Adventure Accounting

Vietnam, particularly HCMC, is a simple country. Simple, clean, and relatively uncomplicated. The language barrier will be a fun challenge. Not everyone speaks English, but the locals were quite nice and helpful. A monk in the streets If you are itching for a different adventure, Mui Ne is a good option. The bus ride from HCMC is just 5 hours.  Sand dunes, anyone? Here's the table of expenses for our Vietnam leg of the Indochina trip. Some costs are divided by two because I have a travel buddy this time.

Traveling and Saving? Yes. They can go together. Traveling and Dieting? Bad idea. Vietnam is heaven for foodies, and hell for dieters. I’ve been trying , really trying to diet (or EAT HEALTHY) this year. But dieting does not complement traveling. I just have to try out the food – and eating healthy is sheer torture during vacation. So the "Eat Healthy" mantra was parked during this entire Indochina Trip . Food in Vietnam is cheap! You’ve probably read about this a million times. It is a million times true!  Our first Vietnamese meal is from some restaurant in a side street between the War Remnants Museum and our hotel in the backpackers area . We were famished after a day of touring (with no lunch) and our feet needs to rest.  Lamangloob soup Our first dinner is in a restaurant located in one of the streets around Pham Ngu Lao. Their menu is translated to English - a red flag  that the place is intended for tourists. But their food is actuall...

Despite the lack of a website, Bich Duyen Hotel ranks in the top 10 of the top hotels in HCMC in Tripadvisor. It is also highly recommended in forums and blogs. The price: $17 a night for a double bed with a private bathroom, seems reasonable. Wifi, hot water, breakfast, accessible, within the budget – meets all my criteria .The TV is a bonus. I made my reservation by emailing Bich Duyen. I just got the email address from a forum. The reply was prompt, cordial and complete. They offer a pick-up service from the airport for $14, and they also arrange the tours and tickets.   All the hotels in the same alley On the night of our arrival, our driver stopped in front of a narrow street lit up by several neon signs of some shops. In the morning, we realized the hotel's location is ideal. It is surrounded with lots of convenience stores, souvenir shops and cheap food options.

The Cu Chi Tunnel + Cao Dai tour is a popular tour in HCMC. The whole day tour just costs $8. At around 8:00am, the bus will start collecting passengers around the Backpacker’s area. We were the first stop so we had to go around and pick up other passengers. It was past 9am when the bus picked up speed in the highway on the way to Cao Dai Temple. Our guide's nickname is Slimjim. His accent was acceptable and his English is passable. He taught English in the province for more than 20 years, then wanted to do something else. Now, he is a travel guide – a pretty nice job where you can practice your English, and learn some other languages as well. Our guide, Slimjim. This is the first time we have someone to tell us all about Vietnam. The tour was enriching. I’m going to limit sharing about the details. I think the story-telling part is better left to the tour guide.  :) The ride to the Cao Dai temple took around two hours. We had a 15-minute bathroom break durin...

Or Saigon, as I’ve known since my kindergarten years. Kinda harder to spell now. We landed in Tan Son Nhat International Airport past midnight. Normally, I’d like to camwhore around a new airport, but it was already past midnight. It was a toss between arriving a new land and wanting to rest my head in the nearest pillow available.  Group pic time! We headed to the foreign exchange desk to change our dollars. The forex rate then was 1USD=20,700 VND. We changed $50 = VND 1,035,000 for our 5nights/4 days stay. Our accommodations, the bus fare and tours all accepted dollars so the Dong will just be for food, tips, minor purchases and some souvenirs.   The forex counter After being millionaires, we headed to our pick-up service. I booked the pick-up service from our hotel (Bich Duyen Hotel) for $14. I didn’t want to deal with taxis after arriving in a foreign country after midnight. After all, we are millionaires now, so we deserve some royal treatment...