I just got back from Vietnam. I spent 2 week with my wife's family, so I didn't get gouged (tourist usually pay 4-5x what locals pay for stuff). I mostly avoided the tourist spots and the wife's family kept the street vendors honest.😁
My wife kept telling me to act like the locals so that I'd blend in. Honey, I can try to act like the locals, but with my accent...😬 Oh, they can tell from how you carry yourself that you're a foreigner.🤨 I lived like the locals and it was a blast. When in Saigon (HCM City), do as...🤗
Good gawd, the streets are wall to wall shops. Every block is a mini strip mall. What appears to be a back alley between shops turns out to be an entire neighborhood complete with street vendors of its own. I stayed with my wife's family in one of those back alley neighborhoods.😊
The first time riding a motorcycle/scooter in HCM City traffic was a brown trousers moment.😱 Holy 💩, it's as crazy as you see them in the
YouTube videos. Law of the Jungle boys. The reason they managed and without multi-vehicle accidents is because everyone is reasonably courteous.
Crossing the street in that kind of traffic is not recommended unless you learn from the local how it's done. My niece showed me the way. Two rules: keep you eyes on the traffic and walk naturally. In the above Youtube video, you see a family walk across traffic at the 1:25 time stamp. That's how you cross the street. If you juke and jive like Frogger, you'd end up *splat* like Frogger.
You've seen humorous photos of people transporting everything from chickens to refrigerators on the back of motorcycles on the Internet. Welp, I got to experience that first hand. I sat in the back of a motorcycle holding onto 3 oversized framed pictures. I almost fell off.😓
The food. Oh man, the home cooked meals were Michelin Star worthy. The restaurant food... well, they cater more to tourist's taste.😒 The fruits that cost an arm and a leg here (sugar apples, mangosteen, cherimoya) is dirt cheap over there and a lot tastier. I gorged myself on the equivalent of several thousand $$$ worth [if bought in 'Merica] of sugar apples and cherimoyas. The savings on exotic fruits alone covered the cost of my plane ticket.😏
The only bad thing I can say about my stay was, good Lawd, it was hotter than the devil's butt crack there. A/C is a luxury that folks only install in their bedrooms. The rest of the house is 🥵🥵🥵.
