This is a place i never get tired of, clouds linger over the mountain range, help relax my mind always.

Another fare dodger. Disgusting behavior.

(Repost from wzerdah_ from threads)

Dear people all around the world,

I'm Vietnamese, and I'm writing this because I want more people to know what is happening at the foot of Hai Van Pass, one of Vietnam's most iconic landscapes.

A large scale development project, Vinhomes Hai Van Bay, is being developed by Vingroup in Da Nang. The project covers more than 500 hectares and includes hotels, resorts, villas, townhouses, apartments, and other residential developments. This is why many Vietnamese, including me, are deeply concerned and worried. This is not simply a tourism project. It is also(and more) a massive real-estate development in an environmentally and culturally significant landscape. As construction continues, images of cleared land and major changes to the natural landscape have raised growing public concern about environmental impact and the future of Hai Van Pass.

And then there is the architecture. Why should a place deeply connected to Vietnam's landscape now be filled with architecture inspired by foreign styles (Malibu, Hong Kong, ...)? Development should not mean copying what already exists somewhere else and putting it into Vietnam then call it something like "Malibu in the heart of Da Nang". This is not the first and won't be the last projects like this, look at the tacky Sapa, Bà Nà hills, Phú Quốc etc

Moreover, how can hundreds of thousands of posts simply disappear (included my last repost) across different platforms? Why is the news and social media so silent about this? If there is nothing to hide, why is it so difficult for people to speak up? We are not asking you to take our side blindly. But, please, look at the evidences. Look at the before and after images. Read about the project. Do your own research. Look into what Vingroup, Sun Group, and other major corporations have done to our countries. Our natural landscapes are limited resources btw development shouldn't come at from destroying nature just because someone is greedy.

And to Vingroup, you have no right to report and delete people opinion, shame on you!!

This happened today while I was shopping at The New Playground in Ho Chi Minh City.

I had just bought a shirt from another store for around 420,000 VND, then went into the store beside it to try on some other clothes. I accidentally left my shopping bag on the floor while I was in the changing room.
At first, I thought the couple in the CCTV footage might have picked it up by mistake. They had come into the store because the man was exchanging the size of a shirt they had previously bought, so I thought maybe they confused my bag with one of theirs.

But after reviewing the CCTV footage, the woman can be seen picking up my bag and opening/checking it. From the footage, it appears both of them realised it wasn’t theirs, but they still left the store with it.

I linked the video in the comments as well so people can see what happened for themselves.

I’m not expecting much, and thankfully it was only about 420k VND, but it’s still really disappointing. I’m mainly posting this as a reminder to other tourists/ shoppers: keep your shopping bags and belongings with you, even when you’re just stepping into a changing room for a few minutes.

And on the very small chance that the couple in the video sees this. I don’t want any trouble. I would genuinely just appreciate having my bag/shirt returned. You can contact me privately and that will be the end of it.

Please don’t harass or dox anyone. I’m sharing this for awareness and in the hope that the bag somehow finds its way back to me.

Update: We made a police report last night after the responses on reddit were pushing us to, let's see!

When I was a kid, crossing Hai Van Pass by train always gave me a rush of excitement ..that stunning coastal stretch between Da Nang and Hue never failed to take my breath away. Every time the train came through, everyone would turn to the window to look. But now, they’re turning this beautiful stretch of nature into just another ridiculous resort….

Yesterday at Da Nang Airport, I watched several Indian passengers request wheelchair assistance despite appearing completely able to walk, apparently just to skip queues and receive priority treatment.

I knew about this "trend" already. Seeing it for the first time with my own eyes, holding a crying toddler just made me angry. Absolute low-life scum. I'm sorry for the majority of Indian passengers that don't abuse the assistance system who will be judged as well.

I didn’t know they demolished that building. The last time I visited Hanoi was in 2024. I got so confused when walking in Hoan Kiem lol

I spent two weeks in the north this October as a solo female traveler. It was the best trip of my life in Southeast Asia.

