HCMC

As I was standing at the building's entrance between two never-closing sliding doors while trying to catch a breeze at midnight on a weekday, a Honda SH (a ludicrously expensive motorbike) pulled up right next to me - actually pulling right into the hospital's ER waiting room. Held up between the motorbike's driver and a passenger was an overweight, unconscious middle-aged Vietnamese man. He had drunk too much and was now too much drunk.

The first rule of the ER at a Vietnamese hospital was that if you couldn't get the patient onto a hospital bed yourself, the hospital staff would just watch, or not, and wait until you did. I suppose it's not in anyone's job description. Corollary: they don't really care if you drive your scooter into the hospital's waiting room.

The second rule I learned is that once you fill out the paperwork for admission (you could be convulsing/dying - you'll still have to fill out all the forms before you can see anyone), there is no triage system. I watched a women pull herself into the treatment area, sit herself down on a hospital bed, and wait an hour before asking the head doctor when someone would attend to her. Hospital staff were only loosely aware of who was there, a system also known as "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" to see the patients who complained the most first. There's no formal triage, quick initial examinations to give priority to "time-sensitive" patients, something that would not only waste less time but perhaps save lives.

Third Observation: The emergency room is open all night. They expect you to go and buy your own drugs at their 24-hour pharmacy. Which is fine but at 3AM the sole pharmacist is busy getting her beauty sleep on while laid under covers (because her tiny office is the only place there with A/C and she has it on arctic blast) on a little folding cot and she will be really upset (directed at you) when you wake her up to fill your prescription. I'm not sure what else could be in her job description besides staying awake and filling prescriptions.

Result : Waiting around for 4 hours to get two shots and a prescription for various pills (which you should still Google and Wikipedia when you get home to see what they are and decide if they're necessary or even helpful). Not convinced that the treatment caused any more improvement than just laying around for a couple of hours.

I may be guilty of painting a less than spectacular picture of hospitals in Vietnam and even going so far as to suggesting that there may be room for improvement. But even Vietnamese people are voting with their dollars. They think that rhino horns and other horny appendages are a better cure for their illnesses than going to the hospital, at least a local Vietnamese hospital. But surely the newer hospitals, the international hospitals, are better, aren't they? What about the newish French Viet hospital in Phu My Hung? Next I'll talk about how the best Vietnamese hospitals stack up against hospitals around the region.

Clubbing and nightlife in Saigon and Vietnam

Submitted by tomo on October 10, 2012 - 2:47am

Nightlife in Vietnam can be split into three different types: the local scene, the expat and tourist scene, and a hybrid scene for modern urban Vietnamese including some expats.

For locals, gathering at cafes, singing karaoke (or hugging karaoke om girls), "nhau"-ing at big outdoor "quan nhau", or just driving around and hanging out outside are common nightlife activities.

When it comes to clubbing, it's hard to tell how many nightclubs exist in Vietnam. This is because most of them are part of the local scene and don't receive many foreign customers and don't make themselves attractive to foreigners anyways.

A typical Vietnamese club is open every day of the week, opens in the evening, and closes at midnight. Customers are mostly Vietnamese males who come in groups and then stand around a table while female staff pour drinks from a bottle of liquor which the group has ordered. If they don't finish drinking the bottle that night they can check the bottle and receive a card to retrieve their bottle later. Sometimes, the bottle will be marked so the customer trusts that it is his bottle and that nobody else has drunk from it before he returns. But this doesn't ensure that the alcohol inside is not counterfeit. Counterfeit name brand liquor is a huge problem here, creating a secondary market for used bottles of vodka, whiskey, etc. It is also possible to order beer at clubs, although they may only have Heineken, which will be brought to your table in bulk, but drinking bottles of liquor is more common. Ordering single mixed drinks or wine is rare and discouraged at these places.

Nightclubs (disco, vu truong) in Vietnam can also be split into purely local, Western, and mixed.

There are many clubs in the suburbs with cheaper prices and catering exclusively to locals. In District 1 of Saigon you will find some clubs which are better for showing off and taking girls to or finding an attractive PR girl to try to take home. Some popular clubs in Saigon: 030, Gossip, Lavish.

In District 1 you will also find the few clubs in Vietnam that resemble clubs outside of Asia, such as Lush or Vasco's. Apocalypse Now (Apo) is another bar/club in downtown Saigon and it caters mostly to foreigners (a mix of tourists and expats), prostitutes, and gays, making for an interesting atmosphere.

