Nightlife in Vietnam, and what an evening actually looks like

Nightlife in Vietnam happens earlier and lower to the ground than most visitors expect. The default evening is a plastic stool, a shared table and food, and it starts at six rather than ten.

What does a Vietnamese evening look like?

Beer on the pavement. From late afternoon the stools come out, the tables fill, and the eating and drinking happen together rather than in sequence. A group evening then ends in a karaoke room more often than in a bar.

The format holds across the country. What changes by city is how late it runs and what else exists alongside it.

Where do Vietnamese people actually eat at night?

At a grill table or a snail restaurant, both of which fill from about six and run until the beer stops. Neither appears on a bar crawl, and both are where the evening actually happens for most people under forty.

What is bia hoi and why does it matter?

Fresh draught beer, brewed that morning and drunk the same day, sold from kegs at street corners for roughly 5,000 to 15,000 dong a glass. At about 26,000 dong to the dollar that is 20 to 60 US cents.

Bia hoi is weak, cold and the social centre of the ordinary evening, especially in Hanoi and the north. The drinks guide covers what else Vietnam actually drinks, including the rice spirits worth approaching carefully.

Bia hoi corners close early — often by ten — because the day's brew has run out.

Where is the actual scene?

Ho Chi Minh City, by a distance. The city has rooftop bars with real views and a craft beer scene that has grown properly over the last decade. It also has clubs that run until dawn, and the coffee-apartment building for a quieter version.

Hanoi is smaller, cheaper and closes sooner. Its best nights are bia hoi corners and the weekend pedestrian zone around Hoan Kiem. The streets there close to traffic from 7pm on Friday until midnight on Sunday.

Everywhere else is a beach bar, a riverside terrace, or a cafe. That is not a criticism. The Hoi An riverside at nine in the evening is one of the better places to have a drink in Southeast Asia.

What about Bui Vien?

Go once, early, and leave when you have seen it. Bui Vien is Saigon's backpacker street: bars facing each other across a narrow road, each with its own sound system, plus hawkers and balloon sellers.

The street is loud in a way that has to be experienced to be believed, and it is not where Vietnamese people go out. The where to stay page explains why sleeping one street back from it matters.

What time does everything close?

Around midnight officially in most cities, with enforcement varying by street and by month. Bui Vien and the backpacker corner of Hanoi's Old Quarter run later; the rest of both cities does not.

Plan the evening earlier than you would at home. A table booked for nine is a late start here, and the food stalls that make the night worth having pack up by eleven. The exception is a Vietnam football match, which holds a street open as long as it runs.

The early close catches Europeans hardest. Dinner at seven and drinks at nine is the local rhythm, and arriving at a bia hoi corner at ten often means finding the kegs already empty and the stools stacked.

What should you be careful about?

Two things, and neither is crime. Home-distilled rice spirit of unknown provenance is genuinely worth declining, particularly when offered in quantity in a village setting.

The second is riding. Drink-driving enforcement is now strict, with effectively zero tolerance, and a Grab home costs a fraction of the fine. That applies to motorbikes as much as cars, which the safety guide covers alongside the wider road picture.