It’s taken me a long time to get to Vietnam.

Since it’s an all-time favourite on the backpacker trail, most assume I’ve ticked this one off already.

Somehow it’s escaped me all these years.

I finally got the chance to visit, as Vietnam hosted two international tournaments – the perfect excuse for me to make the trip once and for all.

The two tournaments were in small cities – Ninh Binh and Bac Giang, one week after the other.

I’d never heard of these places, which made it even more exciting.

I landed in Hanoi Airport and was picked up by the tournament staff. Everything supposedly was arranged for me and I wasn’t to worry about anything, but it turned out I did need to worry about quite a few things.

First, my driver didn’t show. After buying a sim card and calling whatever numbers I had, someone finally showed an hour late.

I assumed that would be the end of it and I’d be driven all the way to the Ninh Binh hotel, but instead I got dropped at some bus stop in the middle of who-knows-where. My driver didn’t speak any English, just unloaded my bags, said something to somebody and waved goodbye.

So here I am with all my badminton gear standing around in some random street, but the guy is gesturing me to just chill and wait (he didn’t speak any English either, I’d learn this is the norm in Vietnam).

Finally a shuttle arrives and he loads all my stuff and tells me to get on. Then the driver asks me for 400K dong (about $15).

I try to tell him – my trip is already paid for by my host, but he doesn’t give two shits. He’s not moving until I pay my fare. I try to get hold of the host, again she’s nowhere to be found, so I just pay the man and we get moving (luckily I had withdrawn some cash at the airport, otherwise I would have been screwed!).

So we’re driving for a couple of hours, it’s middle of the night now I get dropped off again in the middle of nowhere, again. The driver unloads all my stuff, again, and points me to another car. The driver speaks no English, again.

But he drives me though this city and it reminds me of rural China – it’s so dystopian and concrete-jungle vibes, no spark, no flavour. I ping myself on GPS and we are indeed in Ninh Binh. That’s a good start.

After a few minutes we pull up at The Reed Hotel. It’s a huge, flashy hotel, way on the outskirts of the city. There’s nothing around it. No houses, no restaurants, just empty space. I see some tournament staff in the lobby and they show me to my room. I’ve made it!

First thing on the agenda – food. The hotel restaurant is closed. There are no restaurants around. I put my exploring shoes on and go wandering. It’s about 11 p.m. I walk for fifteen minutes before I find civilization, but civilization is closed. I walk and walk, four blocks, five blocks, everything closed. That’ weird. Then I see one place with lights on.

As I get closer, I see it’s a classic night food spot. It’s busy. Smells amazing. I wander in like your regular tourist idiot and they point me to a table. A young boy, maybe 18, comes to take my order.

“Do you speak English?”

He winces.

“It’s okay,” I say, laughing. I pull out my phone and type in in Google Translate “I want the beef pho”

He squints as he reads it.

“Ahh, phở bò!”

He nods, smiling.

The food barely takes 30 seconds. He comes right back with a steaming bowl of pho, the broth is so fatty and silky, it’s full of beef, the noodles are perfect. It’s the best damn pho I ever had in my life.

I end up eating at this place almost every night for the whole week. The pho barely costs a dollar and it’s the only place open at night. But every night, in the spirit of discovery, I’ll walk the streets trying to find somewhere else to eat, literally nothing is open, and I’ll end up back here. So, I try as many things on their menu as I can.

For lunch, it’s a different story. There’s lots of food around.

I try my first banh mi, and eat many bowls of pho.

I’m supposed to be in tournament mode, so pho is perfect – lots of carbs, lots of protein. And I try to eat as much as possible, because who knows if I’ll find dinner.

One night, I make it a mission to go out early.

I start walking at 4 p.m., and make it out to the river, where there’s a huge market with temples and street food and ice cream.

The food is mostly seafood, barbecued shrimp, squid, stuff like that.

Lots of locals, not a lot of tourists. I might have been the only one.

I wasn’t hungry yet, so I didn’t eat, but it’s a beautiful place to walk.

On our last day in Ninh Binh, the local government arranges a trip for us athletes. We are going to see Hang Mua, which is a famous cave and mountain area.

There are some kids volunteering with the tournament, they’re the ones who arrange our laundry and answer all our questions like, “where’s the nearest pharmacy” and stuff like that. They’re also our tour guides for this trip.

It’s pretty funny because they don’t know anything about it. I’m walking with one of them, his name’s Ngoc. He’s 16 or 17, somewhere around there. He always gets excited when he sees me because he likes practicing his English.

As we’re walking, I ask him what this place is, and he doesn’t have a clue. “I’m also not from this city,” he says. “I guess there are some rice fields.”

So we just walk around, talk, guess what we’re supposed to be looking at, take some photos, until we get to the big mountain.

It’s a lot of stairs. Probably around 500. Maybe even 1,000. Half the people don’t want to climb. But Ngoc and I are gonna climb. The others follow behind.

