I had been putting off getting a haircut for about a month.  I probably could have gone to my regular place before I left Seattle, the old Gene Juarez Academy, but instead I waited until we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City.  With an interview for a teaching job scheduled for the next day I decided it was finally time to find a place to make my hair look somewhat respectable again.

I had passed a sign near our hotel a few times which advertised on a whiteboard for a haircut and shampoo.  Being the closest and most convenient hair cutting option, I went with it.  The shampoo part ended up being a 30 minute process of lathering, rinsing, scalp massaging and, as it turned out, an exfoliating face rub.  All of this would have been much more enjoyable had I not been recovering from the sunburn I received a few days earlier in Nha Trang.

Having been thoroughly cleaned, massaged and generally pampered from the neck up, it was now time for the actual haircut.  I tried my best to explain using simple english and hand gestures that I just wanted a trim, taking about an inch off.  The hair stylist seemed to get the idea and went to work with his sheers and electric trimmer.  In a quick 10 minutes he was finished with cutting my hair.  After a careful examination I concluded that it looked like a perfectly fine trim, nothing spectacular, but enough to make me look a bit more like a respectable potential new employee.

Just when I thought I was done with my time there, they motioned for me to go back to the shampoo room and I went through one more round of rinsing and washing to get all those loose, newly cut hairs away from my head.

In the end the whole thing ended up costing $5 and I left feeling clean and refreshed.  For a fraction of what I would’ve paid back home, I was able to get a decent haircut and some pampering to my head.