Pickup Scene

In Vietnam, totally unlike in the West, bars and clubs are not the place to go to pick up girls, unless you are trying to pick up the staff (PR girls). Many Vietnamse men will go to Vietnamese clubs expressly to pick up PR girls. But if you are a foreigner you can meet certain Vietnamese girls who are available to foreigners at places like Apocalypse Now. They may be prostitutes.

Tipping

At Vietnamese clubs, you are expected to tip graciously. Each PR girl who spends significant time at your table should get a tip, something like 100k per hour. Then you will find that the bus boys, security guards, and perhaps even the manager will come to you hoping for tips, although they don't need such big tips. Once you are outside, if you didn't take a taxi, you may find that you are forced to tip the parking attendant through illegal overcharging.

Music

The music at most Vietnamese clubs is the same - some kind of hard Vietnamese trance completely out of touch with the electronic dance music being played elsewhere around the world. DJs here stay truly nameless. There are no famous DJs in Vietnam and when big name DJs from the US or Europe do come to Vietnamese clubs, they mostly only get patronage from the expats. Unfortunately, there is little appreciation for electronic dance music in Vietnam compared to the rest of the world, even other southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Thailand, or the Philippines.

Difference between Saigon and Hanoi

Saigon has the most clubs while Hanoi does have clubs, but like all things fun in Vietnam, the government clamps down harder on establishments in Hanoi. Places close earlier there and clubs may be a lot smaller. In Hanoi's winter, the young people go out less at night, preferring to stay in.

Outside of the two big cities, there are a handful of clubs in Da Nang (Phuong Dong, Vegas, etc.), while the smaller cities like Buon Me Thuot or Dalat can support one or so bar each. Beach resort towns like Nha Trang, Mui Ne, and Vung Tau, have clubs for both foreign and domestic tourists.

Foreigners will probably hate Vietnamese clubs and so I wouldn't recommend going to them unless you like spending obscene amounts of money on counterfeit alcoholic drinks while listening to bad "techno" music that is at tinnitus-inducing volumes in order to communicate by yelling with girls who are paid to entertain you.

Are there strip clubs in Vietnam?

Monsoon Seasons in Vietnam

Submitted by tomo on October 8, 2012 - 1:41am

In South Vietnam, like the rest of tropical Southeast Asia (but not North Vietnam), there are only two seasons: rainy season and dry season. Hanoi has the traditional four seasons with mild but cold winters.

The actual timing of monsoon seasons varies from country to country and there are many regional monsoons throughout the world, including the United States. In Saigon and the Mekong Delta the dry season is from about November to February (around Tet) after which the weather transitions into rainy season around June. April and May can be uncomfortably hot without the respite provided by rains.

The difference is not just in precipitation but also temperature. The temperature range for Ho Chi Minh City throughout the year is generally 25C to 33C, whereas in the hottest days of May it may reach a max of 35C and the coldest nights of December may reach as low as 20C. For travelers who want to enjoy the coolest and driest weather then the months of November, December, and January would be the best, although travelers to Da Lat can come any time of the year and enjoy cool weather.

Tropical Storm Weather

During the wet season, there are also many tropical storms and typhoons off the sea to the east. These storm systems often batter the Philippines and then head to central or northern Vietnam and usually only cause heavy rain to fall on Saigon which rarely gets directly hit.

How should you prepare for Vietnam's weather?

1. Bring an umbrella! Vietnamese people seldom use umbrellas and when they do it's to block the sun not rain. Umbrellas are not that easy to buy in Vietnam.
2. Most of the year it can be pretty sunny although the cooler weather is accompanied by overcast skies. Vietnamese people generally cover their skin with long sleeves and pants (and extra socks, gloves, and face masks) to avoid sun exposure. More foreigners don't, and so may want to use some sun screen which can be purchased at Western-style pharmacies here.
3. You can buy various rain coats here but mostly they are targeting bike riders, who need freedom of movement of their legs thus exposing the legs to rain and puddle splashes. You can buy them for around $1. You can buy cheap and easily ripped ponchos for around 4 per $1 and these come in small enough packs to carry with you. There are some interesting only-in-Vietnam raincoats such as ones with two head-holes so both the driver and passenger on a bike can share one rain coat, and also rain coats with a clear window in front in order to allow a bike's headlights to shine through.
4. Wear comfortable walking sandals. Most tourists walk a lot and they stick out because they're the only ones walking. When it rains your feet will get wet and you may be forced to walk through puddles. You don't want to wear socks or shoes that don't wash and dry easily.