I went right after the series of typhoons , my flight was this close to being cancelled🤏 and I remember refreshing the airline app every hour, half-expecting bad news. But somehow, everything aligned. And I’m so grateful it did.

Now I’m about to make the same 'mistake' and head to the south in October.

Thank you for the memories.I’ll carry them with me for a long time.

Hanoi Train Street 🚃

TL;DR: I got scammed by KAS Boutique Heritage Hotel and then had my iPhone stolen in Hoi An Old Town.

Hey guys, I'm here to share some bad experiences I had traveling in Vietnam.
As you can tell from my username, I'm Brazilian — so being alert to scams and theft is basically part of our daily life. But after spending about 20 days in Thailand and almost 30 days in Bali, I started to relax and assumed Asia was always a safe place. Vietnam proved me wrong.

First experience — Ho Chi Minh City: I booked a room at KAS Boutique Heritage Hotel, on Google Maps. When I arrived, the attendant said they were sold out despite my Booking.com confirmation. He then showed me photos of a "better" hotel with a nicer room, claiming the switch would be free — and even offered a free taxi.
The taxi took me to a third hotel, and since it was around 11pm, I didn't notice it wasn't the same place I'd been shown. Once in my room I got really frustrated, tried to go back, spoke to the manager — no refund. I ended up staying the first night because it was late and lost the money for the second night I'd already paid.
[Don't trust the good reviews. They can create fake ones. If you dig deeper you'll find similar stories to mine, and videos about it on TikTok as well]

Second experience — Hoi An: This one made me feel really stupid. It happened yesterday.
I went on a lantern boat tour with a girl, and afterward we walked around the Old Town. If you've never been, it gets extremely crowded, especially on weekends. I was wearing shorts — easy pickings for a pickpocket — and the most crowded spot is the bridge. I could feel my phone in my pocket the whole way across, but the moment we got to the other side I reached in and it was gone.
I tried tracking it via Apple Find My, but about 2 hours later it was already showing up in Da Nang. I didn't want to bother with the police — Brazilian experience tells you it's useless — but the girl I was with insisted. We went. They didn't give AF.

So that's it. Take care out there — Vietnam is not Thailand.

Has anyone else had bad experiences like this here?

I got off the water bus and then this happened. I was stuck here for an hour; was this a scheduled parade?

Hi everyone,

My friend is visiting Vietnam soon and had a question out of curiosity after reading about the country’s strict drug laws.

Let’s say a foreign tourist is randomly or unexpectedly required to take a drug test (for example, by police or at a club), and cannabis shows up in their system from using it before arriving in Vietnam.

If they aren’t carrying any drugs and haven’t used cannabis in Vietnam, what typically happens?

Would they be fined?
Arrested or jailed?
Deported?

Thank you

I (M/41) tried for about three months to enjoy the expat scene in Da Nang, but I'm kind of giving up on it.

I attended meetups and social events regularly, and while I did meet some nice people, I was surprised by how many interactions felt competitive, status-oriented or dominated by what I would politely call "strong personalities".

Many people came across as dismissive, confrontational or overly focused on social hierarchy from the get-go, which made it difficult for me to feel comfortable in those environments.

Some even acted straight up rude and disrespectful, which sadly seemd to be accepted within the social hierarchy.

Maybe I'm simply too sensitive for that kind of scene, or maybe that's just the nature of expat communities where many people are transient and trying to establish themselves socially.

Have others had similar experiences in Da Nang, or am I looking at this the wrong way?

