Vietnam North to South: Three Weeks and One Visa Mistake

I planned to enter Vietnam overland from Laos and had read that visas on arrival were available. They are not, at least not dependably for independent travellers at land crossings, and I discovered this three days before the border.

The visa

Most Western passports need a Vietnam e-visa, applied for online in advance. It costs around $25 and takes a few working days.

I applied from a guesthouse in Luang Prabang on patchy wifi and it came through with a day to spare. Had it not, I would have been at a remote mountain crossing with no way forward.

Apply before you leave home. It is the single most common preventable failure on the Southeast Asia route.

The route

Hanoi → Ha Giang → Ninh Binh → Hue → Hoi An → Da Lat → Ho Chi Minh City → Mekong Delta. Three weeks, north to south, in February — which meant a cold, drizzly Hanoi and a warm south.

Getting the direction right matters. December to February the north is genuinely cold; May to August the south is in wet season. Fly into one end and out of the other.

Ha Giang, which I nearly skipped

It was not in my original plan. Three people in a Hanoi hostel told me to go, so I did, and it was the best four days of three weeks.

The loop runs through limestone mountains near the Chinese border — terraced valleys, villages, roads carved into cliffs. Most people ride it themselves on a rented motorbike.

I hired an easy rider — a local driver you sit behind — for about $60 a day including accommodation and food. I do not have a motorcycle licence, and most travel insurance excludes motorbike accidents without one. It also meant I looked at the scenery instead of the road, and my rider took me to homestays I would never have found.

Two people on our route came off bikes that week. Neither was seriously hurt. Both were uninsured.

Trains and buses

I did Hanoi to Hue on the overnight train in a soft sleeper — four berths, about 700,000 dong, and I slept properly.

The leg not to miss is Hue to Da Nang in daylight. Three hours, about 120,000 dong, and the line runs over the Hai Van Pass with the sea below the window. Sit on the right heading south. Most people take a bus through the tunnel and miss it entirely.

Sleeper buses I used twice, for Da Lat where there is no railway. They are fully reclining pods, cheaper than the train, and driven fast at night. At 183 cm I did not fit comfortably.

What it cost

Item	21 days
Accommodation (private rooms)	$290
Food	$180
Transport including sleepers	$170
Ha Giang easy rider, 4 days	$240
Ha Long Bay boat, 2 days	$95

Under $1,000 for three weeks, and I stayed in private rooms throughout because at $12–20 they cost barely more than dorms.

Vietnam is still substantially cash-based for visitors — the domestic QR payment apps need a local bank account — so plan on ATM withdrawals.

What I would change

More time in Ha Giang and less in Ho Chi Minh City. The north is where the country is most itself.

Skip one sleeper bus and fly. A $50 domestic flight against fourteen hours is worth it once.

Learn the road-crossing rule earlier. Walk slowly and predictably into the traffic and it flows around you. Stopping suddenly is what causes problems. It took me four days to trust it and it works.