When it rains, it pours

During the normal rainy season, there are many consecutive days where it will rain shortly every day. People who get caught driving in the rain will often pull over and seek shelter in front of shops or at bus stops. They should probably just ride busses more during the rainy season, but that's another topic altogether! It's best not to have any set schedule during the rainy season that way you can wait out any sudden downpours rather than trying to make appointments. You will find that Vietnamese people will use heavy rain as an excuse for not coming somewhere on time.

It's that time of the year again. Flood time!

Saigon and Vietnam's Mekong Delta generally has two seasons - rainy and wet. But at the end of the year somewhat coinciding with the dry season is high tide season where the highest tide level maxes out some meters above low tide. Each year the effects of high tide on Ho Chi Minh City get worse, not just due to climate change or rising sea levels, but due to 1) urban sprawl taking over former urban flood plains which would have absorbed some rain water (rain water just makes the problem worse but isn't the root cause) with construction and paving over of land with impermeable surfaces, as well as 2) a general sinking of the city due to (illegal) leaching of underground water supplies reducing the water table level and 3) lost efficiency of canals where piles of trash thrown in the rivers is blocking the flow of water back out

This week's high tide times so you know when your streets will be flooded: (data comes from Saigon Port dumped into a Google Doc which is then proxied through this site to overcome cross-site script hacking in order to hide the days outside of this week)

Helping Hand Saigon Date Auction

Submitted by tomo on August 25, 2012 - 8:00am

One evening while on a brief holiday at sea in Vung Tau I got a phone call.

"Anh Tomo, can you do me a favor?"

One early thing I learned about Vietnamese interpersonal relations is that people are much more forward when it comes to asking for favors than Americans might be. There isn't the hesitation to owe other people favors that keeps me from asking in most situations.

Around this time I had begun practicing a new philosophy though. Basically, like the Jim Carrey movie "Yes Man" I started saying "yes!" to invitations and requests that I would have probably hemmed and hawed at in the past. This has led to some awesome times and amazing new friendships in Vietnam. But there have also been many moments of great regret.

This time the request was to be an emcee.

Some people (like my friend Minh) are (by whatever means (whether natural tendency or hard work and practice)) good emcees. They are able to talk continuously and control the flow of the audience as the situation requires.

A good MC has a bunch of qualities and I basically had none of them.

How to be an MC when you're not an MC:

1) Don't care.
2) Smile. (I'm told I don't.)
3) Have a good sense of humor. LOL.
4) Look pretty. Smiling helps and being funny leads to smiling.

That's about all I can really teach about that subject.

The event in question was a "date auction" for a charity I'd never heard of called Helping Hand Saigon. My first thought was "OMG, selling young Vietnamese girls to foreigners - can I really be a part of such an operation?"

As it turns out, they were auctioning off young Vietnamese men as well. A Vietnamese male singer-song writer also showed up, performed a few songs, and then auctioned himself off, garnering over a million dongs. Later I saw one of his music videos on TV so I guess it was a bargain.

All the money raised was going to charity and not the girls. The charity would then help educate poor Vietnamese kids. The auction winners would get contact details of the won "lot" in order to arrange a coffee, movie, or other PG-rated date. So not at a short time hotel.

There is a point to this blog post. Tomorrow night (this Saturday night) Helping Hand Saigon is having their second date auction!

If you want to do some online window shopping before deciding whether or not to go you can see the date auction candidate's photos on Facebook.

If you are interested in buying a cheap Vietnamese bride then Helping Hand Saigon's Date Auction will only waste your time. If you really do want to find a Vietnamese bride I recommend you just spend some time in Vietnam, volunteering and meeting people.

Useful Errata:

Time: 5:30pm August 25th, 2012
Location: H&M Lounge, 101 Suong Nguyet Anh, District 1

Attention English teachers living in Saigon: My friend has an English center on Tu Xuong Street in District 3 and is in urgent need of a substitute English teacher, and more permanent staff for the future. Please read the following then either call 848. 39326594 or Create a Teacher Listing to be notified about other open English (or Vietnamese) teaching or tutoring jobs around Vietnam:

I am looking for a substitute teacher at my center for a couple weeks for 2 advance classes (students, working adults) (Until August 23rd with option to continue long terms and a lot more hours). I asking around and guess it is good to ask within the circle of people I know.