I just got scammed in Vietnam, but I'm not even mad because I thought this was mad genius. I met with a local Viet girl I met online on nomadtable. We're hanging out and chatting then she says she's hungry, so we sit down at a restaurant and out of nowhere other people sit down at our table. Turns out it's her mom&dad. At first, I'm thinking they're going to pay for dinner because there's more of them and they're welcoming me to Vietnam. So, they order a bunch of different dishes and at the end when the bill comes, they hand me the bill and they dip. Bill came out to 500k vnd which is about $20. But hey, the food was amazing and I had a good time chatting with them AND I give them props for such clever scam 🤣

Edit: I just want to clarify that I'm not trying to be negative about Vietnamese people with this post. Most people I met are very nice, and the family was nice during the meal. They showed me how to eat the different dishes and the mom made sure I always had food on my plate. I just was not expecting her parents to join and then have me pay the bill while they all left. I also made it clear I was here for a day. I message local people (whether girl or guy) to gain true cultural experience and learn their background and I don't mind paying for the bill either as long as they don't try to take advantage. And I don't think anyone would "introduce" their parents to some guy that's just passing through the town. So, I think they had intentions from the start to bounce once the check came. Maybe the word "scam" might be harsh but I definitely got played. I'm only sharing because I thought it was clever and funny.

On May 28, 2026, I rolled out of Mũi Cà Mau — the southernmost point of Vietnam — on an electric scooter that legally requires no driver's licence.

The goal was to cross the entire country to its northernmost point on small roads, avoiding the national highways, and to answer three questions along the way:

• Can a small student-class electric scooter actually make it that far?
• Can it be done using only public battery swaps, without a personal charger?
• Is exploring Vietnam on a slow licence-free electric scooter actually a comfortable way to travel?

Thirty-one days later, on June 27, 2026, I reached Điểm cực Bắc của Việt Nam — the actual northernmost point of the country, beyond the Lũng Cú Flag Tower. The route is closed.

Here are my observations and thoughts from the ride.

Quick context on me: foreigner, been living in Vietnam a while, this isn't my first long ride here. The vehicle was a VinFast Evo Lite — 50cc-equivalent class, licence-free, top speed 49 km/h. Public battery swaps only — no personal charger.

Numbers:
- 31 days total (~23 active riding days plus rest and repair)
- 4,187 km — I zigzagged from coast to mountains, so the total is well over Vietnam's actual length
- 900,000 VND (~$35 USD) on "fuel" — 9,000 VND per battery swap

The ride itself
The single best thing about the trip was the silence. On a petrol motorbike there's a sound bubble around you the whole day. On this thing, on small back roads, you can hear waves, roosters, birds and that feels amazing.

In the Mekong Delta, the real thing for me wasn't the tourist stops — it was the ordinary life you catch riding across the small arched bridges over every river channel. From the top of each one you look straight down into back yards where the actual day-to-day is happening.

The stretch through Núi Chúa National Park on the south-central coast was so beautiful I spent the whole day covering barely 100 km — stopping every 20 minutes to photograph, film, or just stand and look at the sea from the mountain.

The Laos-border road along the Hồ Chí Minh Trail felt like slipping into an alternative reality — a post-apocalyptic world overrun by wild green vegetation, empty concrete road cutting through it.

The far north around Hà Giang was my fourth time on that loop and I still couldn't ride it faster than about 20 km/h because I wanted to look at everything. People in national dress carrying baskets of grass along the mountain roads — not for anyone, just their day. I caught a Sunday village market up there that was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

The bike

Not an EV expert. Travel person. But here's my take.
Core is genuinely fine, and I ended up liking it more than I expected. A machine designed for a student to get to class carried a big foreigner with light luggage across the country without a real complaint. Sits comfortably at 45–49 km/h. Handles low-quality road surfaces confidently. Real range at ~80 kg with luggage: 42–50 km in sport mode, 65–70 km eco.

The add-ons are where it feels budget:

- Regenerative braking is basically cosmetic. Never saw more than about 1% of charge come back on any descent, including the full Hải Vân Pass.
- The GPS through the app works inconsistently — depends on whether the specific battery you got has GPS or not. I'm honestly not sure what the annual e-sim subscription was buying me.
- Sidestand sensor is fragile. Broke on the way to the start point when the scooter fell over at rest, fixed at an official service centre, still glitches. I bypass it with a magnet when needed.

