Bus stations, and why your ticket may not start at one

Two things about Vietnamese buses catch visitors out, and neither is the bus. The first is that a city has several stations rather than one. The second is that a large share of tickets do not start at a station at all.

Get those right and buses are the cheapest useful transport in the country. Get them wrong and you spend an hour crossing a city to the wrong building.

Which station serves which direction?

Terminals are split by where you are going, not by operator.

The names are the useful part: mien dong means the eastern region and mien tay the western one. Ask a hotel desk which terminal your route leaves from before booking. A ticket seller will not volunteer that you are on the wrong side of the city.

Why might your ticket not start there?

Because the limousine van changed the market. A nine to sixteen seat Transit with reclining seats collects from the operator's own office, often in the centre, and drops centrally at the far end. That convenience is most of what the higher fare buys.

Sleeper buses complicate it further. Many are barred from city centres and board on a ring road, which the ticket may name only in Vietnamese. Hotel pickup is common and usually free, and it is worth asking for even when it is not offered.

So the question to settle when booking is not which station but where do I get on. The transport guide sets buses against trains and flights on the same routes, and the answer changes with distance more than with comfort.

What is a terminal actually like?

Loud, concrete, and organised. Destination boards are in Vietnamese and ticket windows are numbered by route group. Men will call destinations at you as you walk in: that is the trade rather than a scam, and a firm no ends it.

Expect food, toilets, and nowhere comfortable to wait. Twenty minutes before departure is enough. Bags go in the hold and you keep valuables with you, which is the same rule as everywhere.

Getting there is usually a bike taxi or a Grab car. The ride out to My Dinh or Mien Dong is long enough that a car makes sense with luggage.

What does a bus ticket cost?

Between 100,000 and 250,000 dong for a few hours on a standard bus. A limousine van on the same route runs 200,000 to 400,000, and a long overnight route 250,000 to 500,000. At about 26,000 dong to the dollar, most useful journeys land between four and fifteen dollars.

Buying at the station is often cheaper than the aggregator sites, which add a margin. The exception is a holiday weekend or the fortnight around Tet, when seats sell out entirely and the price stops being the problem.

What should you check before you book?

Four things, in this order. The boarding point, because it decides your morning. The vehicle: a limousine van, a seated coach, and a sleeper are three different experiences of the same road.

Third, the arrival point, which is frequently a station outside the town rather than in it. Fourth, the operator's quoted duration against the map's. A bus that stops for passengers doubles its time on some routes.

For an overnight leg, the rail guide is worth reading first. On several corridors the train costs about the same, arrives more reliably, and lets you stand up.

Which stations are worth avoiding entirely?

None, but two are worth knowing about before you arrive. My Dinh in Hanoi is large, busy and confusing at night, and the ticket windows for the northwest sit at one end of a long hall. Mien Dong in Saigon moved to a new site several kilometres further out, and old directions still point at the wrong building.

The two stations are fine in daylight with twenty minutes in hand. Neither is somewhere to arrive at 23:00 with no booking and no Vietnamese, which is the situation the limousine offices exist to avoid.