How expense are for example grocery shopping, going out to dinner, nightclubbing? What I you have a villa outside the city, is it easy to travel to some more busy areas? What budget would you recommend as a minimum for a 2 month stay, excluding rent.

Ty.

That post wasn't meant for this thread, sorry.

So im going to start opening the account tomorrow or the next few days. So my research so far tells me to open a bank account with AZN in euro and an optional VND account if I want to withdraw by card instead of entering the bank?

If anyone can add to this, I be appreciated. After I start the process, Ill report how things go for me and any complications I might run into. But I plan to bring my passport, birth certificate, dress in pants and shoes. Invest in real estate for the reason why I need the account.

So I hit a snag already, AZN banks are only in Hanoi, HCMC and Can Tho. I can always just go to saigon and open up these accounts one time and use debit cards but im going to the nearby town and see what other banks are available. I was thinking HSBC but there branch locator doesnt work for VN

My experience with ANZ has not been great. All of my attempts to wire money have failed (about 5 times). ANZ tells me that Stars' bank is sending the funds to the wrong middle bank. While Stars is telling me that ANZ is telling Stars' bank that I don't have an account with them (ANZ). I don't really have a clue who is right. But other people are receiving their wires from Stars at ANZ which leads me to believe I am not fully in the computer at ANZ (or something). I have not heard of this happening with anyone else so ANZ may not be a bad choice for others.

So I requested a check from Stars. They told me there would be a 16 Euro charge, but it ended up being a 59 Euro fee as their middle bank charged a big fee to send ANZ my funds.

I'm going to open an account with HSBC in the next few weeks and forget about ANZ. I tried before but they wouldn't let me with my current visa situation (I had an extension which is just a stamp - apparently they need a current paper visa to let you open an account).

There seems to be a very low level of trust here for people in general and this seems to be especially true for employers towards employees so they don't give their employees any real power to fix any problems. Hence, they don't get fixed.

Me and a few guys are coming from BKK tommorow.

Anyone got a top 5 restaurants list?

Thanks!

Vietnamese
Ngon - 160 Pasteur
Hoa Tuc - 74 Hai Ba Trung
Pho Hoa - 260C Pasteur
Pho 2000 - many locations
Pho 24 - many locations

Other
Pro Kebeb - 42 Tran Hung Dao Street - Crazy good wraps and it's open late. Really good for when you're out drinking around Pham Ngu Lao.

La Braceria -11 Le Thanh Ton - Best pizza in Saigon and excellent ostrich steaks although slightly pricey by Saigon standards.

Black Cat - 13 Phan Van Dat

vietnammm.com is a site where you can order food from many restaurants online (don't have to worry about being understood) or see the menus of places you are considering going to.

Ok, so I ended up opening a account at SacomBank. They explained to me that if I want to send money outside VN, there has to be a reason. I did not want to mention poker although idk if they would understand since its a bank in a small city. A way around this is to open a pre paid debit card/visa type account or something in VND and i can buy stuff online etc and it will get deducted . Ill than have winnings deposited into my bank account. It takes 2 weeks to finalize everything and for the money to get deposited etc so I have to come back in a week to pick up the actual debit card. Accounts can be viewed online. bank account was in usd as they dont have euro and debit account was in vnd. Had to be that way unless i wanted a vnd bank account.

Idk if this will work but ill know in a week. Any input on the path Im taking? If this doesnt work ill have to leave my area and open a bank with AZN, HSBC etc...Will report with my results.

~ Black cats quesadia and fish tacos are really good. Cant say much about thier burgers though even thou I believe its thier speciality. One thng I disliked is they dont provide heinz ketchup. Im a huge ketchup person. Could have changed though as I havent been thier for awhile.

sl4v3 ~ Wow, I feel for ya, seems like you have all worst case scenario falling in your lap regarding anything poker. How do you get a check in vn sent to you as they dont have a mailing system? DHL or something?

I think there is a mail system here, no? Not that I'd trust it.

Stars sends all checks over a certain amount (I think $1000) by courier (FedEx I think) so I didn't have to trust VN mail. It arrived in about 3 days so it wouldn't be such a bad option if the bank didn't charge such a crazy fee to cash it (the 5 weeks for the check to clear is a bit crazy also). Has anyone cashed Stars' checks with another bank?

Stars was kind enough to reimburse me for the 43 Euros charged by the intermediary bank after I got documentation of the charge from my bank, but said they would not reimburse it if I cashed a check here again.

Interesting note I just remembered reading about the thread on a former FTP employee.

PokerStars doesnt allow two VN accounts at the same table. ^_^ Apparently I assume because cheating is rampant here =). Azn's ganna Azn's

Hey guys, I'm in HCMC with a few other 2p2ers. Any nightlife recommendations? We are staying in D1. Anyone wanna meet up one night? PM me

I personally like Napoly near the turtle pond. Live music, 5 dollar beers =( and the ladies are on the prettier side than discos etc.

The place is a rip off imo but I still love the place. Better to just buy a cheap bottle of liqueur and revisit to finish it off instead of buying beers.

I find napoly the best bargain for pretty ladies and not the usual standard and subpar girls at discos or anywhere else. Other than that, if price is of no concern, New world bar or what ever its called is a good place to find pretty ladies. Other than that, do the normal stuff available here but I never liked it myself and found the ladies undesirable even though many men have a ball.

The girls over dress so dont get fooled with all the make up. With all ladies in vn, look deep. =)

http://vietnamservice.web.officelive.com/Discos.aspx

I don't party too much so nightlife I'd ask someone else but for food I think I can be helpful.

