Saigon: The Shopping
You can shop for a lot of things in Vietnam -- from lacquerware, embroideries and paintings to clothes, silk, kain ela and millions others -- just ask my friends. The high-end shops offer higher quality, more expensive lacquerware and silk, but a cheaper version is always available in the markets.
Two shopping spots that you may not want to miss are, of course, the famous Ben Thanh Market and maybe Nguyen Trai Street. I discovered the latter after asking the concierge for 'small shops to buy clothes'. I went there alone and, after making a few wrong turns, arrived at what must be at least two kilometres of mostly clothing shops.
So, among other things, I bought a couple of dresses for a total of RM125, the famous star cap for... much more than its actual price (but it's one of my favourite purchases), 10 pieces of embroidered clutches for RM47 and 10 metres of satin silk for RM109.
Street sellers selling stuff like handicrafts and handbags etc can be very persistent, following the tourists around or knocking on the bus windows. Some sellers in the market may not budge when asked for discounts, but the rest of them are just a bunch of friendly people and will try to help you even with language barriers.
This trip made me realize of one thing too: I am actually a pretty fast, if not an efficient, shopper ;).
Two shopping spots that you may not want to miss are, of course, the famous Ben Thanh Market and maybe Nguyen Trai Street. I discovered the latter after asking the concierge for 'small shops to buy clothes'. I went there alone and, after making a few wrong turns, arrived at what must be at least two kilometres of mostly clothing shops.
So, among other things, I bought a couple of dresses for a total of RM125, the famous star cap for... much more than its actual price (but it's one of my favourite purchases), 10 pieces of embroidered clutches for RM47 and 10 metres of satin silk for RM109.
Street sellers selling stuff like handicrafts and handbags etc can be very persistent, following the tourists around or knocking on the bus windows. Some sellers in the market may not budge when asked for discounts, but the rest of them are just a bunch of friendly people and will try to help you even with language barriers.
This trip made me realize of one thing too: I am actually a pretty fast, if not an efficient, shopper ;).
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