Hey guys, I've partnered up with a real estate company here in Vietnam. We broker anything from commercial leases, buy and sells and also handle helping people find places to rent. got some good agents who are trained well in customer service, something typically lacking here.

www.housinginteractive.com

If you need a place to live or set up a buisness just pm me here rather than inquiring on the site so I know it's someone from here.

My friend just opened a nice little restaurant in D1 specializing in North Vietnamese cuisine. It's called Ngo 89 and located at 89 Nguyen Du (near the intersection of Pasteur and Nguyen Du). Honestly, some of the best Vietnamese food I've had in a very long time. I highly recommend the bun ca (fish noodle soup) with a Hanoi beer. I don't think there's anything on the menu that costs much more than a dollar. It's open from 5pm-10pm every day. Stop by.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ngo-89...ref=ts&fref=ts

I want to go to that. Also Hanoi beer > Saigon beer green > Saigon beer red. Though the 2 times I had red I disliked the taste greatly...had it the second time because I thought the first one was skunked but no, it does tasted like that. There's a bunch of good beers brewed in Hue, the one I remember and particularly liked is called festival.

Apartment for rent -

I've decided to rent a house in the Thao Dien area of district 2 and so am moving out of my 1 bedroom apartment in An Phu of district 2 and want to help my landlord find someone to replace me.

Rent is just $320 / month + 500k vnd management fee. It's on the 9th floor with a nice view of the river and the suspension bridge leading to disctrict 7. It's located next to a wooded, swampy field and Binh Khanh market. Very little traffic on this street so it's a great place for jogging or taking a stroll.

Fully furnished - new hi def tv, microwave, convection oven, washing machine, etc. The apartments are less than a year old. Deposit is $1000USD. The landlord is as nice as anyone you will ever meet (though her English is not great).

It's about a 20 min ride to d1 (shorter if you take the tunnel - but inexplicably the tunnel is closed to motorbikes after 9pm last I checked). 10 min to Thao Dien in D2 which has a lot of great foreign restaurants. 5 minutes to Metro (big store similar to Costco in the US).

I'll post some photos soon. Feel free to ask me any questions or pm me if you're interested in checking out the place.

Images of my apartment for rent.

Just out of curiosity: how prevalent are western style toilets in Vietnam? I have bad knees and squatting like a catcher to drop one doesn't do me any favors.

Western style toilets are used pretty much exclusively. You may find the occasional squatter at a public restroom at a truck stop on the highway or at a beach and possibly if you visited someone's shack in the countryside. But for the most part, you'll never see one.

Damn, even Vietnam is ahead of China in the crapper department.

I'm a little curious. Why did you choose Vietnam to move to?

lol why not as well go ask a poker forum why we choose to play poker. beside it being awsome what else? o and also sl4v3 is a known whore. told him not to give these vietnamese chicks too much freebie but he won't listen

edit: also getting married next month. thinking of doing a crazy club party with guys before i move to tay ninh and live the family guy life.

whoa. congrats Don.

How big/small of a place is tay ninh?

I stay in Tra Vinh my self. Built a small house since not many places was available to rent and houses are ****ty.

What are your plans on place to stay? Wife already has a place there? Plan to move in with her family =P

**just did a quick search on the place. Very nice for border runs if you need it.

thanks man. yeah it about 1.5 hour away from saigon so not that bad. I am living at her place nothing baller just living the country live. she said it impossible to spend more then 10 millions(500 U.S) a month living there. Also we are expect a baby in march so yeah def. have to make a major adjustment.

I mean it crazy how life been for me the last two years. I went from wasting 150k in reckless lifestyle in philadephia. strip club, hired two personal assistant lol more for eye candy. Then in one year become so broke I have to search my pocket for food money in vietnam. Then came the greatest thing that came to my life. She saved me. Changed my attitude. In the process help me rebuild my confidence in poker and of course things are even better at poker. So yeah it crazy how people that see us together assume she only with me because I have money lol.

Haha. Sounds like a great story. You should write it up if you feel inclined. If you don't, you have to answer one question though. Did you really hire 2 PA's just for eye candy or did you actually get to **** em? ****ing pretty girls and floating through life....I'm hating.

Yeah here in Tra Vinh I prob spend 300usd a month not counting investments. I was pretty broke when I got here myself. Im only decent at poker. I been living here so long that each time I go to Saigon for a week and spend 500-1000 bucks I'm like damn.