I will need a teacher as early as next week for:
Thurseday evening 5.45 - 7.15pm
Thurseday morning - 8.45 - 10.15am

These are communication english classes (only focus on speaking activities in class for students)
Advance 1 is 15usd/hr

The topics from week 1 to week 10 are:

1) Intro
2) Travel
3) Describing People – Comparisons
4) Worry Advice
5) Advertising
a) Project: Design a totally new imaginary product and create a 3-minute commercial
6) Romance
7) Future
8) Crime
9) Technology
10) Telling a Story

But you can improvise.

Thanks and look forward to hearing from you.

Hieu M. Hoang
US Study Advising Center - Nivaco Ltd.
63 Tu Xuong District 3
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
Tel: 848. 39326594, Fax: 848.39326590
Website: www.nivacovn.com

Again, if you want to be notified of other odd teaching jobs or school openings or tutoring requests, enlist in the free Saigonist Vietnam teacher directory service.

This simply service is dedicated to both Vietnamese and English teachers. I hope that it can help some friends.

Rubbing my eyes, contact lenses still in, I slowly woke up to an orange sun just beginning its daily ascent. We were still on a bus, just about to arrive in Nha Trang after driving all night from Saigon, but waking up alive meant I'd survived seven consecutive days of being a vegetarian (coinciding with the start of a bicycle trek from Nha Trang to Saigon, an exercise in which I would need all the calories I could get, regardless of source - future blog post on that experience). Since then, in the name of science I did another one week stint as a vegetarian which led me to finish writing this post.

Vegetarian restaurants in Saigon

[ Above is a map I made of vegetarian restaurants mostly around Districts 1, 3, and Binh Thanh. Red Markers indicated closed restaurants. Google and other online resources for Vietnam/Ho Chi Minh City are useful sources too but I always find them to be both lacking, inaccurate and, out of date, which means I've wasted a lot of time looking for restaurants that no longer exist or have moved. Feel free to suggest additions in the comments or let me know if you want to be a collaborator on the map and I'll give you access. I will only list restaurants that I have verified or which you can vouch for. The map will be updated periodically.]

Why eat vegetables and not animals in Vietnam?

With any luck, you should actually enjoy eating a healthier diet and feel better for it, both physically and mentally or spiritually. If you do convert to vegetarianism you should do it for yourself before any other reason.

Not eating tons of meat has health benefits. It will lower your risk for various diseases while you'll be eating more of the good nutrients you probably aren't getting enough of. You'll avoid more of the poisons like pesticides and heavy metals that accumulate in higher concentrations in animals. Vegetarian restaurants in Vietnam often go an extra step and refrain from using MSG in their food. (Next time you eat out in Vietnam, you'll be praying that Ajinomoto is the worst of all the additives used in most other restaurants.) Being vegetarian can be good for your conscience too - less animal farming is better for the environment and uses less of our resources and not killing sentient beings is something they'll appreciate (although it's up for debate whether invertebrates feel pain). If you're Buddhist then you should be concerned about what Buddhism says about that last point. Otherwise, try not to let it bother you. Try not to think of a purple elephant while you're at it.

If you happen to meditate, you may be interested in knowing that vegetarians shoved in an fMRI machine show more empathy. Personally, I've found myself feeling a bit more compassion for animals. From an enlightenment perspective, this extra push in compassion may help with your concentration, as meditation on compassion leads to improved concentration. (Thus compassion, beyond or despite its altruism, also shapes us into better human beings.)

In Vietnam, we should be especially concerned about what poisons may be going into our foods because when hearing reported seizures of rotten meat for sale to consumers (40 tons of rotten meat seized in Thu Duc District in the first half of 2012) we know it's just the tip of the iceberg. Fear of death due to eating rotten chicken may be reason enough to vegetarianize yourself, when chicken is often undercooked here, not to mention Vietnam's own various raw meat dishes including the raw beef thrown in pho. Lack of refrigeration is common at the numerous informal restaurants and carts in Vietnam despite the tropical weather and, whereas vegetable dishes can go unrefrigerated for awhile, meat dishes will spoil quickly despite being cooked possibly hours before being served to and eaten by customers, with leftover lunch being kept in the afternoon heat to be served for dinner.

Meat in Vietnam is often served with skin and fat included, making it even less healthy (although it can also be more delicious this way). And sinewy Vietnamese beef doesn't even taste good, does it?! This is why beef imported from Australia or the US is available for a markup here, for even minimally discerning tastes. I would honestly not miss eating Vietnamese beef. But Vietnamese people enjoy gnawing on chewy stuff, apparently.

Buddhists in Vietnam are also supposed to eat vegetarian once or twice a month, based on the lunar calendar, and can eat free vegetarian meals at pagodas on those days. The world is a better place for it on those days at least.

