Job Discussion Forums

[lost_gypsy]

Hey! Found a great story from a backpacker hilighting his travels in Sagion around late 90s/2000:
http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/1202

What I want to know is; how much have prices changed since that time on the typicals? Here are a few copied bits from his story:

"A substantial breakfast of an omelet and baguette with strong filtered coffee can easily be found for less than a U.S. dollar."

"The beer on De Tham Street is cold, cheap, tasty and plentiful. You can get big bottles of BGI, Tiger, Heineken, San Miguel, 333 Export and Bia Saigon for 10,000 dong apiece; if you don't mind slightly flat beer you can try bia hoi, which is the no-name draft brew that sells for 8,000 dong a liter--and that's the tourist price."

"Room quality oscillates wildly from guesthouse to guesthouse, and as I discovered, it pays to shop around. The first time I came to Saigon I paid $12 for a room at the Mini-Hotel Huy Hoang.When I returned to Saigon some weeks later I had acquired a better sense of what my dollars could buy in terms of accommodation. I hunted around the De Tham Street area and finally settled on the Hotel Giang. After some friendly bargaining, the proprietor's son Dung and I agreed that for $9 a night I could have a brand-new room with its own hot-water bathroom, air-conditioning and, best of all, a little writing desk."

[NOTE*--By the way, most of the story centers on the De Tham area.]

Just curious...I should be there around mid-late Aug. with an Ozzie buddy in tow. From what I have seen/read here of late the prices haven't varied much in 7-8 years!

All the best!
Michael

[Riding One]

You say on the first line that this article is a) from a backpacker in a low budget traveller backpacker area and b) that it's from late 90s/2000.

This is 7+ years ago.

Yes, prices have gone up.

Things have changed considerabley.

Inflation, economic growth.

[mickeyrex]

Well---I just had 10,000 dong beer errr make that two. Tomorrow I'm finally moving into an apartment, but for the last four months have been staying in $6 guesthouse/s. Without the coffee, you can get the less than a dollar breakfast. However, you can buy cheap coffee from a vendor and then take it into a restaurant . This is all on Bui Vien only the crazy people hang around De Tham. It's all relative.

[ChuckECheese]

I would say that overall price has increased a bit but the disparity in price based on rich and the poor has increased significantly.

For this reason, based on WHERE you shop and spend your money, you'll notice that price difference from one part of town differs significantly from the other part of the town.

So if you want to stretch your $ to go a little bit farther, then stay out of rich (tourist) area.

[Mr Wind-up Bird]

I've been in HCMC since 2003, & in that time some things have hardly gone up at all (beer, taxis for example) while some have shot up (rent, utilities, eating at VNese restaurants etc). Prices in the backpacker area are still low but you get what you pay for, and anyone with any sense moves on from that part of town after their first few weeks in HCMC.

With WTO accession & the resulting decrease in import duties, some items are actually coming down in price - wine, electrical goods & some imported food items for example. Good news for the punters but bad news for local producers.

Salaries are going up as well, though with a wife & baby I seem to have less money than before