It's Just Grab
Grab bikes (xe ôm, terrifying). Grab cars (expensive). Grab food (fine). Grab everything.
Competitors tried. Uber left. Now it's Grab's country and we're just living in it.
Baemin Tried
South Korean food delivery app launched with huge marketing budget. Cheaper prices! Better promos! More options!
Still mostly Grab though. Inertia is real.
Baemin is fine when Grab doesn't have the restaurant you want. Or when you want to save $0.40 and feel smart about it.
The Grab Bike Experience
First time is terrifying. Driver hands you a helmet (legally required). Helmet hasn't been washed since 2019. You wear it anyway because the alternative is explaining to your travel insurance why you didn't.
You weave through traffic at speeds that seem illegal. Cars, scooters, pedestrians, dogs, all sharing the same space with no rules. You close your eyes. You arrive alive (usually).
It costs $1 to go 3km and saves 30 minutes versus a car. You'll get used to it. Everyone does.
Grab Food Reality Check:
Selection is okay in Hanoi and HCMC. Decent in Da Nang. Terrible everywhere else.
The app shows "30-40 minutes" delivery. Actually arrives in 70 minutes because your driver is doing 3 other deliveries first and took a break for coffee.
Food arrives lukewarm, sometimes missing items, occasionally not your order at all. You eat it anyway because complaining requires Vietnamese language skills you don't have.
What You Actually Need:
Google Maps with Vietnamese downloaded offline. Nobody speaks English outside tourist zones (which is fine! you're in Vietnam!) but you need to read street names.
Google Translate camera function for menus. Point your camera, it translates, you order food that may or may not be what you thought.
Zalo - Vietnamese WhatsApp. Some local places only communicate here. Your landlord might only use Zalo. Download it, struggle with the interface (it's... busy), give up and just stick to WhatsApp anyway.
Banking Apps:
Good luck. Vietnamese banks are not set up for foreigners opening accounts easily. Most people just use their foreign cards and eat the ATM fees (usually $3-5 per withdrawal, brutal).
Vietcombank, Techcombank, ACB if you somehow manage to open an account. Apps work fine once you're in the system. Getting in the system is the hard part.
The Real Essential App:
Currency converter because you'll never internalize VND exchange rates. Is 200,000 dong expensive? (It's $8). Is 2,000,000 dong a lot for rent? (It's $83). Your brain won't figure this out, just use XE app forever.
My Setup:
- Grab (no alternative exists)
- Baemin for when I want to pretend there's competition
- Google Translate
- Currency converter
- Low expectations
Vietnam is incredible and cheap and frustrating in equal measure. The apps work well enough. Better than they should, honestly, given the infrastructure. You'll be fine. Probably won't die on a Grab bike. Probably.