Vegetarians become aware of protein alternatives (e.g. broccoli, soy, beans, etc. although most beans are actually quite rare) and Vietnamese vegetarian restaurants have numerous mock meat dishes, some of which are rather convincing. How could you live in the south of Vietnam without eating "cơm tấm", broken rice served with grilled pork, shredded pork skin, and a slab of pork meatloaf? Thankfully, vegetarian restaurants in Saigon can do a convincing faux meat version (pictured above) of this signature dish and other Vietnamese favorites of mine like chả giò and canh khổ qua. Besides soy-based "meat", Vietnamese use wheat gluten (mì căn) to make mock meats. I'm impressed by what Vietnam has done with vegetarian (generally vegan) cuisine and want to encourage even more conversion of the low hanging fruit of Vietnamese cuisine into meatless versions.

Generally, meals at Vietnamese restaurants might come with fresh herbs but lack vegetables beyond a measly slice of unripe tomato and cucumber. We all know we should be eating more vegetables and eating at a vegetarian restaurant is an easy way to inject some vitamins into our diets.

--

Vietnamese Vegetarian Restaurants

Saigon has vegetarian restaurants sprinkled throughout the city, from cheap (under a dollar per meal) to fancy (e.g. Hoa Dang a.k.a. Loving Hut). But if you like to stay up late and eat late meals it can be harder to find your favorite veggie spot still serving - often the normal vegetarian "com chay" quans, like most restaurants in Vietnam, stop selling after lunch around 2:00 PM and start back up around 4:00, but then after 8:00 close for the day. I work late at night which is normally not a big problem for food in Saigon where late night joints can be found throughout town. So a late night vegetarian restaurants would have at least one customer!

There are basically two types of vegetarian restaurants in Vietnam. The most common is a "quan com chay" and they are easy to find all around the city. Just make sure it says "cơm chay" and not "cơm cháy" because the latter is a kind of crispy rice wafer., which may not be vegetarian at all. A quan com chay will generally have a cart in front with a buffet of a dozen or so vegetarian dishes such as tofu, mock meats, sauteed vegetables, greens, etc. to be eaten with rice.

The other kind of vegetarian restaurant is the proper restaurant with non-plastic chairs for seating, with air conditioning, where you will be shown a proper menu from which you will order dishes. This is where you'd take guests whereas the former is where you'd stop in for a quick meal.

Won't it suck?

Issues that might come up:

Hunger: Do you find regular Vietnamese portions to be too small, even after eating in Vietnam for awhile? Then it won't be better when eating vegetarian. I was used to it, and was already eating several vegetarian meals a week, but still felt hungry sometimes. But at most buffets you can choose to order more side dishes and even more rice. But Quan Thien Tam at 152 Ban Co, right off Dien Bien Phu in District 3, a 15000 VND rice plate is enough to satiate almost anyone's appetite.

Craving for animal flesh: I recently quit smoking. Thinking about a specific meal containing meat sometimes does not compare to the desire to smoke a cigarette after you've just quit.

Availability: It's available all over Saigon as long as you don't need to eat after 9 PM or so! I did not restrict myself to a vegan diet so eggs and milk products were "on the menu" so it was possible to eat at many normal restaurants too.

This is bún chả giò, rice noodles tossed with fried spring rolls and some bean sprouts and herbs, like salad with fish sauce as the dressing. Except the fish sauce here isn't made from fish and the spring rolls have tubers and other plans as ingredients instead of pork. It's delicious aka "ngon" in Vietnamese.

This is the long awaited blog post on finding housing in Vietnam (requested by many readers of the classic Cost of Living in Vietnam post, and this new post is especially about the Ho Chi Minh City rental scene for expats.

As I've mentioned before, I live in an unfurnished two-storey house of about 70 square meters located in a tiny alley (I'll explain why below) which is less than a 10 minute drive from downtown District 1. For this I pay less than $200 per month including all utilities. For the past year, rent has been stable whereas the previous year it went up by $10/month.

I pay more for housing than the average single Vietnamese person pays, while paying far less per square meter than the average expat in Vietnam.

How (can I not get ripped off on housing)?

1. Have Vietnamese friends on your side, finding housing for you that they would be willing to pay for for themselves or their families. Not real estate agents who see each foreigner as a fat commission check (even when they are foreigners themselves), where the higher they can negotiate monthly rent the more money they earn. Agents are incentivized to get you into the most expensive housing you're willing to pay for. Friends want to save you money. The difference between the two methods can mean hundreds of dollars saved each month.