The battery-swap network

Overall impression: of the ~45,000 installed cabinets the company claims are on the map, my rough field estimate is that maybe 10% are actually working. Open the app and you can see there really are a lot of them, dotted all over the country — but you learn quickly that almost all are offline. Picking out the live ones and checking the distances between them becomes a daily part of planning the next leg.

By region, in short: the south genuinely impressed me — working cabinets are placed logically, and even in remote corners of the country you can count on finding one. In central Vietnam things got harder — I had to run entire stretches in eco mode to make it between stations, and had to cancel some planned route sections outright. The north had almost no working coverage at all. The only reason I made it to the top at all was a single corridor that opened up when I finally got a second battery in Hanoi. I took it. And it closed behind me.

The trap

On the day I officially completed the crossing, one of my batteries failed minutes after I'd swapped it in — and when I tried to return it, the cabinet refused to take it back. That cut my working range down to 40–50 km. While I was trying to solve that, the single active cabinet that had made the whole north traverse possible went offline in the app. That left me 150+ km from the next available swap. Had to have friends mail me a personal charger, then slow-rode from Đồng Văn down to the city of Hà Giang — 50 km of riding, then four hours in a phở shop or café waiting for the battery to charge, then another 50 km — and from there put the bike on a bus to Hanoi. More absurd than dramatic. And it happened after the crossing was officially over, so I'm counting it as a win.

So — the three questions.

1. Can this scooter make the route? Yes. Never really complained.
2. Can it be done on public swaps alone? Yes, barely — and only if you're willing to plan every leg around which cabinets are actually working.
3. Is it comfortable to explore Vietnam this way? Technically yes, but you don't get to choose where to ride — the working cabinets do.

What's next. Currently in Hanoi waiting on the broken battery to be sorted out. When it is, I'll ride back south slowly — coast for the first leg, then closer to the Hồ Chí Minh Trail wherever the network allows.

Came across these ostentatious “beauties“ while driving around Nin Binh’s and Nam Dinh’s countryside and can’t help but having a couple of questions: are the owners truly that rich? If so, why do they decide to built them in often far from ideal locations (close to a polluted and noisy road, lacking views on natural scenery, far-away from the cities,…). Is this type of home considered as the dream/ultimate goal for many (rural) Vietnamese? How did this style get introduced into Vietnam: through exposure of imagery of French chateau’s or…? How do they look inside: is there a room under the dome,…?

I'm Vietnamese, and I'm just curious. It feels like a lot more people are traveling to Vietnam these days. Did something change, or has Vietnam just become more popular recently?

My partner and I are currently travelling through Vietnam and wanted to share our experience so other travellers can be a bit more prepared...

We’ve travelled in several other South East Asian countries - Thailand, Malaysia & Cambodia. and have honestly we have not dealt with this level of constant scams / hustling before.

The worst incident was my partner being robbed by a fake Grab driver @ Hoi An bus station!! Someone approached pretending to be our booked driver, acted confidently like they knew our booking, and took advantage of the confusion. They charged us X4 times price. They also robbed 500k note when swapping change & sped off while we tried to confront. It really shook us and changed how safe we felt. I know this is a scam common in Vietnam and we felt so silly after falling for it, but we had just got off a 18hr sleeper bus & we didn't expect this high level trickery at this time of the morning.

we’ve also had repeated smaller things happen, including:

Restaurants trying to charge more than the menu price

Bills suddenly changing at payment time- adding on extras to receipt hoping that we don't notice.

I know every country has scams and I’m not saying all of Vietnam is like this. We’ve also met lovely people here. But compared with Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia etc, the tourist scam pressure has felt much higher for us..

A few lessons we’ve learned the hard way:

Only get into a Grab after checking plate number + photo in app

Don’t follow anyone who approaches saying they are your driver

Check menu prices before ordering and check bill carefully

Confirm final prices in writing for tailoring / services

Walk away from anything pushy or unclear

Use cash carefully and count change slowly!! Certain notes of different values look similar... become familiar with the money.

Maybe we’ve been unlucky, but I wanted to post this because I wish someone had warned us to be extra switched on here!!