Coffee-lovers be aware: coffee and milk actually means "condensed milk and coffee". So sweet and addictive! The option of having normal, fresh milk is a luxury only offered at resorts and classy hotels.

Toilet paper may never ever be thrown into the toilet bowl. We believe it's because they fear the sewage system might fail? Either way, each toilet has an accompanying dustbin for your dirty papers.

Vietnam doesn't have a typical breakfast food. What's for lunch and supper is good enough for brekkie too. Takes a while to get used to having chicken and rice at 10 am! (Upon further experience of the country we have learnt that they do indeed eat some dishes mostly for breakfast, such as Pho noodle soup or fried egg and rice).

It appears as if most hotel and restaurant (be it a formal one or a street cafe) is run by generations of an entire family. So business is passed on and kept within familial bonds.

All beer is served with a glass filled with ice. A true beer drinker is at first amused and shocked - but soon sees reason and appreciates the logic. Vietnam's weather proves to harsh for any fridge, and thus finding an ice cold beer is nearly impossible.

As the one restaurateur pointed out to us, the Vietnamese very seldom order their own local products. They prefer to imbibe Heineken and other foreign beers.

We've noticed piles of dried-out starfish laying next to stacks of firewood. It seems that they use the starfish as a form of fuel too!

If I were allowed to highlight only one thing about Vietnam that really puts one off of the country, is the way that locals overcharge and steal money from anyone that looks like a tourist. It's really maddening, because it's often four times the actual price.