The neighbourhood

Currently I'm living in the Hai Ba Trung Street. One of the main roads of Ho Chi Minh City in the city center. In general it is not a nice and beautiful area, but very interesting and very busy. There is one sightseeing spot in Hai Ba Trung, which is quite interesting: The pink chuch - Tan Dinh Church

As probably noticeable, it's a catholic church. Unfortunately I couldn't go in yesterday as a worship was taken place.

The atmosphere around Hai Ba Trung is really busy. See here a few impressions:

Of course there are little food stands and shops filling the whole street.

Actually I quite enjoy living in this area, as it really is Ho Chi Minh city at its best and purest. The main and important spots are in walking distance, and if you're too lazy to walk, a taxi is always near and not more than 2 -5 USD.

You'll never starve in Ho Chi Minh City

Of course every big city in the world offer a lot to eat. However I find Ho Chi Minh city pretty interesting in terms of food. The variety of food is excellent. And you can get a full meal already for 2-3USD. I like the vietnamese kitchen very much. Nevertheless I was a bit disappointed as I'm missing the final kick.
Traditional dish of Vietnam is a soup called Pho:

A big pot of soup with either beef, pork or chicken meet, and of course vegetables. But be prepared not to only find the meet but bones, fibres, pure fat and actually everything from the respective animal. Taste is ok, and it is really cheap when you get a Pho on the street.

Vietnam is the only Asian country I know with something you could call bread culture.
Well it is not exactly a culture, but the Vietnamese eat a lot of bread, But there is more or less only one kind: The Banh mi. We would call it Baguette. Coming from the colonial times, when the French brought bread to Indochina, the Vietnamese adapted this food into their culture. You can get a Banh mi at every corner of the city. There are special ones for breakfast, where they put fried eggs into it, together with vegetables and sauces. Quite delicious. I tried it today for the first time, as there is one typical stand directly in front of our office building. But I think the guy ripped me off. As he didn't speak any English I gave him 20000VND (~1USD). I got 5000VND as change. The most expensive Banh mis I saw in the city are around 12000VND. So I got screwed for something like 11 Cents :).

And here is what it looked like:

This is a typical stand, where they sell it:

And there is this huge selection of restaurants here in Ho Chi Minh City. Western Restaurant where you can easily spend the monthly salary of a Vietnamese worker: For example El Gaucho. Delicious Steak house with a very good selection of Wines. Meat is imported, so that's why you can spend 50USD or more per Steak. Not a restaurant for the typical business lunch.

Barbecue Garden: Very nice restaurant, where you select skewers and vegetables to grill it yourself at your table. Reasonably priced.

But of course there are as well top Vietnamese restaurants: The Cục Gạch Quán: They serve typical Vietnamese food in a beautiful location. It's in a very quiet area of Ho Chi Minh city, actually a bit difficult to find. Food is excellent, and would be a recommendation for tourists to try Vietnamese food for the first time. 

Of course we didn't even scratch the surface with this little selection of restaurants. But I'm looking forward to explore more... 

 

Busy, Busy, Busy

I'm sorry, that I haven't posted for a few days now. Evenings are currently a bit busy, with Networking and official events.
Anyway, there is not so much to tell about it, but fortunately I get to know the restaurants of HCMC better and better. One of the next posts will be about the food here in Vietnam.

Nevertheless please see below a example of the traffic in Vietnam... Have fun :)!

Maybe a better and more romantic point of view:

Traffic in frenetic Ho Chi Minh City

Golf for a change!

As I am still an absolute beginner in terms of Golf, but my goal is to become a single handicapper here in Vietnam, I have to go out on a real golf course from time to time. So, I went with a nice german couple out to the Royal Islands Golf Course around 60km north east of Ho Chi Minh City. Since there are no motorways as in Europe, 60km are quite far and take up to 2 hours driving time. However, driving towards the Golf course, you pass by the chinese factories which were burnt down during the riots in spring this year. You see burnt factory buildings, trucks and vehicles, completely abandoned. Unfortunately I couldn't take good pictures out of the car.

As we continued our ride, you more and more get a feeling about the countryside of Vietnam. Quite beautiful. Rice fields with water buffalos in it, small and slow rivers passing through some kind of rain forests. Banana and papaya trees along the road. Really nice.

Then in the middle of this scenery, there is the golf course. 

Golf is not a sport for the average Vietnamese, since it is really expensive here. Green fee at the course was 86 USD for 18 holes. That's a fifth or a quarter of the average income here in Vietnam. So most of the players are foreigners. Mostly Japanese or Korean. 

As well as in China, you always have a Caddy with you. 

Here a few impressions of the Golf course:

Playing there is real fun. However, it was freaking hot. During the first hour sun was burning down. Then fortunately it got cloudy, and it cooled down a few degrees. Even though I thought I was drinking enough (something like 2,5 litres) I got a small heat stroke at the end, having a bad headache and feeling sick. I could cool down a bit in the shower of the club, but still the drive back wasn't so nice as on the way towards the course.
Nevertheless I really enjoyed the time there. I guess I didn't improve at all, since I lost quite some balls in the lakes on the course, but still, it was fun. Unfortunately there are not so many courses around Ho Chi Minh City. But I hope that I will get the opportunity to play a few more courses here.