My house aint baller either but def nice. It had to be done since I was going to stay here long term. I don't think it be bearable to me to live in the usual country house even if it was made of bricks. I even built it in a half studio style. Maybe first ever in Vietnam. Its essentially 2 big rooms. Room 1 contains the bathroom, kitchen and dining table/living room. 2nd is just the bedroom, no bathroom. Meant only for two to live comfortably. Also I have window screens and a screen door which means no mosquitoes!!! I highly suggest you do that to your wife's place.

Does your wife speak enough english or you vietnamese or how do you guys make that work?

yeah the two PA I actually became really close friend with I met them at the strip club. They were shot girls. But yeah looking back total waste of money but when you making an endless supple of money you don't think about those stuff. That pretty awsome spending only 300 I can't imagine anywhere else in the world where you can live comfy and spend so less. About the house I think the most important things for me is the bathroom. I am pretty anal about my bathroom :P need it to be clean and spotless all the time. O yeah and growing up always taking hot shower def need to adjust to heating up the water in a bucket. I am actually vietnamese was born here but family move to boston when I was 3. My vietnamese is perfect except I can't read or write. although she can understand english and can't speak much.

waaaaaat! U got to tell me the story in some details next time we see each other!

not sure if this is a big deal or not this evening i couldn;t log on to stars thought it was no bg deal but also couldn't surf on 2+2, pinnacle(sportbetting) etc. Once i use my 3g card w vinaphone everything works normal. hopefully nothng have to do with governament blocking

It doesn't Don. A month back or so the under sea internet pipeline got damaged and they didn't fix it correctly. Why the internet is all sluggish and BS again. I am losing packets all over the place and PS was sluggish for me when I was on this morning.

It'll get back to normal eventually. Also your wife looks very nice and sweet.

Anyone have any experience using Moneybookers/Skrill with Vietnamese bank accounts? I did a small withdrawal from Skrill to my Vietcombank account a couple weeks ago, but it hasn't hit my account yet. My debit card obviously doesn't work for gaming transactions, and now I'm getting worried that bank wires are also a no-go.


If you can't get money from Skrill, how do you all withdraw from pokersites to your Viet bank accounts?

yeah everything back to normal now although a little bit slow. regarding withdraw bank wire should work fine. I think every guy I talk to use this option as it pretty quick usually 2 day to hsbc and also no fee.

I guess I put it out there. What do you all do with your non home currency?

Im USA and because of the whole Euro situation, I don't keep Euro and just change it to VND right away. [ no idea if this is really benificial since it seems Euro has been steady for awhile now] When people visit etc I change the VND to USD when I can which isn't much which still leaves me a lot of VND. What do you guys do?

I know an option is just to deposit it in the the debit card and when out of VN you can withdraw losing a % but that seems rather high. Just curious what you all do or maybe someone can inform me the best way to lose less value.

Pofolf - Bank wire from your Poker account to vn bank is very easy. All you need is that i forget S number like a routing number and you account number. Always hits my bank in like 3 business days.

also internet so sluggish, hope they fix it soon.

I think vietnam inflation is going to jump higher due to incompetant government bank with the lastest news. http://images.search.yahoo.com/image...n&fr=yfp-t-701best to keep in a lot of money in U.S. You can get the best rate at new world casino and they don't care how much you want to exchange just as long as you play some poker or chill around.

Excellent Idea, duh, don't know why I didn't think of it.

Don, you mention that you are VK, Do you think they discriminate on exchanging money between white and Asian? I only exchanged once from usd to vnd and I was told by a non asian guy that they usually offer 10k more than at gold rates and when I exchanged one time it was low. Also one time when I exchanged Euro to vnd.

It may be just paranoia but that's the feeling I got. Thanks for the suggestion.

nah because they know you are a foreigner cause you can't be in new world casino if you are a local.

Hi Don Juan. Can you give us a little info about New World Casino? I tried looking it up on google maps but couldn't find it. What are the cash games like there?

I just moved to Ho Chi Minh and saw the MGM is opening a casino sort of nearby in 2013. That should be nice. It's right near the beach.

I played there like 3 times and haven't the past 3 month. Pm _Um on here he was a reg. at that place for a while. Last time I played there usually like 3-5 reg game seem nitty/soft. I think they run after 8 pm most night 2/4 rake not cap though and I think it 3%? It at new world hotel at a major street dist.1 can't remember the name.