When you first arrive in Vietnam, consider staying in temporary housing, a guesthouse, or a hotel for three months or so, while you build a network of Vietnamese friends. Don't rush yourself into a 1-year contract.

2. "Nhà cho thuê". Memorize this Vietnamese phrase. It literally means "House for rent" and it's a sign that you won't have to pay extra for having some agent with a storefront market the house (or spam the internet). These landlords get less requests for their properties if they're relying on eyeballs on their signs alone. These are hidden gems. If you see a sign in an area (and it should be in an alley) that you'd like to check out then write down the phone number, name (the name is probably preceded by "A." or "C."), and address, then have a Vietnamese friend call for you, ask for the price, and then schedule an appointment to come check it out.

Also be on the lookout for "Phòng cho thuê" which means "Room for rent" which means you'd only be renting a single room in a house. You'll see these signs for guesthouses in the backpacker district as well. For most rooms for rent where the landlord lives in the house and is in charge of unlocking the front door, it will be inconvenient for you to come home after a late night of partying as someone will have to wake up to open the door.

Some other vocabulary:
"ở ghép" - This means a group of people are looking for someone to share a room.
"nữ" - This means the housing is for females only.
"sinh viên" - This housing is meant for university students. Any of these are probably not a good match for foreigners moving to Vietnam.

Spend time walking or leisurely bicycling through kilometer after kilometer of alleys and find as many of these as you can. Especially be willing to venture into dead-end alleys. For the same reason that you'd normally not go into them (which isn't due to any physical danger - Vietnam is generally really safe), for the people who actually live there it's a quiet place to live without the through traffic.

You can also find posters attached to light poles and other public areas although in that case you won't be able to immediately see the outside of the house.

3. Unfurnished housing. A rule of thumb is that furnished housing costs twice as much as unfurnished housing, even though the "value" you get from renting furniture from your landlord rapidly goes down as the price goes up. So at $300/month for a fully furnished room for rent, you could find a similar yet unfurnished room for rent for 3 million VND. A 4 million VND house would easily ask $400/month if furnished.

Picky about furniture? You will actually be better off buying your own and renting an unfurnished place. If you're concerned about not being certain how long you'll be here, just consider that the monthly savings could easily cover buying appliances, etc. in the 6 months your likely minimum shortest contract is for. If you do suddenly leave in 6 months you do have the option of selling your nearly new appliances. On the other hand, wait awhile before you move into your first permanent home and you might be fortunate enough to have new expat friends who decide to leave the country and give you their furniture and appliances! (One thing you quickly learn about being an expat is that we are an impermanent lot)

Oh, don't forget that you can actually affordably have custom furniture built for your home in Vietnam.

4. In general, not being too picky about having something in mind and finding something that matches it exactly. Did you willingly decide to move to Vietnam yourself? Then you should dispel any expectations of Vietnam changing itself to suit you on your arrival without having to conform in any way. If an international company sent you here to work then you might have an argument for being housed in more expensive expat housing.

Do you need to live on any given street, or really close to your work? Probably not if you can ride a motorbike.

In Vietnam, kitchens can range from spacious countertopped rooms to nothing but a sink. But a sink, anywhere with a water hookup, is the kernel of a kitchen. Any area with a sink can be turned into a kitchen with some tables and shelves. If the place is unfurnished, you can provide your own portable gas or electric stoves. Don't expect to find an oven, something most homes in this tropical climate don't have.

If you don't like how the rooms are arranged in a house, have you ever considered knocking down the walls and having the insides rebuilt to your liking? In Vietnam, this is actually an affordable option if you consider the savings compounded over more than a year. This includes adding new sinks or moving them around.

Do you need a pool in your apartment complex? If you did stay somewhere with a pool, keep in mind you would have to pay extra for it, when you could just live near a pool which you could go to when you felt like it. Despite the tropical climate, it's actually too cold to swim for many months anyways.

All that said, you should live somewhere you feel comfortable. If you have special requirements, even if they seem like normal requirements to you, it may take longer to find the right place or you may have to pay a lot more for it.
--



How much does a house cost in Saigon? Apartments for rent in Ho Chi Minh City

$25-$100

At the very low end might be a tiny, thin-walled (privacy is optional in Vietnam) room for rent with no private bathroom. In District 1, this might be $100/month. Outside of D1, maybe $25/month, but in this price range it would be more common for Vietnamese to share a room. But it's very unlikely this range of housing would suit a foreigner - if you can even find it such a place on your own.

