Day 4, 9/17/12

Day 4, 9/17/12

I didn't end up meeting with my uncle and we rescheduled for lunch the next day. Since we had an evening to ourselves, we decided to treat ourselves to a massage. Alright boys and girls, there are several massage parlors here and if you're looking for a legitimate massage (no happy ending), you'll want to got to a spa where the employees are wearing uniforms that look like a lab coat. A full body massage is about $200,000V, the correct abbreviation is VND, so I'll use that from here on out also everything is in thousands/K so I'll be abbreviating that as well. No wonder Asian people are so damn good at math, they're always dealing with such large numbers; thousands and millions. Anyway Paul and I undressed and shared a massage room, where a room divider separated us. The massage was decent but I'll have to remember to pretend that I do not speak Vietnamese because the masseuse would not stop asking questions and it's really difficult to enjoy a massage when you're being interrogated about your background for an hour. Paul definitely lucked out and enjoy his $10USD full hour massage.

Day 5, 9/18/12

We finally woke up at a decent time, I think it was 6am, the last few nights we've been waking up at 4am. I don't know if it's the whole time change thing or the fact that our diets have changed so drastically. The food is really light here and the portions are very small or perfect for me. But I'm usually hungry an hour later because I've sweated out the food or because my body just metabolizes it so quickly. It's also possible that since our diets don't consist of fatty foods, it takes less energy to metabolize hence we are gaining more energy, it's just my theory.

Paul and I have been taking probiotics aka encephalitis, the brand we purchased in the States is called Pearls. It is all natural and I think this little round shaped pill has helped us acclimate to the food and drinks. We decided to take a risk and order our coffees with ice. It's been the second time we drank the water and we're doing great. The advice is the same in Vietnam as it is in Mexico or any developing country about the “unfiltered” water. But I swear this little pill has made us invincible.

So today's goal was to open a bank account, boy was this quite the mission. There are several popular banks here and we have our pickings but there were several problems we faced at each bank:

• VIB-Vietnamese bank, claims to be international but wouldn't open an account for Paul because he is white. However because I am Asian, I was allowed to, for the first time I was not considered a foreigner.

• Saccomb-I learned of 2 incidences where this bank made several errors, the deposit and withdrawal feature was reversed and people who banked with them ended up with less money after making a deposit, apparently it was some system failure, I think it eventually got cleared up, but this makes me apprehensive to open an account here.

• ANZ-Australian bank we ended up with, BTW if you decide to open an account and have brought money over, be sure to declare up to 5K USD at customs, here's the retarded part about this whole process. When you are clearing customs you're no longer required to fill out a declaration form, so we obviously didn't. So basically I can deposit my undeclared money but cannot transfer it back to the United States because any money leaving the country must be justified, the government wants to know the origin of your money. This country is so backwards and I can go into more crazy details but I'll do this only if you want to open an account. The funniest thing about this policy is that there is a way around it, and guess who told me to withdraw the money and take it to a blackmarket to change the VND to USD and to smuggle it back to the US, the fraken ANZ teller...this place is so backwards! Also, Paul is having one heck of a time depositing “traveler's checks” apparently these are worthless in Vietnam. We were sent from branch to branch ensuring that the other branch can make his deposit, but when it came down to it, we were sent home without success. So why are we willing to run around and take this crap? Well you see, Vietnam has an incentive when one makes a large deposit for a long amount of time. The interest rate is not 5% or 7%, it's 9%!!! There is a one year term where I cannot withdraw the money, but what I am legally able to do is go to the bank and withdraw my earned interest monthly. So let's say you deposit $5K USD, you can make about $750K VND a month. Here's a fun fact, most locals can probably live off of this. The average wage for locals is 1.4-2M VND (50-100 USD).    

1. 
   Example of street names we need to memorize, so we can make our way around
   
   
    Electrocution sign, posted at every street corner, it's an epidemic
   
   
    Ben Thanh Market, narrow aisles filled with commodities and colorful fruits
   
   
    Lunch Lady-street vendor
   
   
    Hu Tiu (found the correct spelling)
   
   
   Layout of Nha Hang Ngon-it's a large restaurant that serves almost every North, Middle, and South Vietnamese dishes.  All of the food is layed out along the wall of the entire place.  A must see restaurant in D1.
   
   
    My Australian uncle!  Tiger beer is popular here, you can see it off to the left.
   
    Another traffic video, I still can't get over how crazy it is.
   
   
   Paul and my Uncle Chi at the Nha Hang Ngon Restaurant.  By the way that is Paul's money pack underneath his shirt.  No comment about what's under my uncle's shirt.
   
   

   

   
   

   Slums of Vietnam

   
   

   

    PMH fitness pool near Crescent Mall
   

   

    Plugs in Vietnam, remember to bring converter 110v to 220v
   

   

    Dried package noodles, Pearls and imitation Siracha
   

   

    Room Policy posted in each room, ie. hotel key required to be turn in to front desk when we leave, the key is needed to power the entire room, hence you can't leave AC on...smart way to conserve energy and save money
   

   

    Hotel rules..very common at every Saigon Hotel
   

   

    our cell phone number starting with 01, feel free to call
   

   

   our magic jack set up with our cheeseburger phone :)