Go with the flow...

As already posted, there is basically one main mode of transport in Ho Chi Minh City respectively in Vietnam, the motorbike.
The bikes are used for commuting, for transportation, for fun. Sometimes you can see whole families sitting on a bike, or large amount of cargo being transported with.

The Vietnamese are very creative in fixing the cargo to the bike. I'm always impressed, that nothing happens. The cargo normally is not secured or fixed according to western standards, but obviously it works. 

Just a few more impressions of the bikes in Ho Chi Minh City:

The reason why there are so many bikes is pretty simple. Cars are just not affordable for the average Vietnamese. There is a luxury tax of 150% on the net sales price of cars in Vietnam (as well on big motorbikes). So a small car can easily cost up to 50000USD. 

So as this is far above my budget, I'm now doing my market research for a motorbike. Today I went to a Piaggio Dealer which is conveniently located directly next to my apartment. Nowadays Piaggio produces as well in Vietnam, in order to lower the prices (no import duties and taxes, when bikes are produced in Vietnam). Nevertheless, Piaggio Scooters are very pricey here. Honda is a bit cheaper and Suzuki and Yamaha are rather cheap. 

Honda seems to have a market share of more than 50% here in Vietnam. Especially the Model Wave seems to be quite popular. You get a new one for around 800 USD. 

Anyway, Vespas and all other models from Piaggio are just nice. Italians can design. The Japanese have more the pragmatical approach in terms of design. So I was browsing in the shop and talked to the dealer. I asked for a test drive, and they said no problem. So they gave me a Vespa, and one of the sales guys was accompanying me during the test drive. You can imagine that my adrenaline level was rising quite high when I drove out onto the street into the flow of bikes. After a few hundred meters actually you get used to it, and when you go with the flow and be a little bit more focused than it's not a big deal driving in this traffic and after a while actually fun. So, during the next weeks, I will continue to look for bikes and probably get one as well, since I miss my (bigger) motorbike back in Germany. As Vietnam is a bit special in terms of regulations, I will have to get a Vietnamese driving license as an International or European Driving license is not valid here. 

I can only recommend to watch the Vietnam Special of Top Gear. There you can see how you obtain a vietnamese driving license. As a foreigner, you only have to do the practical part, no theory.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a few more test drives and finally having a bike on my own.

Let's talk business

In addition to the last post, of things you don't get used to it for me, it's clearly one thing I forgot to mention: the climate.

Ok, It's now 2 weeks I'm here in Vietnam, but the heat and humidity is stressful. I have some kind of ritual coming home every evening. Since I shut down the air conditioning (2 for the living room and 1 for the bedroom) I always prepare before entering the apartment for a very warm welcome. Then running to the remote controls of the air conditioning and waiting for the cool breeze to come. Anyway, basically every shop, office, car etc. is air conditioned. So when you're not outside, you don't really feel the temperature. And this is currently the cold season...

Today was a very interesting day. We were visiting customers roughly 60km outside of Ho Chi Minh City in Binh Doungh Province.

First we visited a pepper and spice processing company. Unfortunately we could not go inside the production due to hygiene regulations. But it was very interesting to learn about spice processing and how the world market of spices works. Vietnam is the No. 1 exporting country of Pepper in the world.

Second stop was a rattan furniture producer. We've been shown around the production, which was very interesting, to see how these furnitures are being produced respectively handmade. First the frames are made from aluminium bars, bent, welded together and painted

Afterwards, the rattan is woven around the frames:

Ok, Rattan itself is a natural product. But many furnitures are made from Polyrattan nowadays, as it doesn't need as much maintenance as natural rattan, lasts longer and is cheaper.  A chair needs about 8 hours of weaving, and a sofa around 2 days. 

It was very interesting to see this kind of production.

Third stop was a customer producing plastic foil. Actually Plastic foil is a essential part of everyone's life in the world. Imagine a supermarket without plastic bags --> plastic foil. All kinds of packaging --> plasic foil. I couldn't image a life without it (leaving the bad aspects aside). But did you know how plastic foil is being produced? I didn't and was really surprised how it looks:

Plastic granulate is being heated until it melts and the melt down plastic is then blown into the foil which looks very amazing. After it cooled down a bit you already have finished plastic foil which then can be further processed. There are different types of plastic granules / Polyethylen, which produces different kinds of foils for the respective use. As written before, pretty interesting for such an "uninteresting" product.

Last, but not least, we were heading to a customer, mainly producing stamped parts. As a project they produce high tech locks for school lockers. 

It really was a cool day. This was only a fraction of what is being done and produced in Vietnam. There is a huge potential of this country, and it's great being currently a part of it.