Where’s all the cheap made-to-order clothes, Jak?

Asia » Vietnam » Southeast » Ho Chi Minh City
April 13th 2007

Published: August 8th 2007

Moving, again
Our package with Holiday Tour and Travel was for four nights, so today we have to get a hotel of our own. We had (mistakenly) pre-booked a hotel when we bought the Vietnam package. Boy, we must really have been feeling lazy in Melbourne. I can’t blame us… after the whirlwind that was Match Day and the Move, I think we just wanted Vietnam handed to us on a platter. Maybe now that we’ve rested and been taken care of in Manila, we’re more apt to do more on our own like we usually do. This morning, someone from Holiday will help us move our stuff to the Saigon Oscar Hotel, which is where we were supposed to stay the past few nights, except the tour company said the hotel was booked. We’re not pleased with having to move from hotel to hotel every day, so we convince them it is their responsibility to take care of the transfer. It’s like the 20 peso thing, isn’t it? It won’t cost us but 15,000 VND (less than U$1) to take a cab, but it’s the principle! We get to the Oscar quickly, and start missing Star Hotel immediately. No, really, it’s all fine. Hotels are hotels. But I really think this whole Vietnam trip would have been a lot cheaper had we just arranged everything on our own. I also would love the luxury of walking out on this hotel every time they exhibit subpar service. Geez, we’re high maintenance.

Lunch on our own
Wow, Euy is not around to take care of our meals! We’ve eaten dinners on our own in Saigon, but I’d call it cheating to eat Thai food twice, go to Pho 24 once, and then skip dinner altogether another night. We decide to head a few blocks from the hotel near the Dong Khoi area (this was known as Tu Do back in the day and was where all the GI bars were located during the war). We’re basing our lunch decision on the Rough Guides, aiming for some good Vietnamese fare in the U$3-4 range. Restaurant 13 is right next to Restaurant 19, and I’m hard pressed to know what makes one better than the other. But we go to 13 anyway and order some shrimp spring rolls, roasted chicken with rice, fried catfish, bok choy in garlic, and french fries. I guess Lee was hungry. The food was decent, nothing special, and Lee was disappointed that the catfish was nothing like it is back home. Everything was supersalty, and I guess that’s fine considering how ridiculously hot it is. The plan is to go shopping on Dong Khoi since our adventure on Hai Ba Trung the other night was a failure. All we want are tailor-made clothes for dirt cheap, is that so much to ask?

Give it up, Dong Khoi
We stop at the hotel again to get info and the ATM card and notice that our room is unbearably hot and that the A/C is pumping out a pathetic stream of cool (not cold) air. We’ll give it a chance. Back to Dong Khoi. The first shop we pass on Mac Thi Boi has some nice 100%!s(MISSING)ilk items, particularly summer dresses that would be perfect for this hot weather. I ask the price and she says U$48. Jigga what? Are you crazy? Like Chappelle said… those are crack prices, again! Lee is looking at the men’s suits and finds a couple swaths of fabric that would be suitable. She quotes U$160, and it’s a unanimous hell no. As we walk away, she asks how much he’d be willing to pay. He says U$90 (I think he should say U$70), and she says U$100. As we walk out the door, we hear “Okay, 90.” It doesn’t matter, we don’t want to spend that much anyway. I need something to wear for my presentation in Orlando, but I’m not desperate to get something here. Worse comes to worse, I have to go shopping in London. I’ll lose my wallet, but I’ll get what I want. We keep on trucking. Another store on Mac Thi Boi and then a bunch on Dong Khoi. The nicest spot was KhaiSilk at 38 Dong Khoi, which I had read about on someone’s virtualtourist.com site. He said he got awesome ao dai’s there, about six for U$250 and of good quality. I’m not looking for traditional Vietnamese garb, but KhaiSilk has some really nice modern Asian designs. The store is definitely cool, but everything is fixed price and hella expensive. I guess the picture and newspaper article showing Kofi Annan shopping here should have tipped us off. No thanks. Lee and I develop a code word strategy for what to say when in the store. The goal is to play against each other to get the price down. After all, we don’t want to employ the walk-away move immediately. The ploy is well-planned, but it doesn’t matter. We go into store after store, and we just don’t find what we want, and they really are giving us the super foreigner tourist price. It’s not unusual to have two different prices for foreigners and locals, and supposedly it’ll be even more egregious in Thailand. In the end, I decide that the Vietnamese style does not flatter me anyway. Leroy finds nothing as well. We part ways so he can get a smoothie (it was awesome) and I can hook up my $6 mani-pedi. You get what you pay for.

Eek, Leroy is really mad
Back at the Oscar, our room is taking forever to reach a tolerable temperature. Lee makes a call to management, and they come in and clean the filter and ask us if it’s okay now. Hmmm, I don’t think that’s gonna do it, but we say we’re give it a few minutes. After an hour, it’s still hot. I’m melting. Leroy calls management and they promise to send someone up, but another hour later, and no one has come up. He goes down to the desk and they tell him he gave them the wrong room number. Crikey, that was not the right thing to say, and let’s just say that he tore them a new one, and we were moved to a new room. The A/C works in here, but our 9th floor view of downtown Saigon has been replaced with a wall. Let me just put it out there - if you ever come to Saigon, don’t stay at the Oscar Hotel.

A little bit of Italy in Saigon
We’re ready for a change, so pizza it is. Monaco is a little place with hardly another customer—though to be fair, we arrived at 10pm—but they’ve got the red-and-white checkered tablecloths down. Most people in Saigon speak English, which is great, except when you stray from the ordinary “I want this” or “Where is the bathroom” request. I like to point at the picture on the menu, you know, play it safe. Tonight, Leroy wants to make a substitution on his pizza - the Italian sausage instead of ham on his supreme pizza. Really, honey, you want to make a substitution? We get three waiters/waitresses trying to get things right, and with all the nodding, it certainly seems like he’s gonna get what he wants. Even ordering a bottle of Bordeaux gets iffy, even though I’m pointing to it on the menu. Well, the wine is fine - in fact, this Bordeaux 1997 that has probably been stored in 30+ degree weather for the last 10 years is surprisingly intact and good (and dirt cheap, so it makes me wonder). They ask if we want the wine “cul o not cul” (cold??). Uh, how about not cul. This is followed by “ice o no ice?” Again, we choose the latter. Leroy’s pizza comes with nary an onion or green pepper, but he did get what he wanted - pepperoni and Italian sausage. Don’t get too creative! Dinner is leisurely and enjoyable, until we get booted out because they want to close up. Vietnamese dinner time is pretty early, even for American standards. I don’t know what an Argentine would do in a place like this except starve.

All in all, it was a pretty chill and uneventful (and, clothing-wise, unsuccessful) day with no pictures to show. Tomorrow, we’ll get cultural and go the museum formerly known as the Museum of American War Crimes.

Where’s all the cheap made-to-order clothes, Jak?

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