I am in Ho Chi Minh City.
I have been impressed with it here. It is not Thailand, or Cambodia. If either of those places are your idea of where you most want to go to, you might consider going there. You might be bored here.
I don’t go to bars, myself. The bar scene here is sort of weird. The places I have been to are all places where groups of people get together and hang-out. There is a small amount of the western-oriented places in District 1 here, but otherwise it is much, much, much more low-key than in America or either of those places I mentioned.
In District 1 which is the big western tourism place, you will find lots of places which are more western, with many more clients who are from other countries.
This is much less oriented toward western guys. But there is quite a lot of pro-American sentiment here, surprisingly so, considering the history.
Let me give you my impressions:
It is very very crowded here. It is very very hot. There are two seasons basically: Hot and wet. And drier, but even hotter. There are lots and lots of motorcycles (all basically 125’s). There are lots of coffee shops. There are lots of couples, who hang around in the evenings. There are a lot of families on the 125’s riding around on the one bike. A mother and father, and one kid is quite common. A mother and father and two kids, is common. Everyone just piles on the one small cycle.
Traffic is absolutely chaotic, but in the city everyone is going relatively slowly, and there really aren’t a lot of accidents.
There are surprisingly few law enforcement officers around. Remarkably few. One thing however is you will see a lot of guys in front of places, who sort of look like cops. Those guys are just the people with establishments, and are not cops. A lot of them help to park and keep track of the bikes, everywhere. There are however groups of actual policmen which will stake out a corner somewhere (especially on the weekends) and I have been stopped a number of times, each time I ended up paying a small amount at the stop itself, and being let go.
That said, it is sort of a hassle to be 100% legal about having a motorcycle. So you really need to pay attention, especially since the traffic here is COMPLETELY without apparent rules.
People come from every direction, at any time, on any street. Go through lights. Dart out of corners. You really need to be 100% focused at all times, everywhere, 360 degrees.
The thing you won’t really see here is a person wearing a Walkman, outside. First off they will be often stolen (lawbreaking does not seem to be a problem here basically, at all, but that is one exception). And otherwise you just need to be 100% aware of everything around you, all of the time. Always.
I like it. But it is a big change from the US.