The sun is just coming out and we work up a sweat pretty easily. We’re all supposed to be elite athletes, but these stairs are killing us. We rest at each landing, then climb again. Takes a good 20 or 30 minutes.

We get to the top eventually and there’s a stone dragon up there. Everybody seems to be waiting in line to climb onto it. A few people, mostly older people, take one look at it and shake their head. But most of the young people are up for it. It’s not that easy to climb, and doesn’t look that safe, but since we’re here we climb it anyway. Isn’t that what being a tourist is? Doing stupid shit that makes no sense but it’s what everyone else is doing?

So me and Ngoc are laughing as we climb onto this stone dragon, it’s not safe at all and I’m sure at least one or two people have died falling off and tumbling down the cliffs beside us. But we climb it all the way to the end, take a photo, then very slowly climb our way back down so more tourist idiots can have their turn at risking their lives.

The next day, the bus takes us to Bac Giang for the next tournament.

My memory of Ninh Binh is mostly walking around every single night starving, looking for somewhere to eat. It’s one of my weird habits, I like eating dinner really late, like midnight. I remember on the first night opening up Grab Food, and even on there, not a single meal was available at 11, hotel restaurant closed at 10. That’s what caused me to go wandering, like I did every night after that.

Kind of ironic for a country where every traveller raves about the food, and most nights I was not even able to find a 7-Eleven to buy a sandwich.

I’m wondering if Bac Giang will be different.

We arrive at the hotel and it’s right in the middle of town. Hopefully I’ll be well fed here!

But the first night, it’s the same weirdness. I go walking for food around 10 p.m. Everything is closed. I finally find a convenience store that closes at midnight, and my dinner for the night is three cans of tuna, a loaf of bread, jackfruit chips and 3 protein Milos.

The next day I notice it again. After games, I go wandering for lunch at 2 p.m. and everything is closed! What’s going on? Never have I found a country where it’s been so hard to spend my money. Do Vietnamese people just hate money or something?

I finally ask one of the volunteers at the hotel. Her name is Pop, she can’t be older than 15. I guess only the young people speak English in Vietnam. She tells me, in Vietnam the restaurants just open a couple of hours for lunch, then they close. Then they open at night for a couple of hours for dinner, then they close. So you have to go at those exact hours to eat – between 12 and 2 in the afternoon, and somewhere around 6-9 at night.

This is one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in all my travels. Even in the poorest parts of Africa, restaurants are open at 3 p.m. Middle of the day – seems like a pretty normal time to be open?

So Bac Giang ends up being round two of Ninh Binh. Often I wake up from a nap, or finish working, or get home from the stadium around 9. I venture out for food and literally walk around the entire city looking for a restaurant, and can’t find one. There’s about three nights I slam cans of tuna for dinner. It’s hilarious.

One night, I make it my mission to go looking for dinner at 6 p.m. Even though I’m not hungry at all, I find a nice Japanese restaurant and don’t take my chances walking around any longer. Everything might suddenly close if I do. I enjoy my first real dinner in Vietnam, and it’s Japanese. Shabu shabu pot, dumplings, Coke. It’s amazing.

I realise the way to finally eat well in Vietnam is force myself to have a normal eating schedule and dine at 6 p.m.

The next day I make my way to a local steak restaurant, I get there at 8:30 and the guy says, sorry they’re closed. What! Okay what time do you close tomorrow? Same time, he says. I tell him I’ll come early. I get there at 7 the next day. I order way too much food (who knows if I’ll find dinner tomorrow) and spend an hour trying to finish it all.

The steak is just okay, but I devoured it (even forgot to take a photo), it’s definitely the most calories I’ve had since arriving in the country.

One night, the volunteers ask how I like Vietnam. I tell them I’m always hungry. They laugh and give me some local snacks. The North Korea team is also at the tournament, and brought some North Korean snacks for the volunteers, which they share with me. One is a dark chocolate with an insane amount of calories. Not bad.

The rest of my time in Bac Giang is spent doing nothing much, because to be honest, there isn’t much to do.

I go for a run every day, 7km, 8km, exploring the city’s streets, taking a different route each time.

At night, I go to the stadium to watch the rest of the tournament (I lost in the first round, again).

It’s a sleepy city, with a huge town square, a few main streets and then mostly concrete avenues with coffee shops. Like Ninh Binh, very China-esque.

As the tournaments close, it’s time to head back to Hanoi.

Now in Hanoi, things are different.

People love making money here, at least way more than Ninh Binh and Bac Giang.

You go walking at 10 p.m. and everything is open (even though it’s raining every night).

You open up Grab Food and there are unlimited choices.

I’ve lost about 4kg in Bac Giang and Ninh Binh.

I spend the first week gluttonously replacing calories from two weeks of malnourishment.

It’s amazing. The rumours are true – in the big city, Vietnam is great for food!

And then … starts my three weeks in Hanoi. Read about that next!