Best vietnamese food I think goes to Cuc Gach, there are 3 of them now so go to the one at 92b thach thi thanh. The original one you won't get a table at without a reservation. Order the set dinner menu which should include pork in a clay pot, sour fish soup, morning glory and some other things. It's styled to be like a house so don't be alarmed when you go in.

Second best and my personal favorite before I found Cuc Gach was Hoang Yen, its on mac thi bui and dong khoi. More pricey but very well made Vietnamese food. The restaurant started out as a street vendor 30+ years ago and now they have quite a few stores but none are as good as the original.

Best pho goes to Pho Le on Nguyen Trai, district 5. I heard there is also a really good one on Pasteur but not sure which one. Most likely the one that sl4v3 mentioned.

Not sure if you guys are just traveling around or living in Thailand but if you are starving for some decent beef Au Lac Brazil on Pasteur has a brazilian bbq buffet for $30 that is awesome. That would be in district 1, they have another store in district 7 but that one also isn't as good.

If you guys are looking for some good dim sum, there is a dim sum buffet that runs from mon-thurs at Royal Cantonese Garden its at floor 5 Parkson Hung Vuong. Its roughly $10-12 dollars.

I would probably google the names of the restaurants and yelp or tripadvisor should have the exact addresses.

Napoly is a fun place but i think it would be a bit hard for them because the girls don't speak very much english. 17 Saloon on Pham Ngu Lao might be a better choice for fun?

Thanks for the recommendations. I will try to get a reservation for Cuc Gach. Will check out Au Lac Brazil too. We went to Lush last night and it was pretty fun. Any more tips are appreciated!

So I emailed a random bank as to how to set up an account to be able to play poker. They responded by saying that poker is not within state regulations and thus not allowed.

Take it as you will =). This is from the website email, I assume that individual banks don't care and want your money and business to meet quotas/profits.

Will be able to respond in a week or so to see if the route I went worked or not. I looked at the paperwork they gave me and after some deciphering, it seems they gave me a savings account and not a checking account even though when I spoke I always use the term 'checking account'.

Also I was able to buy a ups for 700k vnd. Rated for 25 minutes with laptop use. 5 minutes for tower and 17inch monitor use. I plan to plug in a tower, the internet modem and 2 monitors so I guesstimate it gives me maybe 2-3 minutes. Its mainly for the power fluctuations. If power goes out, ill just start the generator.

17 saloon is great for Halloween so keep that in mind if your still here. Plat4me is correct in that 17 saloon is a great place to party as the people there speak enough english.

My favorite bar in HCM is Thi Cafe on 224 De Tham. Small live bands play every night. Drinks are cheaper than many places in the Pham Ngu Lao area. Staff is cool.

I would like to ask all of you who are living here? How are you depositing money into PS and receiving money? A third party like moneybookers or directly from your account? What is the actual name of the accounts, how your transferring money [bankwire?] you have and from what bank?

I'm still waiting for my debit card so I still don't know if it will work. I'm just trying to plan my next best step if it doesn't work and what options I may have.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.

Depositing money into pokersites is impossible for any reasonnable amount, just because its forbidden by vietnamese law to bankwire money from a personal account to a foreign comapany account without an invoice or a bill from the company. And neither pokersites nor casinos make those so you cant deposit by bankwire and you cant wire money to a macau casino when you want to play there either. And thats for foreigners, for vietnamese its apparently forbidden/very difficult to transfer any kind of money outside of the country. Depositing by credit card is not too much of an option either, as the limit is very low and the bank will charge big fees on it.
Actually the best way to deposit if youre a foreigner is to use a credit card from another country, and it all becomes very easy.

Concerning cashouts, I just cashout by bankwire right from my pokerstars account to my personnal bank account in Vietnam. It takes about 1 week.

Earlier in the thread I saw someone saying the bank told him poker was illegal in vietnam and they wont let him receive money or something like that. Well personnally I bank with ANA and I told them right at the beginning when I opened my account that I was a "professionnal" poker player and they have absolutely no issues at all with it. I had 2 different bank officers and they both were interested in it, especially the first one who always asked me tips and weird quetios about it.

I know sl4v3 had big problems receiving money into his AZN account but for me it went smoothly. I had a couple of issues with the bank but not directly related to poker stuff, its just vietnam is still a communist country and they have really stupid laws concerning banking. Also the first bank officer they got me was pretty bad at everything but then she got moved to Hanoi and now I see another one who understands what she is doing (plus she's kind of hot and still single).

I am in Vietnam in Phu My Hung anybody would like to take a beer, discuss poker or just take a diner?

Send me a PM if you are interessed!

Best regards

I wouldn't mind a beer.

PM the details

Bump for others to join!

Alpha ~ that was me emailing a bank asking general questions. Would you mind giving me your contact info for the 'kind of hot' single bank officer who help you set up your accounts? Ill owe you for dinner and drinks in two months when ill be in Saigon.

Ok so I got my debit/visa card and it didnt work. I also opened a moneybookers account but cant verify because when they withdrew some random amount for security reasons, it was converted to vnd and I really have no idea what the amount is and can just approximate. I tried calling and emailing to try and get the amount in usd but they say they cant which I find hard to believe. Dont know what else to try except trying another bank probably with the same results.

Depressing...

Try BNP Paribas, my dad is actually the manager there..

You referring to London or Vietnam Kinglega?

No Vietnam, he lives in Saigon.

Ok, I found some seemingly good ways to deposit money online if your having trouble.

Shows you how to convert non gaming money to gaming money:
http://translate.googleusercontent.c...zNrVS-RhZd3KvQ

Shows you how to verify your moneybookers acount:
http://translate.google.com/translat...a-su-dung.html

Dynamic Mastercard ~ able to deposit directly into gaming money:
http://www.acb.com.vn/en/index.php?o...ards&Itemid=15