The main language spoken here is Vietnamese, but English is also spoken by some of the local population.
The currency in Vietnam is called the Vietnamese Dong (VND). The symbol for dong is ₫. The current conversion rate is $1 USD to 23,200₫ VND. That is quite a crazy exchange rate, don't you think? I exchanged US$50 at the start of the trip, and got over one million dong!
A liter of water costs roughly 12,000₫, or around US$0.50.
My first night in the city, our group had dinner in a small restaurant that turned out to be a man's living space! While the food I had was quite good, his story about how he managed to go from living on the streets to running his own restaurant made the meal even better.
Funnily enough, most of the music we heard while out at restaurants was pop music you would hear in the United States. One difference is that many of the songs were acoustic covers that were sung by local artists. They often used pianos to carry the tune.
