I am moving to Vietnam soon – what do I need to know?
If you’re coming from a first-world, English-speaking country, Vietnam is a pretty comfortable place to live. If you’re on a reasonable salary from those countries you will have very few issues getting what you want. Other popular nationalities in Vietnam are French, Japanese and Korean. Despite it being a developing country, you won’t be living in squalor (unless you want to live very cheaply).
All of the information below is specific for Ho Chi Minh City, where the majority of expats are. There is a big group of expats in Hanoi, and smaller groups in Danang and Nha Trang.
Accommodation: Most fully furnished, 2 bedroom apartment anywhere within a 20 minute drive of the city will be less than $1000USD/month. If you’re comfortable of jumping into a sharehouse, you can potentially be looking at $200-300/month or less. Apartments in the fancier areas of District 1 (the city) can be in excess of $2000/month, however you are paying a premium for convenience, a super-secure apartment block, and status (something the middle and upper-class Vietnamese are obsessed with). If your company is arranging accommodation for you then you should be able to move in as soon as you land, but if you have to choose an apartment yourself then book a hotel for a week, which will give you plenty of time to talk to a few travel agents and get them to show you appropriate places to live. There is an oversupply in the rental market so there will be plenty of places to move in straight away.
Expat areas: If you want to lessen your culture shock, consider living in Thao Dien in District 2, or most areas in District 7. Among the expat scene, most people are in the D2 crowd or the D7 crowd, as this is where the international schools (and hence English teacher requirements) are. D2 is extremely Western (English/American/Australian) and also has most of the French, while D7 has a strong Korean/Japanese scene. Living in either of these areas shelters you from the crazy Vietnamese culture, you can feel much less cautious while walking down the street, traffic isn’t so wild, etc etc. If you haven’t lived abroad before, and/or haven’t been in South East Asia before, then we highly recommend this approach.
Activities/groups: a quick way to gain friends in HCMC is through sporting groups. Rugby (contact and touch) is fairly popular with the French crowd, soccer/football is popular with anyone from the UK, and Australian Rules football is obviously full of Australians. For females, there is (mixed) netball and gaelic football. For those of you which are more interested in networking, InterNations HCMC holds a monthly networking event. There is usually a white-collar, high-roller crowd at these events, but most people are quite friendly and everyone is there to meet new people.
Saigon Salmons 