Welcome back to the Ameropean at Heart podcast, where we dive deep into sharing everything crazy travel stories, dating adventures, culture fusions, tips and takeaways to entertain and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug.
Hello and happy Tuesday once again. If you are new here, my name is Mary Grace and I am the host of this show. Welcome and nice to have you here.
The basis of today's episode is a solo travel story of mine that took place on my very first night ever in Asia in the faraway country that the Western world knows as Vietnam.
This is a story full of culture shocks and quite a few unlucky circumstances. When I say that I was twisted and thrown in all directions by Vietnam and the Vietnamese way of life during this very first night, I couldn't mean it more.
For those who don't know me, I have traveled a lot for somebody my age, for somebody in their late 20s now. I have traveled in 45 countries at this point in my life.
And I will tell you that out of all 45 countries that I have visited, Vietnam takes home the gold for being one of the weirdest, most unusual and fascinating countries ever to visit.
Believe me when I say that Vietnam is your travel destination if you're looking to get stretched and warped in ways that you never have in the Western world before.
It's your place for every type of unexpected adventure, good, bad, twisted and more twisted.
I have so many things that I can say about Vietnam that I will actually be saving for a future episode because this episode would otherwise be way too long and way too drawn out.
If there is anything that you take away from today's episode about Vietnam, it's that I hope you can learn from all of the little cultural details about this country that I totally missed and didn't know about on my very first night there.
So that if you ever go to Vietnam, you will be well aware of these very cultural things that I wasn't. With that being said, let's go ahead and jump right into the story.
After four flights and nearly two days of traveling from Germany to France to Sweden to Thailand and finally to Vietnam, I had officially arrived to my final destination, Hanoi at about 5 p.m. local time.
Initially, everything really was OK. I went through passport control. I got my local SIM card. I withdrew the local cash, which at that time was Vietnamese dong from an ATM after I did all that.
It was after this when the whole domino effect slowly began to fall. It all started with the transportation from the airport in Hanoi to my Airbnb.
I had so much trouble finding transportation. I thought that I'd just take Uber like I usually do in every other place and keep things simple and convenient.
Well, I hadn't realized that Uber back in 2020, at least I'm not sure about now, but in 2020 when I went to Vietnam, Uber was not compatible in the Hanoi airport zone for whatever reason, even when I had previously researched that it was.
So I resorted to my next transportation idea and switched to try using the local equivalent app called Grab.
Grab is like the Uber for motorbikes, let's say, and all Vietnamese locals use it. So if you ever go to Vietnam, Grab will be your best friend.
And you definitely want to have it downloaded on your phone for everywhere you go. The Grab app at that moment was not having it with me.
It wouldn't take any of my credit cards. And I tried paying five or six times and my payment kept getting declined.
I think because my credit cards were not local Vietnamese ones, there was, I guess, something fishy about the transaction and it just didn't go through.
I really started to get impatient and I was just not in the mood, frankly, I gave up on that option too.
So then I decided, hey, I can take the bus and it'll be so, so cheap and easy, even if it'll take more time.
Oh, man, no, the bus never showed up at the airport and it was taking once again way too long to wait for another bus to come.
And I knew that my Airbnb host was already waiting on me at the Airbnb to give me the keys.
The next option was taking a taxi transfer for twenty dollars, but I thought that was overpriced for Vietnam and for the short distance I was going.
So I tried to consider any and every other option before resorting to that one.
So I ended up finding myself placed into this, I guess, minibus van for thirteen dollars, but still met my host an hour and a half later than we had planned.
This initial transportation situation set the basis for the following sucky and suckier evening.
It hasn't even started yet. I finally got to the Airbnb after I don't know how long it was.
Got the keys from the host's dad and I went my merry way.
I needed to immediately go and find a supermarket or food store of some sort and grab a few things to eat and last until the morning.
It was already late in the evening at this point and things were starting to close.
I had spent nearly two days getting to Vietnam and I just wanted to go and grab those very few things, come back and relax for the remainder of the night and just chill.
Let me tell you, one of the first big culture shocks that slapped me in the face was realizing that there is no exact quote unquote supermarket that us Westerners imagine and are used to.
They don't really even have food shops with names on them.
Like even those, it's literally just stalls of food and it's just very nonspecific.
In Europe, for example, you're oftentimes within like a five minute walk or less from even a small food store or convenience store in your building where you live or nearby.
And it is super convenient.
Similar for the US and Canada, you can just either get into your car or you can even walk depending on where you live and be minutes within a food market.
Same thing, but Vietnam.
Wow, was I thrown in for a freaking loop?
I could not find a damn supermarket or any food market of any sort nearby where I was staying anywhere.
I kid you not.
I did not understand how and why it was so difficult.
I literally couldn't properly find anything using Google Maps or Apple Maps because for some reason, neither of those were working on my phone, even with the local SIM card.
