Vietnam is a cheap country with high accommodation standards compared to its Southeast Asian neighbours, dirt-cheap food at markets and street stalls, and the option to get clothes made to measure and buy all sorts of products at very low prices.
Vietnamese industry is fairly powerful, and since the country doesn't need to import a great deal, it can keep prices very attractive for tourists.
Over 30 days in Vietnam we spent a total of €598 — under €300 per person, less than €10 per person per day.
Here's the breakdown by category:
- Food: once again our biggest drain. We spent €187 on eating out at stalls, stands, and restaurants — at least €22 of that on snacks (biscuits, pastries…) and €8 on fruit, which is incredibly cheap.
- Accommodation: €162 in guesthouses and hotels, which works out at an average of €5 per double room per night. In Vietnam it's hard to find poor-quality accommodation — it's unusual not to have hot water or windows in your room. Prices are a touch higher than in Laos or Cambodia, but what you get is much better.
- Transport: €103 in total between trains (€35), buses (€60), and boats (€7). Since a good chunk of our stay fell during the TET celebrations, transport prices were a bit above normal.
- Visa: €89 covering the visa fee and the border entry charge ($1 per person at the crossing we used). No question it's an expensive visa, but we didn't want to risk applying online after reading about potential problems at the border.
- Smoothies: around €16 on delicious fruit smoothies with crushed ice, condensed milk, and sugar.
- Fees: nearly €13 in bank charges, currency exchange fees, and exchange rate losses — if you pay in dollars you lose a small percentage. This was the first time this expense had become significant, mostly because Vietnamese ATMs almost always charge a fee and rarely let you withdraw much at once.
- Water: we managed to refill our bottles wherever places had water dispensers, but we still spent €10 on bottled water.
- Massage: €10 between a massage and waxing, involving the rebuffal of suggestions and offers of happy endings for the last 20 minutes.
- Mosquito repellent: €2.50 on repellent — cheap, as in the rest of Southeast Asia. Though it's impossible to find high-DEET repellent like you can in Thailand.
- Alcohol: just €2, since we were still sticking pretty firmly to our plan not to drink during 2012 — only for Ilze's birthday did we make an exception and buy a bottle of wine.
- Entry tickets: 73 euro cents for the entrance to Lang Biang national park — the only time we had no choice but to open our wallets.
That was Vietnam. We left behind an enormous country. Just as we were starting to settle into the Vietnamese rhythm, we crossed the border into Cambodia — a completely different place, full of new and very different adventures.
If you want to spend as little as possible during your stay in Vietnam, don't miss my tips for saving money in Vietnam.
