hihi,
I juz bck todae, spending 4 nites over there...on the last nite, I decided to try to switch from indochine & spend 1 nite at the backpackers lane in De Tham, exact street name is Bui Vien St. Dist 1, managed to get one at USD10, save me USD15 on the last nite.
It was raining heavily on 3 days while I was there, worst on sunday when it flood the De Tham area at above ankle, believed more raining days ahead in HCM.
Nam silk have moved from 264 to 191-193 De Tham St. The Ao Dai price range from USD20-25 & take 1 working day. My wife didnt make one cos can't find the design she liked.
1 thing is, if purely staying at hcm, 2-3 nites shld suffice, we getting a bit bored there if not for 2 local tours during our 5 days there & we walked a few times to ben thanh mkt, dong khoi, le lai, saigon ctr, etc.
eating there is realli cheap I muz say,
e.g.
- fondue at 45,000VND at cafe terrace @ saigon ctr
- hotpot at 48,000VND at hotpot delicacies @ eden mall (opp. REX hotel)
- average pho at ard 24,000-27,000VND
- cakes at ard 30,000VND+++ at highlands coffee cafe
- ice-cream at 30,000VND+++ like banana split, etc.
- beer realli cheap e.g. tiger beer at 9,500-14,000VND at the supermarket
- glass dessert at ben thanh at 7,000VND
I went to thuy restaurant at dinh tien hoang & tried their crab fried rice, crab vermicelli (good!), crab claws, iced-coffee at 188,000 VND, heard tat there is another one nearer behind ben thanh market (4 or 40,le thanh ton), sorry, cant rem the exact unit no.
As for the tour, I tried cuchi/caodai temple at USD5(delta adventure) & 1D Mekong delta at 8USD(sinh cafe). Mekong delta at delta adventure cost 10USD, the only difference with sinh cafe is they have bicycle rides, else itinerary look alike with boat rides, lunch, village walkard, coconut candy, vinh long garden. Mabbe sinh cafe is more popular, so they have a coach to bring us there, when I were with delta, they took us on a van, & as the road conditions is pretty bad, our bum realli hurts in such a bumpy ride...
Use dong if u are ok to deal with big figures, else use USD, like what puppylove88 say, u save more if purely using dong, but if U "paid" wrongly, U "lost", like what I did on 1 occasion taking a cab to dinh tien hoang..hee
yellow cab start at 12,000VND, white & green start at 14,000VND, have not came across 15,000VND (likely MPV) throughout my stay there.
last but not least, no need to prep USD14 for passenger tax, at least for me with jetstar, i prep USD28 only to know no need to buy passenger tax separately, is all covered in the ticket price.
