Hanoi's French Quarter is the same way, and I'm glad the local women are hip to the game. They'll ask you "where are you staying?" If you are anywhere near Hoan Kiem Lake they will assume you are a broke backpacker and ghost you. When I was staying at a serviced apartment at West Lake (a more upscale neighborhood where foreign white-collar expats live) Tinder matches switched to "OK I come to your place tonight."
>>>One other thing that the article dangerously omits is the fact that food hygiene and/or safety testing is still pretty much non-existent even in the richest parts of Vietnam.
I've also spent about 6 months in Vietnam, cumulatively over 6 six trips. I've gotten brutally sick on 5 of those 6 visits. The lack of sanitation is the #1 reason I don't think I could EVER live there, no matter how much money I had. You can't escape the E.Coli in every ice cube and tap water supply, the open-sewer streets, and the choking air pollution.
Ice cubes come from vendors and I'd be surprised if they're contaminated (that's like the entire point of buying ice instead of making it from the water supply).
The air pollution is something that is being worked on, but honestly it's not really noticable (I buy a new n95 mask every other day, problem solved).
Regarding open sewer streets, I mean, some gaps between the sidewalk and the roads are dirty but what place has sewage just flowing by? Seriously name the street and I'll visit it today.
Also have you considered staying outside the foreigner bubble? (I bet you're probably in Quảng An). Go see the real Hanoi, outside of menus that are in English and don't even have Vietnamese on them.
You consider this "not really noticeable"? [1]
>>>but what place has sewage just flowing by? Seriously name the street and I'll visit it today
Bach Mai, the commercial street east of Bach Khoa (Hanoi University of Science and Technology). Have you not noticed the filth that gets dumped in the streets from all those little restaurants?
>>>Also have you considered staying outside the foreigner bubble? (I bet you're probably in Quảng An). Go see the real Hanoi, outside of menus that are in English and don't even have Vietnamese on them.
What "foreigner bubble"? I've only known 4 foreigners in Hanoi: 2 European women from Tinder, and 2 other black guys who were exchange students at HUST. Everyone else I know in Hanoi is Vietnamese, and mostly Hanoi natives. Over those six trips I only spent 2 weeks at the serviced apartment in Quang An (I ate the excellent room service there almost exclusively and that was the one trip I didn't get sick). Most of the time I've been in Hang Bai or Bach Khoa because most of my engineers lived there, or out west at Cau Giay where my client's office was located.
I had a local date take me to eat snails and bird eggs (similar to balut in the Philippines, but much smaller). Another date took me to her favorite restaurant for Ga Tan, some sort of blackened bird soup. I went on a weekend camping trip to Ham Lon (Pig Jaw Lake/Mountain) with about a dozen Vietnamese, as the only foreigner. We barbecued meat that had been waterlogged the whole day because the styrofoam "icebox" failed early in the trip. I still ate it. When we returned to Hanoi we had some sort of big duck stew together.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UnmvQTBj7cYNMHrq7
"Foreigner bubble"....scoffs
[1]https://vietnaminsider.vn/why-hanoi-and-hcm-city-ranked-amon...
>>>I've also spent about 6 months in Vietnam, cumulatively over 6 six trips. I've gotten brutally sick on 5 of those 6 visits. The lack of sanitation is the #1 reason I don't think I could EVER live there, no matter how much money I had. You can't escape the E.Coli in every ice cube and tap water supply, the open-sewer streets, and the choking air pollution.
You will get used to it, eventually. Would be faster if you have a local to tell you what's safe and what isn't. I rarely get food poisoning, not even during that time I had to eat shit, literally (google 'thắng cố', 'nậm pịa' if you are curious). Surely half of Vietnamese street food won't meet western hygiene standards, but then your digestive system will adapt to it.
"Food poisoning killed 22 people and hospitalized 3,147 others in Vietnam during the first 11 months of this year, official government data shows."
https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/food-poisoning-deaths-doub...
That's the government data where they count only registered Vietnamese residents.
The locals taking me to their favorite holes-in-the-wall to eat was what usually made me sick. When I pressed them to go to more upscale restaurants with the caveat that I was paying, I think that helped.
The one weekend I spent in HCMC I didn't get sick, but I spent the whole time dining at some really upscale places with a chubby foodie (I swiped right on her for exactly that reason..."She looks like she eats well").
There may be something more going on here?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09567...
No. I did a 5-week exchange program with the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, which led to me networking with a state-owned defense company to develop products for them. This then led to me hiring some grad students and other engineers to prototype a software-defined radio device for said defense company, but the remote-management of that team eventually failed.
Another trip was to attend a defense-related research conference which was hosted at HUST. I had a pre-existing relationship with the conference as it was started in Thailand and I networked with the founders (Thai military officers, some of which had studied in the US).
When I researched housing prices in the nice areas of Saigon in 2018, 50 square meter 1 bedroom apartments were sold at $300,000+. And "sold" here means you rent it perpetually from the development company to circumvent that 50-year land ownership limit. But that can put you at risk in case said company folds.
Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Vietnamese women becoming rather disenchanted of hip cool American backpackers, the latter of which presumably read articles like this and decided to try their luck. The backpacker area of Saigon is considered more like a slum that you try to avoid at night.
One other thing that the article dangerously omits is the fact that food hygiene and/or safety testing is still pretty much non-existent even in the richest parts of Vietnam. If you're old, a bad food poisoning could well kill you. And in Vietnam, you'll probably have one per year. That said, food is super tasty and impossibly cheap.