Travel fatigue in Ho Chi Minh city: my sixth week as a digital nomad in Asia (2025)
Most people go to Vietnam with intention – whether that’s to enjoy the history, the food or the landscapes. But too much planning can kill the thrill of travel, so when I arrived in April 2025, following a week of pure luxury on the golden sands of Koh Rong Sanloem in Cambodia I didn’t have much of a view as to what to expect.
What I did know is that it would be very busy (or “cognitively demanding” as this article puts it) – and pulling into Saigon after eight days on a paradise island was certainly an assault on the senses.
Real life Mario Kart
In some ways, my biggest takeaway from those first few days was simply the traffic. I’d been quite cavalier about jumping on motorcycles (Grabs) through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia so didn’t change my routine initially. But if you’re going to Ho Chi Minh City, I’d actually advise taking cars wherever you can (see my instagram reel for chaos in 4K).
The density of traffic here is some of the worst in the world, and whilst the idea of playing real-life Mario Kart sounds fun, it’s best enjoyed against friends from the sofa in my book and I wish I’d been more careful (though I clearly survived to tell the tale!). Don’t risk your life to save a couple of pounds on a Grab. I’d also think twice before riding your own bike in Ho Chi Minh (!) unless you truly understand this part of the world.
If you need more convincing, even my Uber driver was visibly scared picking me up during rush hour. And crossing the road? Don’t even try it. Saigon does not stop for you, and I nearly learned that the hard way.
A long overdue history lesson
Anyone that’s spent time in Asian cities will understand how overwhelming they can be. Rather than attempt to get to know Ho Chi Minh in much detail, I preserved my energy with visits to two of the city’s most important historic attractions – the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels.
I’d been having a great time on my trip, soaking up the recent history of Laos and Cambodia. The Vietnam war – or as they’d call it, the “American war” – is something I was never really taught at school, and I felt a pull to understand it better.
If you like to dig into the weeds of things like I do, my biggest tip for the museum would be to go there with some background context. On the 9 hour coach trip from Sihanoukville, I had been listening to The Rest Is History series on the conflict (something I continued with whilst on the Ha Giang Loop) which gave me a helpful grounding in the events leading up to it. Otherwise, it could feel overwhelming – it did go on for twenty years, after all!
In my naivety, I didn’t expect the museum to be so anti American. It’s obviously curated from a communist Vietnamese perspective, and being able to compare the two narratives side by side, was one of the most interesting parts of the experience. Whilst it helped me hold both viewpoints in balance, the long and short of it is that it was a painfully drawn out shit show, especially right at the end.
Keen to deepen my knowledge, I took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels, where the Viet Cong (communist resistance) lived underground during the war. Crawling through the tunnels, and hearing about how terrible it was for them (and also the soldiers they killed) really provides a reality check of how brutal that conflict must have been. I noticed a lot of Vietnamese people I spoke to still used the name Saigon to describe the city, which speaks to the differing political viewpoints people there still have.
Re-energising myself with a cooked breaky
But aside from my history lessons – and some very good vegan bánh mì – I didn’t spend a huge amount of time exploring Ho Chi Minh, so apologies that I can’t give more of a deep dive. Simply put, ‘travel fatigue’ had set in, and it was especially acute given I’d just had a wonderful time in Cambodia.
I’d been travelling around Asia as a digital nomad for about six weeks. I wasn’t working full-time, but moving constantly, leaving people behind, meeting new ones, and planning every next step was a lot to process, both mentally and physically. At just over a month in, it was starting to take its toll, and I simply didn’t have the same energy for new experiences as I had at the beginning.
Rightly or wrongly, this most likely shaped my first impressions of Vietnam. For an insight into my head space – on my second morning, I got in an Uber and asked to be taken to Melbourne Café for a fry-up. My first Western meal of the trip, in Vietnam! Some might find that sacrilege, but you’ve got to have those home comforts some times. I’d never been so happy to see a baked bean, but I assure you that I went straight back to eating local food after that.
It’s good to know your limits, and given that so much ‘nomad’ content is overly positive, I’m happy to share that perspective. After all, I want this blog to be an honest reflection of my experience. So, after two days, I headed north, arriving in the lantern-lit streets of Hoi An – where things immediately brightened up.
