Motorbike driving in HCMC Part 1

As promised, I managed to cut my first video.
Of course it's not a masterpiece, but at least it gives a little impression of driving in HCMC when there is basically no traffic!

Enjoy:

Happy New Year!!

At the moment, Vietnam is celebrating Lunar New Year! This year it's the year of the Goat. So everything is nicely decorated, flower markets are basically everywhere and everybody seems to lose their minds...

Since it is custom to give presents for Tet, I was visiting a lot of customers during the last 2 weeks. You normally bring a typical gift basket with some snacks, wine and other foodstuff. Once we visited as well a little candle factory. A very manual work:

Before Tet, traffic is getting worse and worse here in HCMC. In certain districts, traffic is so dense, that even walking is basically not possible anymore...

At the moment all streets are more or less empty. Most of the people went to their families in their hometowns. Meaning, most of the people living here, someday moved to HCMC for work, similar to China.

Point now is, that for the days during Tet, most of the shops and restaurants and business are officially closed. So, you should be prepared and fill up your fridge in advance with food.
But it's a good time to calm down a bit, clean up the desk and take some rest. Still have to figure out the GoPro video software and edit my first video. Might take another few days :)!

Daily routine

Well, like everywhere, somehow the daily routine gets you in the end. I somehow managed to organise most of the important things and know where to get the stuff I want and need. Know I have a good shop for getting camera equipment with decent prices, clothes I get mainly from the Russian Market, as everything else either doesn't have european sizes or is simply a rip off. Or I go to my tailor, who recently made me 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants again. Shirts were 23USD each and pants 25USD each. Quality again was really good.
 I have established a rather good relationship with a watch dealer, and I found a hairdresser who understands at least want I want. For food I have now 3 regular places to go: Metro for especially drinks, Annam Gourmet for European food (but ridiculously expensive), and Big C around the corner of my home for Vietnamese food. Today I looked for the nearest Gas Station, which is around 2 km away, check!
Then there is a rather big shop, where you can buy electronics and white goods for decent prices: Ngyuen Kim. However you should always bring some time with you, as the payment process is a bit complicated. You always have to go to a sales clerk, and tell him/her: I want that! Then you get a receipt with which you have to go to the cash desk. The person at the cash desk takes the receipt and puts it under a pile of other receipts. First in first out principle. Then you wait in a queue until your receipt is due. Then you pay and get a bigger receipt. With this receipt you go to the ground floor and wait for your item to be handed over at the "handing over desk". Then you're done. Normally it takes only 20-30 minutes until you finally have your product in hand.
My favourite fast food place: Gotcha Burgers! Better quality than in any Burger King or McD, and even cheaper! Love the place!
Now I found an excellent rooftop bar with an amazing view over Ho Chi Minh City.

But what is much more important is that I finally know some people better and better and start to build up some friendships. This is something I was missing since I started here. So my weekends are even fuller now, but I do enjoy it more and more.
However, I do look forward to Tet (Lunar New Year). Office will be closed, which means, that I will have some days off. The last weeks were a bit stressful since before Tet everybody is going crazy here, and we have a lot more work to do. And the coming days will not be better.