limited options for rebuilding the countries infrastructure. It was then that foreign companies were allowed into the country.
At about the same time, Vietnam realized that in order to accommodate the flood of multinational companies seeking to build new factories and allow further investing to flourish. Vietnam they would need to upgrade infrastructure . Japan and Australia are now its largest investors. By all accounts Vietnam has become an economic dynamo with a high presence of tech companies investing and building there.
As for the communist presence, it is still very evident. As a visitor you will see many government buildings, barracks for soldiers and their families, in every province of the country. you will also see communist and Vietnamese flags everywhere. During our travels we saw many soldiers out and about. They were all unarmed except a few that were stationed at the gates of government facilities.
How seeing my "personal places of importance" has impacted me so far
As our tours progressed, I could see that the places I remembered just didn't exist as they had been before. I also started thinking that if the places didn't look the same, then Vietnamese must have changed them for a reason. My conclusion is they are rebuilding and erasing what Vietnam was in the past.
I further reasoned that if they had moved on perhaps I should too. After all, Vietnam was just a couple of years in my life that defined my every action for the following forty six years. At this point I think going back did change me however, for the moment I think the changes are subtle. My perspective is that my mind has quieted, I am calmer inside. I feel less prone to be nervous in social situations.
At the same time I know that I still need to try harder to accept people for who they are and not who I want them to be. I know I am still a work in progress The biggest and happiest change for me is my nightmares are gone. They have vanished. I am sleeping the night through for the first time in my adult life. It's somewhat miraculous to me.
My beautiful Martha is quick to point out that I am still quite OCD and still try to be in charge of everything and everyone. But the difference now is that I recognize that I am doing it. Now I need to work harder to change and accept that I don't have to manage everything.
So, for now that is where I am. I am much happier now that I've gone to Vietnam. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to return. Thanks to my family, my friends and my supporters for making this happen for me.
Lastly I need to thank my wonderful wife Martha for sticking with me for the last 26 years. You have never stopped believing in me and putting up with me.
I love you Martha. Always and forever.
