What is the authentic experience of Vietnam? - What About Vietnam - S6-E11

Is there only one way to experience the authentic Vietnam?

For years, travellers have been told that the "real" Vietnam exists somewhere beyond the tourist trail — hidden in remote villages, mountain passes and places untouched by mass tourism. But is that still true today?

And perhaps more importantly, is Vietnam now so much more than the familiar images of conical hats, rice fields and water buffaloes that first captured our imagination?

In this episode of What About Vietnam, I explore the idea that authentic travel isn't necessarily about how far off-grid you go, but how deeply you connect with the places, people and experiences that matter to you.

With social media constantly showcasing hidden villages, remote mountain passes and lesser-known destinations, it's easy to feel that popular places like Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An or Ho Chi Minh City are somehow less worthy of your time. But is that really true?

Drawing on my own travels throughout Vietnam, including experiences in places such as Dalat, Phong Nha and Mu Cang Chai, I explore the reality behind the idea that authentic travel only happens beyond the tourist trail. We discuss the pros and cons of venturing further afield, the practical challenges that can come with it, and why some travellers return feeling more exhausted than enriched.

Kerry stresses that travelers should not feel pressured to conform to a specific narrative of what an authentic experience should look like. Whether it's enjoying a Michelin-starred meal, participating in a cooking class, or relaxing at a wellness retreat, all these experiences contribute to a broader understanding of the Vietnam of today!

This episode isn't about choosing one style of travel over another. It's about giving yourself permission to travel Vietnam in a way that suits your interests, comfort level, budget and goals.

You'll discover:

• 00:01:18 - The Concept of "Real Vietnam"
• 00:06:10 - Authenticity and Social Media Influence
• 00:07:04 - Evaluating Off-Grid Travel Experiences
• 00:08:19 - Wellness Retreats and Authenticity
• 00:11:08 - Planning and Logistics of Vietnam Travel
• 00:12:13 - Avoiding Travel Pressure and Discomfort
• 00:13:38 - Travel Advice for Families and Elderly
• 00:14:54 - Embracing Modern and Traditional Vietnam 

In all my years of travel in this country and others, choosing what you want is more important than collecting bragging rights for Instagram, after all, it’s your money, time and joy that counts the most.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have you ever felt pressure to travel beyond your comfort zone simply because you think everyone else seems to be doing it?

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Transcript

Kerry Newsome: Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. I'm Kerry Newsome and I will be your host. How's everyone doing? I hope these questions are some of the ones you can relate to or, you know, maybe you have questioned yourself when you consider Vietnam as your next travel destination. If I haven't got to your question yet, please feel free to drop me a line to WhatAboutVietnam at gmail and we will definitely have a look at it and maybe, you know, make a full show of it because Good chance if you are asking it that many others are too. Look, today I want to poke the bear a little. It's about feeling like you've really been to Vietnam, but only feeling that way if you've gone off grid and not stuck to the tourist map. It's kind of a feeling I'm getting through from, you know, all the TikToks and the social media that's flooding our senses at the moment. And when I'm talking about the tourist map, I'm talking about like your major cities, your top to bottom places like Hanoi is a must, Halong Bay, Sa Pa, you know, the Queen Hoi An, Saigon, maybe Nha Trang. I think somewhere along the line, Vietnam travel has become weirdly performative. 

Let me explain. The theory is that if you don't go off grid or if you don't look at moving away from the tourist hubs or the tourist maps, so to speak, then you're going to miss out and that you're not going to experience the real Vietnam. I, for one, think that that's a bit of hogwash. because I think there's many different ways to experience Vietnam. And I'm wanting to steer people away from trying to treat the experience in Vietnam, and let's face it, your holiday in Vietnam, as some kind of performance criteria that if you don't tick these boxes and You know, if you don't experience a, you know, a bus travel experience or a train or, you know, some other wild remote thing to do, even ride a motorbike, if you don't do all these things, then you haven't really seen Vietnam. I think it's become highly performative, if that's the right word. And that's not to say, you know, For those that enjoy a high adventure holiday, definitely if that's your thing. But what I want to talk about today is the narrative that's out there about the real Vietnam. Like what is that? What is that description? Will you succeed in experiencing that in Vietnam? What have you got to do to experience the real Vietnam?