$100-$125

Next up might be a small but furnished room for rent in District 1 from $100-$125/month. This would have a tiny bathroom in the room, but probably nowhere to cook. The small dimensions would make a lot of tall Westerners feel claustrophobic.

$150-$250

The Pham Ngu Lao backpacker district in D1 is full of guesthouses for rent for foreigners at around $200/month. These are generally furnished with beds, desks, closets, air conditioning, and a private bathroom. Like a hotel, there is housekeeping service included. On the other side of Tran Hung Dao, Co Giang and Co Bac Streets are full of these. Vietnamese would find similar housing for $150.

[ Alleys outside of D1 also have many one to two-storey small houses from 3 million VND (about $150) on up (unfurnished). ]

$250-$350

Old, non-luxury highrise apartments start from about 5 million VND ($250). For example:

  • - 1 bedroom apartment in D5, 10 minutes drive from downtown: 5 million
  • - 2 bedroom in brand new housing in the suburban districts: 7 million.
  • - 1 bedroom in an older midrise apartment complex 5 minutes from downtown: 6 million.

[ The outer districts (Tan Phu, Binh Tan, D6, D8, D12, D9) have a lot of brand new highrises being built. Meanwhile, there are very few buyers and the real estate market in Vietnam is in a deep slump. This means there is a vast oversupply of this kind of housing. ]

$400-$800

At this range you can rent a furnished four or five bedroom house for foreigners or a large serviced apartment (or what they will call "luxury apartments" here). This could be in District 1, District 2 (An Phu), District 7 (Phu My Hung), or elsewhere, and generally people (expats) go through agents to find these, although for apartments you can just walk up to an apartment building you like and there should be an agent on site so you could just cab it from highrise to highrise looking at serviced apartments.

You would also find houses for foreigners in The Ghetto (Thai Van Lung and Le Thanh Ton area of D1, which has many Japanese residents) in this range.

The bigger houses would be harder to find, but follow my instructions above.

$10000

Apparently, you can even pay this much for a crazy villa.

But anything above $1000 is outside the arena of value judgement when it comes to this blog post.



A note on online apartment finding services

While it would be really convenient if we could just use the same websites we used back home to find housing, unfortunately they don't work well here. While Craigslist does exist, it is full of a handful of real estate agents pumping their overpriced products. You can assume that anything on there is a ripoff.

Since MetVuong is no longer up, another website worth mentioning is MuaBan. It's the online presence of a popular classified ads paper published daily or weekly. You can also go buy a copy for a few thousand dong. You will see lots of listings for housing and it will give you an idea of how they're described. Get someone to translate for you. But beware: nearly all of the phone numbers are for real estate agents and not the actual landlord. They may not know which ad you're looking at when you call and they will definitely try to show you some other properties instead. They will also want to charge you for the privilege. It's rare that they will ever find a house for you to move into, but they make their money by just showing you any house.

Otherwise, for the time being, just avoid any online real estate website for foreigners.

Man.

We were only just going to a cafe, just a two minute drive away. I pulled onto a wide one-way street, a stretch of road which connected four major throughways, and drove along the straightaway while doing my best to not hit anyone in front of me - the only rule of the Vietnamese road. But out of nowhere another bike came in on my right, leaning into me, tangling our bikes together like knotted headphone cables.

When I first learned to ride a motorbike, I was a foreigner who came from an extremely car-based culture to Vietnam, a country which shows how a society can be built to work around motorbikes rather than cars. I wasn't used to seeing so many bikes and so few cars on the roads, nor was I used to riding a motorbike yet. But living in Vietnam the Vietnamese way means eating with chopsticks (for noodles, but using hands to eat chicken feet) and getting around via scooter.

After several years of riding a Honda motorbike in Vietnam, including a fantastic voyage from Saigon to Hoi An via the central highlands, I finally got into my first accident. If you ride in Vietnam long enough, it will happen to you too. It's like cancer - survive everything else long enough and cancer will kill you. You can lead a safer life and reduce your odds but the odds aren't great. Cut out bad habits like texting while riding, rubbernecking at Vietnamese girls. But if you live long enough without anything else killing you you'll wreck your bike.

Each year some 11,000 Vietnamese, and a handful of foreigners, die in motorbike accidents. For those who like gruesome soundbites, that's 1.5 deaths every hour. The number of non-fatal accidents is clearly orders of magnitude higher as they occur more often. In the middle are the statistics who sustain serious injuries and who will not be able to work to pay for their own medical bills. Sometimes the dead ones are the lucky ones.

