Finding a home

Kris — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:00:35 +0000

No matter what type of travelling you do, the first order of business when you land in a new place is to find a place to stay. We knew that when we arrived in Saigon, we would be exhausted and potentially jet lagged, so we pre-booked a guesthouse for the first two nights. We found a relatively inexpensive one down a side street off the main tourist drag on hostelworld.com for US$8 per person, per night. It was a small room with two sets of bunkbeds so things were tight for the first two nights but we made do while we looked for something more long term.

There are essentially two options for longer term lodging in Saigon. The first is to rent an apartment. I had done some preliminary searches for apartments and they were a bit over what we had budgeted per month to spend on accommodation (max $200/month). I checked online, on Couchsurfing and even Facebook groups – many people were looking for roommates and offering apartments and suites, but for too much. Also, we got burned at our apartment in Istanbul where the bitch of a landlord would only give us back half of the substantial deposit we put down because she claimed we had not cleaned enough and there was water damage (you’ll have to trust me that we SHOULD have received every penny back). So with that fresh in our minds, we went with option two.

You can get pretty good deals at some of the guesthouses if you tell them that you will be staying for a few months. We decided to take this approach and found one very central in District 1 that could house us comfortable and affordably. We are paying US$6 per person, per night ($180/month), it has A/C, Wifi and hot water, and they even come and clean the rooms every day. So although we will be without a kitchen or communal area, compare that to the rent you pay every month and you will realize how cheap things can be here.

The two rooms are bright, spacious and have their own balconies looking out onto Bui Vien Street (although as Serene mentioned earlier, it’s more “interesting” than scenic). If you know Saigon, we’re half a block away from Go2 and the Crazy Buffalo. The staff here are also really nice. We could probably save a bit if we continued to look and went further away from District 1, but we like it here and the price is right.

Here are some shots of where we will call home for the next 3 months:

One of the two rooms we are staying in, sleeping three. There's a balcony and two bathrooms in this one.

Our bathroom. Pretty standard for a guesthouse. No actual bathtub, just a drain in the floor.

The Hai Ha Hotel, our home for the next 3 or so months.

Jet Set Zero » guesthouse

Finding a home