Surviving Saigon with only 50,000 dong

We have returned to Saigon and I’m starting to feel very comfortable here. I can cross the street by myself now without using old ladies as protection and I can bargain without getting totally ripped off by little children. In fact, I’m so confident these days that I think I can live here for a whole year.

My wife thinks I’m getting too confident and suggests a test for me: Try to survive in Saigon with only 50,000 in my pocket.

I accept the challenge and she leaves me alone during our shopping trip.

Within two minutes of walking around Chợ Bình Tây, I get thirsty and buy a sinh to bo for 10,000 dong. I pass by Pho 2000 and get hungry thinking about eating at the same place Bill Clinton once tried pho. There goes another 35,000 dong.

If I’m going to think about living in this Vietnamese paradise for a whole year, I better start looking for work in order to see if I can make some income. Here are some of the jobs that I tried in Saigon:

I was actually pretty skilled at washing bikes because this is exactly how I wash the dishes at home. Too bad this job only pays 2000 dong per wash.


I would have made a lot of money as a taxi driver because I would take my passengers around and around for hours trying to find all the streets.


I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I tried to sell ao dai. I’m not licensed to ride a Honda bike in Vietnam, so pulling a cart is the only xe om service I could offer.

After several failed job interviews, I realized the only way I could survive in Vietnam for a year is if I learned how to speak Vietnamese better. One problem: It will take me over a year to learn Vietnamese.

Goodbye Vietnam

Two weeks have flown by so quickly. I will miss having com tam delivered every morning, I will miss the soothing sounds of Saigon traffic in the middle of the night as I try to sleep, but most of all, I will miss my family. Thirty years after leaving Vietnam for Canada, I’m leaving home again. Except this time, I finally know what home feels like.

I highly encourage any youngsters out there who have not made it back to Vietnam to come see where you came from. I can assure you that the food is great, the people are nice, and the toilets work fine. One word of advice though: Leave your politics in Canada. For instance, if this series has been followed closely in Vietnam, I hope the Ministry of Tourism has a sense of humour and welcomes me with open arms the next time I return - instead of doing a full body cavity search.

Before I leave for the airport, I take one last picture of where my Chu 3 and I sit in the morning, watching the world go by. I intend to hang this picture in my office so that every time I have a stressful day, I can look at this visual portal and transport myself back to a world of warmth, unlimited café sua da, pho on demand, bike rides across the city at night, and family. There’s no place like Vietnam and there’s no place like home.