one month in Vietnam

Dear all my friends,

I stayed nearly one month in Vietnam and it was another brilliant month !
The thing I did not like was the weather, because in the north it was hot and very very humid, which reminded me a bit of Rio de Janeiro.

On arrival in Hanoi, the first things you notice are the Mopeds, I took lots of Moped photos and
the max amount of people on a moped I saw was a family of four.
The moped helmet industry is more taking care of the design, if you can afford a helmet !
















Which brings me to the next point: Money
The vietnamese currency is the Dong and the Dong has lots of zeros...
1 Million Dong converts into 40 Euros and on my first ATM visit I took 8 Million Dong !

One night watching the vietnamese version of "who wants to be a millionaire" the question of the top price is a serious problem. The TV shows 120.000 dong which is about 5 Euro, but it should be a bit more... After some research I found out that the top price is 120 million = 5000 Euro !
















Besides beautiful nature, the war leftovers are a big tourist attraction and for me the highlight was getting into the tunnels near Saigon. Because I lost some weight, it was even possible to get in and more importantly out of the holes in the ground.















So far Vietnam was the cheapest country to travel through and I spent about 600 Euros in one month including another 7 kilo parcel with souvenirs and a custom made suit sent home ! The big difference is also that, because accomodation is so cheap, there are no hostels in Vietnam. I had most of the time a single room just for me ! The negative thing about it is, that you meet less people travelling. Luckely I was diving and met Alexia and David on the diveboat and even continued my travels with David for the next couple of days to Dalat in the mountains. In Vietnam I took my first night sleeper bus, a bit short for a normal west european, but NO WORRIES !















From Saigon I will fly on the 08.07.2008 to Kuala Lumpur and continue my travels in Malysia and Singapore. Beginning of August I will fly north again to either Thailand or Cambodia.