Customs & Etiquette of Vietnam by Geoffrey Murray. It’s a small book, easy to read.
Well, we read a similar book prior to visiting Thailand. One of the comments was that it is considered rude to point (e.g., at people)…so we didn’t want to point at all, even when we were trying to figure out where we were going. So we ended up sort of pointing with our whole hand, like a bow “ta da” sort of whole hand point. Occasionally, we noticed that some Thai people were pointing with their fingers, so we were totally confused. We continued to play it safe and did the whole hand point…a habit that continues months after we got back home! 🙂 We are trying to be courteous!
Here are some tips from the Vietnam book:
–“Currency is the Viet Nam Dong (VND).” (p. 78) Okay, so according to the Coinmill Currency Converter, $100 USD equals 1950000 VND. I think I will take a print out so I don’t have to keep doing the math!
Image via Wikipedia
–“Tipping is not permitted but in practice it is still widespread.” (p. 78) What?! Are we supposed to not tip? But do it anyway? Or will we offend them if we tip–or if we don’t tip?!
–“If you look wealthy or show that you are an inexperienced international traveller, then the service prices tend to be higher.” (p. 40) Let’s see, I guess we should tatter our backpacks a bit. And I guess I’ll have to leave my suits at home (wink wink).
If you’ve travelled to Vietnam and can give us some good tips on customs, etiquette or even cool places to visit, let us know!
Gone to Asia! 