So I sent text messages to the host's father, so the guy who gave me the keys, and there was a language barrier.
Well, he didn't respond to my messages quickly enough when I really, really needed him to. And even when he did finally reply later, he said that he didn't know where a supermarket was and was no freaking out.
Like, what do you mean you don't know where a supermarket is?
You live here.
So here I am walking all by myself in the dirty trash filled streets of Hanoi, Vietnam, scrambling on jet lag and exhaustion, looking for this damn supermarket that I can't find anywhere.
I have a bunch of motorbikes and a few cars sprinkled here and there driving in all sorts of unconventional directions all around me.
And I'm just constantly worrying that I'm going to get hit by a motorbike or a car because I didn't have enough sidewalk or side road to walk on.
I was literally on the edge of the road, like for most of the point that I was walking.
I approached and asked literally five different Vietnamese people for help.
And I use Google Translate like I normally would in any other country.
And literally none of them could understand super market.
Seriously, I tried to describe super market to them with translated words, hand gestures.
I even played the audio of Google Translate out loud for them so they could hear what I wanted them to hear.
And I swear, at least two of them grabbed my phone, put the phone up to their ear and started mumbling in Vietnamese.
And they thought they were trying to speak on the phone.
And I also really believe genuinely that they were illiterate, like they could not read, because I even showed the text,
the written text to a number of them and they couldn't read.
They could not understand what I was showing them.
I seriously had never had so much trouble locating a big food shop in my entire freaking life.
It was so late in the evening at that point and everything was about to close again.
Like I said, I was getting really, really stressed about having no food, no water, no nothing at the Airbnb,
since I hadn't really eaten anything all day during my journey.
So I was really, really, really getting desperate.
While I was scrambling these streets and not finding anyone of help of any sort, I did manage to find a local pizza hut,
the one place that I stumbled upon that looked somewhat familiar to me.
I walk into this pizza hut and I ask once again with Google Translate,
I asked this woman and a 14 year old boy both working there for the same help and the same question.
Where is a supermarket? Where is a food store?
The woman, like the others, didn't have a freaking clue and the 14 year old boy didn't either.
But the boy knew how to use Google Translate just enough to say that he did know where a place was.
And he said that he saw many foreigners go there.
Pizza Hut boy led me physically out of this pizza hut and walked with me all the way to this shop that he said he saw many foreigners go to.
So I'm thinking, yes, finally, someone who can help me find a damn supermarket.
Well, little did I know that this turned out being an even bigger disaster.
Pizza Hut boy, who speaks basically no English and I, who speaks essentially no Vietnamese,
are walking here together on this crazy, chaotic motorbike trash filled street.
And all I'm thinking is how much I want to go home, how I don't want to be there anymore.
I'm just following this boy, this random boy, in hopes that he will have the answer to my problems.
And he kind of did, but also not really.
He gets me to this place where he's seen many foreigners go to.
And I'm thinking, finally, a shop where food is being sold.
Whoever knew this shop was also about to close.
So I went ahead and grabbed no more than six items.
I bought a pack of six apples, some cheese, bread, ham, a box of couscous, which was super random.
I don't know why I bought couscous, but I did.
Some milk and a pack of coffee.
I went to the cash register and the cashier showed me the number of Vietnamese dong on
the screen that I had to pay because we had a language barrier again.
And on the screen, I saw two million Vietnamese dong.
Just in case you are not aware, Vietnamese dong are counted in millions.
So in Vietnam, their money has really, really big numbers, like really, really big.
I don't know how Vietnamese people keep up with all of those millions, but yeah, they
get by somehow.
Anyway, I owe two million dong.
I thought, well, okay, that looks like a large number.
But yet again, this is Vietnam.
Everything is in millions in their currency.
I bought six items.
Vietnam is really cheap.
Like how much could this possibly be?
I normally would have converted the currency to US dollars or euros so that I could better
understand what the equivalent was, at least in the foreign currency.
But again, I was running on my last freaking straw of exhaustion, frustration, culture
shock all at the same time.
And I just wanted to finally get some things and get out of there and go back to my Airbnb.
So I didn't do any conversions.
I took my credit card.
I paid the two million dong.
I got it done and I got it over with.
Come to find out when I woke up the next morning and I looked at my bank statement for this
payment that I had made at this market for six items.
My bank statement showed me that I had spent 80 freaking dollars.
That is eight zero.
80.
This is Vietnam.
This is not Switzerland.
This is Vietnam.
And you're telling me that I just blew $80 on freaking what?
Oh my God.
I literally stared at it and I thought it was a mistake.
I had never felt so outraged over a grocery purchase anywhere ever in my life.
So I sat there in my Airbnb the next day and really just asked myself why?
Was it because I used a credit card like an international credit card especially?
Like was it the tax?
Did I get scammed?
Well whatever the hell it was, it pushed me up to my maximum last straw.
