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I was going to start this by saying “Hello” in Vietnamese but it’s differs depending on whom you are addressing. To an older man it is “Chao ong.” To an older woman it is “Chao da.” To a younger man it is “Chao anh.” To a younger woman it is “Chau co.” To small children it is “Chao chau.” I think I have covered everyone now so now on with a little report on the trip Cecilia and I had in Viet nam.

I’ve posted some photos in Facebook for you to see, the link is below. I will be adding more photos and some videos on YouTube over the next few days, when I do I’ll post a message here so you can have a look.

My first Vietnam Album on Facebook.

We started in Ho Chi Minh city and this was my first time in an Asian country (other than Chinatown in the heart of Sydney, which is nothing like the real thing). Cecilia on the other hand was born in Taiwan so was quite accustomed to the hustle and bustle.

First thing straight out of the airport was a wall of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ taxi drivers all bidding for your fare into the city. The difference between an ‘official’ and an ‘unofficial’ taxi driver is the fact an ‘unofficial’ driver is only using his personal car so be aware of this when picking a taxi. Prices were starting from US$15, which is close to what we would have paid in Australia for the same distance, but we were told we could bargain them down to US$6 if we persisted. You can also insist they use their meter if you can’t bargain them down to $6, but there is a chance the meter is ‘rigged’ to charge you more, thus the reason why we negotiated a flat rate. It also gets away from paying for traffic jams or being taken ‘the long way’ to your destination. One guy we made the offer to came back to us because he had found another lady for his taxi, so this guy was smart, he was going to collect twice as much as everyone else by taking two fares into the city. I thought he was clever so agreed to share the taxi, turns out this lady lived only 10 minutes drive from where we do in Australia. It always amazes me when travelling how often you can bump into someone who lives not far from where we do. I mean, not just from the same country but almost from the same suburb.

The trip in the taxi was NUTS! Ho Chi Minh City has a population of 8 million people and 4 million mopeds, mopeds being those little motorbikes similar to a Vespa. It was almost like a race or one of those games you play on a Playstation where you have to get through a city as fast as possible without hitting anyone else along the way. The lady we shared the taxi with sat in the front and I’m sure she left fingernail marks in the seat because she was freaking out at the way the moped riders kept darting in and out of the traffic. Even though there seemed to be little regard for traffic it did have what I started to call an “Organised Chaos”.

We soon arrived at The Sol Chancery Hotel at 196 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street and checked in. One word of advise about booking higher priced hotels, book the reservation online, in doing so we saved US$20 per night, the usual room rate advertised at the desk when we were staying there was US$75 per night, we only paid US$55. If you shop around and prepared to stay in something a bit smaller you can pay as little as US$20 per night, this is what we did when we returned to Ho Chi Minh City before leaving for home.

The room at the Chancery was almost like a small suite and included a buffet breakfast in the morning with a wide selection of food to choose from. Once we checked in and dumped our bags Cecilia and I decided to hit the streets and find somewhere to eat. We arrived in Vietnam in the evening and had just been on a plane for 7 hours so we were really looking forward to grabbing some local food for dinner. We heard about a local street market called Ben Thanh Market near the Tran Nguyen Hai Statue on Tran Hung Dao Boulevard that had a lot of “street tent restaurants” after 6pm to choose from so we decided to give it a try.

First obstacles you come across when walking through Ho Chi Minh are a number of moped owners offering to take you where you are going. The price is always very reasonable costing anywhere form US$2 to US$5 depending on how far you want to travel, but we decided we wanted to walk and see more of the sights. We walked to the end of the street and met with our next challenge, how to cross a busy street without any traffic lights. When you have dozens of modes coming from both directions is seems like an impossible task, but the best method to achieve this is to walk steadily across the street while watching the moped riders. Don’t stop whatever you do, as this will confuse the rider. It is the riders job to weave around you while you cross the street, a system they are quite accustomed to and do with easy, so just walk, watch and don’t stop and before you know it you will be on the other side.

We finally arrived at the markets where the fun began. Each stall you pass you are asked to come and have a look and buy something. I can understand why people are so willing to try and sell you something when the average income in Vietnam is US100 per month, so every dollar to them is precious, another reason why I had a hard time bargaining over a couple of dollars for something, but everyone says you take the price they offer you and halve it at a starting price for the negotiation.

Everything is so cheap in Vietnam, even though all the prices are in Dong, (yes we had a chuckle about the name of the currency too so I don’t blame you if you did also), and when we were there I used a simple conversion of US$1 equalling 15,000 Dong (although it was a little more it just made the calculation easier). To give you an example of the prices in Vietnam, meal for two including two 750ml bottles of beer 150,000 Dong. I know that sounds like a lot but when you do the conversion it works out to be about US$10. Packet of cigarettes 16,000 Dong, bottle of beer 15,000 Dong and a ride on the local bus to down town only costs 3,000 Dong for each trip. So as you can see everything is cheap compared to the prices most of us a used to.

After dinner we had a look around the numerous stalls selling everything you could imagine. We decided to head back to the hotel for a good nights sleep and hit the streets early in the morning with fresh eyes.

Ho Chi Minh City is not so much a city as a small province covering an area of 2029 sq kms stretching from the South China Sea almost to the Cambodian border. Most of this vast territory is rural, dotted with villages and groups of unusually narrow houses set amid rice paddies. The rural regions account for about 90% of the land area of Ho Chi Minh City and hold around 25% of the municipality’s population. The other 75% is crammed into the remaining 10% that constitutes the urban centre.

The urban centre is still unofficially called ‘Saigon’, but offically, ‘Saigon’ refers only to District 1, which is only one small piece of the municipal pie. Southerners certainly prefer the name ‘Saigon’, but northerners tend to toe the official line and call it Ho Chi Minh City.

I think I’ll end off here for now being the end of the first night in Vietnam. Don’t forget to have a look at some of the photos I took while in Vietnam on Facebook. There are only a couple of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) the rest are of other parts of the trip. If you enjoyed what I have written so far let me know by leaving a comment below. If you would like me to write more about the trip, including photos and video let me know as well. I have a lot of people and places I can recommend if you are thinking of travelling to Vietnam including where to get tailor made clothes and shoes at the prices you can’t imagine possible.

Ian