Saigon – Say Yes to Happy

Cho Ben Thanh is a huge shopping area in Saigon in Vietnam. I always enjoy going here. I buy full series of shows I love. In the past I’ve bought How I Met Your Mother, Project Runway, and Gossip Girl. They also sell lots of fun trinkets, souvenirs and t-shirts. But there are so may vendors who sell similar products so you have to shop around.

Vietnam is also famous for bargaining and haggling for prices, especially if you are a tourist. I was once looking at a necklace and I asked how much. They said it was $10, I told them I only had $5 and they agreed. So they will definitely try to get the most out of you, so beware!

Saigon is also known for pick pocketing because they know there are lots of tourist around. So make sure to split your money up in different pockets and be very aware of how close people are to you. Keep you bags close to you where you can see and feel them. I’d recommend either not wearing a purse at all, or if you have to wear a cross body bag so it’s not as easy to snatch up. Don’t be a victim, be proactive!

This is inside where they sell their goods. As you can see the aisle are very narrow and there is an overflow of products. So again watch your pockets and bags. It is pretty overwhelming to look at all this stuff and decide what you want. There is also an obsession with name brands in Vietnam, even if they are knockoffs.

First things first, Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s all take a moment to be grateful for all the wonderful things that we all have and the important people in our lives. Life moves by so fast and it’s so easy to take things for granted and to forget to really take things in.

I have been overloading you guys lately with St John, because it is so breathtakingly beautiful and I have so many pictures to share still, but let’s switch gears and switch locations this week to Saigon, Vietnam.

There are many things I am grateful for, one of them being that I am Vietnamese. Both of my parents are Vietnamese so I still have a lot of family members in Vietnam. (My mom is one of 6 and my dad is one of 8!) And I’ve been lucky enough to go back to Vietnam multiple times in the last few years.

To say that it is an eye opening experience is an under statement. There are so many things that are different here than over there. I’ll be sure to post about those throughout Travel Thursday, but let’s start with one major difference: the traffic!

The main mode of transportation in Vietnam is by moped. There are also people who walk, and ride bikes. There are cars as well but the taxes on cars are up to 100%! So cars are few and far in between, but they are there. The population is somewhere between 87 and 91 million people (there are varying numbers online.)

But the traffic there is quite overwhelming. When you are crossing the street you just go and the mopeds will go around you, it’s crazy! The traffic patterns are a bit confusing with people darting in front of you all the time, but somehow it works for them. But that’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of accidents. I had a bit of a spill with one of my cousins one of the years I was there, but I was lucky to walk away with just a small scar on my left knee.