I now understood what Pizza Hot Boy meant when he told me that first night that this
food shop is quote unquote where he sees all the foreigners go.
LOL.
It made so much more sense after that.
Almost nothing in that food shop was local to Vietnam.
The pack of apples alone imported from California and I will never forget this was 20 freaking
dollars.
Two zero.
Oh my God.
Who spends $20 on apples?
I literally was just like oh my God no.
To summarize, I had trouble finding local transportation from the airport.
My Google Maps didn't work well and led me in the wrong direction.
I wasn't even sure if I was going to make it back home that night.
Honestly, the host father didn't respond to my messages quickly and wasn't helpful.
I was constantly misunderstood with the language barrier and even with Google Translate by
multiple people, even Vietnamese police officers could not help me.
I tried walking on the sidewalk, whatever sidewalk there was, and I was constantly worried
of getting hit by motorbikes.
There was trash and dirt on the street everywhere.
I couldn't find a freaking supermarket and not only that, I was led to a foreign food
store by a 14 year old Pizza Hot Boy just to spend $80 on six freaking items.
This was not the way I had envisioned my very first night in Southeast Asia.
And just when I thought that this was the end of it, it wasn't.
There were a number of other little culture shock things that followed.
The keys for my Airbnb doors were confusing and different to me and it took me forever
to figure out how to open the lock, which was extremely annoying.
I wasn't able to find silverware in the Airbnb, at least in the beginning, and not the silverware
that I was used to.
Because again, this is Vietnam, people use chopsticks for everything.
And here I am, the Westerner, expecting to find a spoon, a knife, and a fork somewhere.
And then I remember the plugs in the wall.
Like the plugs in the wall really stressed me out because they aren't exactly like the
ones in Europe or the UK or in the US.
I honestly don't even remember now what they look like, but I can say they are not the
same as in the West.
You will have to Google this before going to Vietnam.
I wasn't sure at that time if I was going to be able to charge any of my stuff.
I luckily, after this whole domino effect of bad luck, I did have one little streak
of good luck because I had bought one big universal adapter with plugs compatible for
Thailand.
That adapter worked in these plug sockets in Vietnam.
That's a big thing that we tend to really not think about when going to other countries,
the plugs in the wall.
Like it is so important to make sure that you double and triple and quadruple check
in advance that you have the right plug adapter for wherever you're going because you'll
be in a much pissier mood if you're spending your first hours somewhere new, just searching
for a place with plug adapters.
And let me tell you, from experience, it isn't always super easy to just walk in somewhere
and spontaneously find one.
So really do this in advance.
I was so extremely frustrated and just done.
After this entire first night of culture shock after culture shock, I really was starting
to doubt my ability, credibility and tolerance as a traveler.
I felt really clueless and out of control of my surroundings and I was just not a fan
of that.
I really had wanted to give up and just run back to somewhere I feel comfortable with
and certain about.
But in the end, I did not do that.
I managed to stay in Vietnam for one entire month in this exotic polar opposite environment
and I ended up exploring many fascinating places in the North region of the country.
It's with this personal experience and lessons of mine that I can't push you enough to take
at least one crazy trip in your lifetime to somewhere totally unfamiliar because you'll
come out of that crazy trip as a completely different person with a completely different
perspective.
It changes you in a way that you can't really foresee until you go on that trip.
I am telling you, did I get used to being in Vietnam with no traditional supermarket
that I was used to with the traditional Western foods that I was used to?
No, I didn't.
Did I get used to crossing the street with a bunch of motorbikes driving in all directions
and possibly hitting me?
Kind of sort of, but also no.
Did I get used to the dirtiness, the language barrier, the way of life, and not being around
Westerners all the time?
All of this, you guessed it, still no.
But what I did get out of my really horrible first culture shock night in Vietnam and my
entire month there is so much more invaluable and unforgettable than some stupid $80 worth
of overpriced groceries that I lost or any stress, frustration, fatigue, and confusion
that I had endured at that time.
If you are scared to get lost, scared to go anywhere by yourself, scared to take any risks
and put yourself in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable environment and situation, I can strongly,
very, very strongly tell you that you are missing out on a ton more than all of your
fears put together.
You are absolutely capable and willing to do and deal with everything that I, for example,
dealt with, being all by my young 24-year-old self at the time on a completely different
continent and other side of the world with no Vietnamese language or culture skills,
being utterly clueless, but becoming wiser, smarter, and just a much better traveler and
person after it was all said and done.
This now wraps up today's culture shock in Vietnam episode.
If you enjoyed this solo travel story episode and would like to listen to more, please give
the show a five-star review and let me know your thoughts on Instagram at AmeroPien at
heart or on my host account at Mary Grace Crawford.
Share with any of your friends or family who may need a little more crazy travel entertainment
or inspiration.
Thank you so much once again for joining me as it really does mean a ton.
I look forward to tuning in with you again next Tuesday.
Much love from the Ameropean at heart.