Trip report to Vietnam..
Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:38 pm
Hey guys. This is my first post here although I've known Winston and Ladislav from the good ol AWS site although it's been many years since I talked to them. I'm a 48 year old insurance salesrep from Seattle and I'm married to a very lovely 28 year old Filipina who I brought over from Cebu 4 years ago.
A few of my friends went to visit Vietnam and it peaked my interest so I decided to take Cathy and another friend over for a visit. Granted, this trip was actually a side trip from Koh Samui (had to give my wife some much needed R&R on the beaches), we went to Ho Chi Minh for 3 days and it was enough to get a good feel for the place.
We had booked a hotel at the Spring Hotel which is right in the middle of District 1 for $35 a night. The hotel had a great location along with a clean room, free internet and free breakfast. Everything was great with the exception of the hard beds that are common in mid range Asian hotels.
While checking in, my wife immediately ran over to the Family Mart for sundries. The bellhop made it clear that attractive massage girls would come to your room for $17 US. Well since I was with my lovely wife, I'm not sure what the $17 entails but my I'm assuming that if you wanted so company all it would take is to whip our your DONG (lol Vietnamese Currency) and all would be taken care of.
The following day, the wife and I took an all day trip to the Mekong River which is a two hour air conditioned bus ride away. They took us on a river cruise, fed us, took us to a neat tour of Agent Orange victims who work at an arts and crafts factory, gave us coconut wine etc. It was a good experience to get out into the country to see how the average Viet lives and works. The neatest thing was the overall price which was $9 per person!!!
A trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels followed the next day. This is a tour of the elaborate tunnel system built by the Viet Cong to fight the American soldiers. It was a fascinating trip and it was well worth the $6 tour price. Yes the cost of the trips is comical because tour guides wouldn't drive you around the block here in Seattle for $6.
Back to Ho Chi Minh. It's a town with 2,000,000 motorscooters. Now just imagine that for a moment. The traffic is the craziest thing you've ever seen in your life. Yet them all seem to find their destinations accident free. It's simply mind boggling.
The Vietnamese people are great. They do tend to have the Chinese business attitude about them so they are VERY different from the Thais and Filipinos. If I were to use one word to describe them it would be CURT. Some of this might have to do with the language barrier however. So they are neither overly friendly or overly rude.
So for all you single guys out there, I am having a difficult time trying to determine they approachability of the Vietnesese women. Obviously I didn't try because the lovely Filipina chick was cramping my style....ah I joke. Having said that, I FIRMLY believe that Vietnamese women are the prettiest in Asia HANDS DOWN. My god I thought I was in heaven in Phils but the Vietnamese women are slender, big boobs, tan skin and beautiful faces and they are all over the place. They take the cake for the world's most feminine women.
You know if you could come in and trek around for 6 months by staying in $15 a night hotels (completely do-able) I think you would have a great time visiting HCMC, Hanoi, Nha Trang, Da Nang etc.
I definitely want to go back and check out more of this amazing country.
Pete/Seattle
A few of my friends went to visit Vietnam and it peaked my interest so I decided to take Cathy and another friend over for a visit. Granted, this trip was actually a side trip from Koh Samui (had to give my wife some much needed R&R on the beaches), we went to Ho Chi Minh for 3 days and it was enough to get a good feel for the place.
We had booked a hotel at the Spring Hotel which is right in the middle of District 1 for $35 a night. The hotel had a great location along with a clean room, free internet and free breakfast. Everything was great with the exception of the hard beds that are common in mid range Asian hotels.
While checking in, my wife immediately ran over to the Family Mart for sundries. The bellhop made it clear that attractive massage girls would come to your room for $17 US. Well since I was with my lovely wife, I'm not sure what the $17 entails but my I'm assuming that if you wanted so company all it would take is to whip our your DONG (lol Vietnamese Currency) and all would be taken care of.
The following day, the wife and I took an all day trip to the Mekong River which is a two hour air conditioned bus ride away. They took us on a river cruise, fed us, took us to a neat tour of Agent Orange victims who work at an arts and crafts factory, gave us coconut wine etc. It was a good experience to get out into the country to see how the average Viet lives and works. The neatest thing was the overall price which was $9 per person!!!
A trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels followed the next day. This is a tour of the elaborate tunnel system built by the Viet Cong to fight the American soldiers. It was a fascinating trip and it was well worth the $6 tour price. Yes the cost of the trips is comical because tour guides wouldn't drive you around the block here in Seattle for $6.
Back to Ho Chi Minh. It's a town with 2,000,000 motorscooters. Now just imagine that for a moment. The traffic is the craziest thing you've ever seen in your life. Yet them all seem to find their destinations accident free. It's simply mind boggling.
The Vietnamese people are great. They do tend to have the Chinese business attitude about them so they are VERY different from the Thais and Filipinos. If I were to use one word to describe them it would be CURT. Some of this might have to do with the language barrier however. So they are neither overly friendly or overly rude.
So for all you single guys out there, I am having a difficult time trying to determine they approachability of the Vietnesese women. Obviously I didn't try because the lovely Filipina chick was cramping my style....ah I joke. Having said that, I FIRMLY believe that Vietnamese women are the prettiest in Asia HANDS DOWN. My god I thought I was in heaven in Phils but the Vietnamese women are slender, big boobs, tan skin and beautiful faces and they are all over the place. They take the cake for the world's most feminine women.
You know if you could come in and trek around for 6 months by staying in $15 a night hotels (completely do-able) I think you would have a great time visiting HCMC, Hanoi, Nha Trang, Da Nang etc.
I definitely want to go back and check out more of this amazing country.
Pete/Seattle