 In my opinion, you've got to experience Vietnam the way you want to. I mean, for me when I'm talking to clients, that's exactly where I start. What do you want to do? What is something you want to see? What do you want to experience? And then I might consider various places that are not directly on the tourist map to do that. But I don't instantly building off the grid or off in remote areas as a major part of building a trip for a newcomer to Vietnam because there's many experiences of Vietnam to be had and you know like I can go to places like Mu Cang Chai which is you know right up there in remote and but I wanted to go there because I wanted to experience those terraced rice fields. I had been going to Vietnam for a very long time And it was the experience of being in a remote village and seeing that form of farming and that existence that I wanted to appreciate and understand. And I had to go there to experience it firsthand. But I didn't just go there to say, oh, you know, I'd been out to, you know, Mu Cang Chai and that that gave me some heroic story to talk about. It was my intent was there to want to experience a beautiful landscape. And there are some absolutely gorgeous landscapes. 

Going left field again, if you want to go and experience beautiful gardens and flowers and flora and fauna, and maybe feel like you're in a Victorian area. So I might steer you to a place like Dalat. Is Dalat on the tourist map? I'm not sure. I don't think so. But, you know, if somebody wants to experience something like that, then that would be the place that I would direct you to. I mean, when I'm here sitting to record this, I'm feeling the narrative coming through that authenticity in Vietnam is limited to off the grid. And some of these off the grid places that you will see on your TikToks and see in your social media, whilst they might be socialized to look fantastic, you're only seeing the clips, the very small pieces of those areas that, you know, may look fantastic, but the story never includes the other aspects of it. How long it took to get there? What was the level of difficulty? What was the experience staying in that location? How long did it take to get there? Did you feel comfortable with the people? Did they speak English? You know, were you able to relax there? Did you feel like it was part of your holiday that you really would, you know, you just didn't want to miss? It was absolutely an integral part. Or are you sitting there thinking, Yeah, well, this is kind of okay, but it's not what it was trumped up to be. You know, there's so much romanticizing out there about certain locations that really don't deserve it. You get there and they are a bit, yeah, they're a bit, yeah, no, I think I might have preferred to stick to my original plan and go with maybe a wellness retreat. And, you know, does it mean that if you go to Vietnam and you experience a beautiful wellness retreat and you get to experience it from a level of, you know, localized herbs and beautiful experiences around spa treatments and some of the modalities that they're bringing to these areas, you know, onsen and Zen masters you know that are on site that you can enjoy meditations with and you know does that mean that you didn't experience Vietnam? Does that mean that you know you haven't had an authentic experience? Because I hear this word authentic really getting a lot of ear play. And while I want you to experience the culture, the traditions and immerse yourself in some of that, you don't have to go to the other ends of the earth of Vietnam to do that. You know, some of the great ways to experience Vietnam is through its food. 

Sometimes doing a cooking class, talking to the person who's running that cooking class to understand how the foods are grown, how different they are to ours. You know, does this meal that you're preparing, is that a stable dish to the area? Is that something that would be on the average home's table these days? You know, there's so many different ways to understand Vietnam and it's not always off the grid. You know, places like Phong Nha, now there's a classic place. I would say it's probably more now becoming on the grid of the tourist map because of the Sondung Cave, the caving experiences there. Entrepreneurs like Ben Mitchell, who I've had on this show many times, talking about some of the other experiences to have in the area. There's been some great stories told about people who, when I send them there, They say it was the highlight of their trip. They were made to feel very comfortable and welcome. It was a rural area. It was very well managed. They were greeted with people that could speak English and manage their transport. And, you know, they still got to stay in a very nice farmstay, especially at the Phong Nah Farmstay. Yes, I'm giving him a plug. Freebie. But, you know, you get to stay there and you get to enjoy, you know, good food, good atmosphere, lovely, lovely rooms and, you know, a great experience all around. 

