These days I'm sight-seeing most of the time and in the evening I'm too tired to write anything, so the posts are appearing quite slowly. I'm already in Bangkok but the blog is still stuck in Vietnam. There are still some things I want to write about Vietnam. For example, why is there a security guard sitting in front of every shop and in every corner? Are the people constantly waiting for someone to rob the store? Once I hesitated at the door, wondering if I should go inside a fashionable clothing store with my grocery shopping. The guard jumped up from his seat and rushed to open the door for me. He must have been thinking that a foreigner might not be able to use the door. Just joking. It is all about the service in Vietnam. The customers' happiness is important, even if it's only a potential customer. So, there is a guard who will take of many things in front of the store. Otherwise I think being a guard is very boring, since nothing much seems to happen. One store I passed by frequently employed a guard who seemed to sleep through most of his working hours.
Talking about politeness, for me it was a strange experience to be addressed as "Miss" or "madam" I'm too old to be miss and too young to be madame. I'm not used to that. In Finland it's very rare these days to address anyone as mister, miss, madame. It's just not the done thing. But I gather from the context that in Vietnam it would be rude not to address the person with an appropriate term. "Hey, you" might sound very impolite.
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| Vietnam, a country where even your coffee mug is polite |
On Saturday I went Vivo City hypermarket with my friend. Supermarkets abroad always offer amusement for hours on an end but Vivo City had decided to really shine. Or Heineken had decided to shine. They offered free beer first thing in the morning. I immediately listed all the reasons why beer promotions would be such a bad idea n Finland. Imagine City Market offering a glass of Heineken. The queue would go all the way from Helsinki to Turku.
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| Well, maybe I will try then |
I had constant trouble with the highly inflated Vietnamese currency, dong. In Vietnam everybody is a water-proof millionaire. Namely you'll only need to have a bit less than 40 euros to attain the questionably honorable status of being a millionaire in Vietnam. Now, because of the above-mentioned reasons, the prices tend to be completely absurd. A dragon fruit will cost you around 20.000 dong. A restaurant bill for a group of four could be something like 200,000. And if you want to buy branded clothes, be sure to have a backpack full of bank notes, you won't see price tags smaller than one million too often. And coins are not used anymore, because they have lost their value a long time ago. even the currency exchange at the airport refused to exchange 500 and 200 dong notes because in practice hardly anything costs less than 1000 dong. The less than 10,000 dong price range consists mainly of snacks like chocolate, chips, cakes etc.
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| I've been waiting for this day to come |
If I could rewrite my travel plan, I would spend more time in Vietnam. I fell in love with the country. The people are nice and helpful, even though sometimes I admit getting annoyed by the old men who wanted to give me a ride on their iron horses, wherever I want to go. No thanks, I like walking, no need for a motor bike taxi. Walking is good for health.
And the food was so good! I feel like i just ate all the time. When I had downed breakfast, it was time to start planning lunch. After lunch came afternoon coffee and shortly after that dinner. My friends told me eating is an important part of the Vietnam experience, better eat now when the local dishes are easily available. So I ate everything that appeared in front of me and still lost some weight. I love Vietnamese food! PS. did you ever try eating fruits with chili and salt? Try it! Never knew this combination is possible. Works especially well with pineapple.
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| Saturday lunch |
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