Vietnamese is the main language spoken here. All of the locals speak Vietnamese, though I speak only a little bit of the language. I am currently taking classes with the goal of speaking more with the Vietnamese people. It's a challenging language and quite different from English. Every word in Vietnamese is one syllable. In addition, there are six tones in Vietnamese. Some words have a higher pitch, while others have a flat or low pitch. Although it is challenging, my Vietnamese language skills are slowly improving!
Vietnamese dong is the currency here. One U.S. dollar is equal to about 23,000 Vietnamese dong. In Vietnam, I am a millionaire. The cost of living is significantly less expensive than the United States. For example, I eat most of my meals here for around 15,000 to 20,000 dong (less than one U.S. dollar per meal). Since I don't have many cooking appliances in my house, I eat most of my meals at small restaurants on the side of the street.
A bottle of water costs 10,000 Vietnamese dong (about 44 cents). My roommate and I buy five-gallon jugs of water from the local water man for 30,000 Vietnamese dong. So it's much cheaper to buy large quantities of water. Normally, we go through about ten gallons of water per week.
