Hello, I was born in Vietnam but immigrated to the USA when I was around 9 years old or so. I will be going back to Vietnam at the end of this month alone to visit some relatives and sightseeing. It had been like 13 years since I left Vietnam for the USA. If you ever been to Vietnam and can give me some travel tips on where to go for fun or what to avoids that would be great. Any tips would greatly be appreciated. I will mostly be staying in HCM city and Da Lat.

check out the dog meat markets

Saigon and Dalat huh? My 2 favorite cities, good call!

Bring enough money to spend. $2000 is sufficient for the hotel, food, taxi, and some recreation in 2-3 weeks

don't worry about it too much. your relatives in vietnam will show you around. saigon has changed quite a bit since i left for the us (14 years). so has da lat. the roads are definitely of great improvements. what i found a bit sad is the fact that there is less pines in the residential areas nowadays, but as soon as you get out of the town to the edge of prenn pass, the lovely scenes will seduce you

You've been away for 14 yrs???

Start saving $3 a day for a ticket next year.

just did a south to north trip last dec. pics were posted somewhere in this forum.

There are a couple of good monthly (free) expat magazines with the latest info. One's called The Word HCMC, and the other is Asia Life HCMC. Written and produced by Westerners for the expat market, you can pick them up in bars and cafes round the main expat dining area Le Thanh Ton/Thai Van Lung, Q1.

just go clubbing around district 1 in hcm gossip, 96, 97, on nguyen thi minh khai then just go eat around nguyen trai thats the only thang around to have fun . im born and raised in cali i been in vietnam for a long @$$ time now when we didnt have to wear those retarded helments to ride them scooters lol... but other than that people just do that when they come over here just watch out for those scandalous girls tho....

bring a family member with you
when you go shopping
cause the people will make you pay more than you should
since you are american
so they will assume you have a lot of money
and try to rip you off
1 US dollar is around 16,000 in viet
this woman ripped me off when i was alone
i asked her how much the hair clip was and she said 14,000
i later went back with my grandma
and the woman said the hair clip was 9,000
it makes me soooooo angry!

this has been part of the culture for as long as i could remember (no matter how bad it is). why angry when you can deal with it in a humorous way? it's part of the deal - she shouts out a ridiculous price, you give her what you think is right. if both agree, both are happy. if not, smile and walk away. you don't lose anything. neither does she. use your judgement when negotiating and remember to smile. why is there this bad practice, you ask. it's been part of their business for a long time. when saigonese go up to da lat, they get unbelievable price quotes from da lat business owners. sometimes, you have to put yourself in their shoe to see why they do that (i did it selling clothes at chợ Tạ Thu Thâu in sàigon). if you quote the right price, shoppers would make it even below your cost.
i was buying a pair of sun glasses in downtown saigon. the guy screamed 500,000 vnd. yup, that's half a million dongs for a pair of cheap @$$ sun glasses. i returned with a cunning smile, "30,000 vnd?" He tried to get it up to 55,000 but i stayed firm to my offer. in the end, i got the sun glasses for the price i thought was right and he got probably more than he would hope for, but so what it was just a few cents in usd. pretty good deal for a pair of sun glasses that i would have paid 10x more at target.
don't be mad be glad!