You can drive slow. You can ride a 50cc Honda Cub that can only ride slow at its maximum speed anyways. You can concentrate on avoiding hitting anyone in front of you, as you must trust everyone behind you also does. You can be the minority who uses turn signals and stops at red lights. But you can't do a damn thing about someone running a red light or quickly passing you and then pulling into you well before they've cleared you (which is what happened to me). You can't get out of the way when a drunk-driving car fails to stop at a red light and smashes through rows of stopped bikes.

If you ever do "put your bike down" while you're moving, your two options are to stop suddenly or to skid. Both have their downsides. Stopping suddenly can lead to death (unless your bike is equipped with an airbag), while skidding can cause road rashes (unless you're wearing elbow pads and knee pads and some protective gloves).

"Sorry, I couldn't see anything because of my hood and I was running late to class!"

In my case, either the impact or my bike getting twisted up with the other person brought my bike down quickly and I slid down the street for what seemed like a while and I mangled my fingers and slid on my arms, elbows, and knees and somehow tore my pants at the hips and crushed my chest, while keeping my passenger (and the laptop I'm writing this on) protected. In hindsight, I should have leaned away from the ground as much as I could including taking my right hand off the handlebar.

I have advice for both cases. If you die, I'd love to hear from you - please leave a comment. If you get road rashes, after cleaning out the wounds (you should go to the hospital if you see bones or anything more than the first few layers of skin), you should apply generic Neosporin, which you should go find right now, before you ever need it, under the generic name of the 3 drugs it contains. What you find may include a topical anaesthetic as a bonus. It's actually quite hard to find so you want to have it on hand before you get into an accident. If you get nothing else from reading this post, just go out and buy a bunch of bottles of that stuff and give them away to your friends and loved ones.

Face it, Saigon is a hot and dirty city. You want to keep the wound moist, but not sweaty. Once you venture out you'll see how many different ways that germs could get into your wound from the dust blowing in the air off the street. You'll stare at all the people nearby not washing their hands, sneezing and coughing at you. You might think how if there was another plague we would be so screwed.

General hygiene aside, if you do get a road rash, expect it to hurt fairly constantly for a few days. This is where basic painkillers like ibuprofen (ibu in "Vietnamese") and topical analgesics help a lot. Until they scab over, try to not let the wounds get infected.

I just wrote about how to ride a motorbike. It's not hard but fairly necessary in Saigon, but that also means you're sharing the road with a lot of people who shouldn't be on motorbikes (or cars). Until Vietnam starts taking public transportation seriously though you will have to choose whether to take the risks in choosing how you want to join and be a part of Vietnamese traffic.

Basketball in Vietnam - Saigon Heat

Submitted by tomo on March 16, 2012 - 3:46am

Last night I went to my first Saigon Heat game (thanks Skunkworks!) against the Philippines Patriots (the Philippines actually have two teams in the ASEAN Basketball League). Despite being up by six in the first half, the Patriots swiftly brought nearly 20 points of defeat to Saigon, who seemed to make mistake after mistake. The Heat are Vietnam's only basketball team, have only been around since late last year, and have been trying to promote this rather unknown sport with lots of promotional tickets. There was a decent turnout that night and it really was a fun night out, despite our loss.

Saigon have two Americans on the team (including an ex-Laker, I hear) who tower over the rest of the players, as well as two Filipinos. The Philippines, with much stronger American influence, are relatively big fans of basketball whereas in Vietnam it's really all about soccer (bong da, da banh, football, whatever). But there are small numbers of Vietnamese who enjoy shooting hoops. (A few of us play irregularly on Sunday afternoons if anybody reading would like to join. Preferably, you are not too good.)

Despite regular (English language) TV programming support from the league, I think it will still take some effort for b-ball to take off in Vietnam, and Asia in general -- really, most countries outside of the U.S, although it's certainly gotten a lot more popular around the world. At the moment, it feels more like an expensive hobby for some Asians with a lot of money and a love for sport, but not enough to buy an NBA team proper. It will be a decade before Vietnamese kids who grow up watching basketball will be ready, and tall enough, to play for the Heat. Perhaps the owners of the Heat should invest in battling malnutrition among Vietnamese children - team up with Vinamilk!

Home games are at the Tan Binh Stadium. Tickets are as low as 40k and go up to 500k. Try catching an NBA game for $2 back in the states! It makes for a decent date if you're looking for date ideas. Tickets can be purchased at the stadium (18 Xuan Hong), as well as various Coffee Bean locations around town. See you there this Saturday as the Heat play the Indonesia Warriors (thanks Topica!).

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