So, you know, today is really about testing it with you and how you want to Say to yourself that, you know, I want to go to Vietnam and I want to experience the real Vietnam, but what does real mean to you? And what does real mean to you versus what you want to do or are they one and the same? And I think that experience is very important because as time goes on and you are working through the plan, working through the time aspects, looking at the logistics, looking at how much you want to spend, How much or what level of discovery do you want? What level of discomfort are you willing, you know, prepared to handle? Like people say, you know, I'd like to do the overnight train and then the next day they're so exhausted because there was a snorer in the same berth as they were and they didn't sleep at all. So, but they're being met at the train and they're doing a full day city tour the next day. Was that a good idea? Probably not. You know, let's talk about, you know, people think they've got to go minimalistic to get out to see these places because that's just what you do. That's just the thing. That pressure, what is that pressure on you to think that you have to do that? That shouldn't be there. That's not what Vietnam is about. 

And as I've said many times on this show, Vietnam is not one dimensional. Because if you're talking to people in Saigon and the city of Saigon, And because they work in offices or maybe they work in a hospital or maybe they've had an office job or they're learning a new skill, maybe they're a student. Does that mean to say that if you get to know those people and understand their heritage and their background and where they came from, what their family do, What are some of the traditional things they do? Do they get involved with tech? Is that not experiencing the real Vietnam? You know, the fact that they're not farming in a terraced rice field, does that mean that they're not still Vietnamese and authentic Vietnamese? I think it deserves a moment. I think it deserves a moment to to think about the integrity of what you want to experience and the the amount of effort you want to go to to experience things that are not really in your comfort zone. Like why would you want to go and put yourself in an unsettled remote region where it's difficult to get around and there's very little joys to be had there, just to say, just to tick that box. And I think it's important to, you know, either talk to the person who's organizing your trip or, you know, I hate to give myself a plug here, but I'm going to anyway, you know, come to me when you're making some decisions around this trip and you want to get some advice about a particular area. I'm happy to share with you, you know, what I think would be wise to do. And especially if you're traveling with elderly people or you're traveling with children, you know, there's just some areas that I wouldn't take children. I just think that they, dare I say, be bored stiff. They wouldn't see the value or they would struggle with the architecture of getting there and actually enjoying themselves rather than a nice resort for a few days and doing some day trips where they can still come back to their resort and their swimming pool. And, you know, I think, or I hope, you as my listener are kind of getting the perspective or the relativity that I try to bring to this program. 

And I don't like narratives that make people feel like they're pressured to have a set experience of Vietnam. I mean, some people even poo-poo those people who want to try the new Michelin restaurants that are, you know, springing up and the really great Asian fusion food that's appearing in, you know, the major cities. Is that a bad thing? Is that not progress that we can still open our eyes and ears and be expansive enough to say that is also Vietnam? So while we've got, you know, the variety of rural districts, we've got caving, we've got adventure, we've got trekking, we've got riding bicycles in old towns, we've got lanterns, we've got cooking, we've got experiences in the Mekong, We've also got city experiences. We've got rooftop bars. We've got, you know, like I think the variety is just so broad to say that you've got to go off-grid to have an experience in Vietnam. and say you've been to Vietnam, I think that's according to you. And I think that's kind of where I want to leave off today in saying that, you know, Vietnam gets under your skin. And usually, once it does, you usually come back. I mean that. I really, really mean that. Once it gets under your skin, if it is your thing and you're willing to open yourself up to the variety and still say hand on heart you've been to Vietnam, then definitely you will be back. Thanks for listening to What About Vietnam and remember, travel should expand you, not exhaust you.