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Vietnam, is it still 3rd world?


scott808

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Just curious if this country is catching up with the rest of the world. Or is it still 3rd world.

 

 

Anyway, to try and answer you question... it is catching up in certain areas, and fast.

 

I go to Vietnam for work every month, so see changes everytime I return.

 

The Vietnamese economy is one of the fastest growing in the region. The infrastructure in rural areas is still incredibly basic at times, but in the cities - particulary Saigon - its very westernised and modernising at a quick pace.

 

Saigon is years ahead of other places in the country - even Hanoi.

 

Travelling there is easy - as long as you fly or use the train, hotels are excellent value.

 

The two-tier pricing system is more prevalent in Vietnam than it is in Thailand. I've definitely been the subject of more attempted scams in VN than in Thailand. Westerners ALWAYS pay more for things in VN. It's still very cheap, but you just have to shrug your shoulders and not worry about it.

 

To be honest, when walking the streets as a tourist, you really wouldn't know you're in a communist country most of the time. I'm sure its different for the locals there however. But its definitely rushing head-first into capitalism at an alarming rate.

 

As for the sanuk scene in VN, here is a link to an old report.

 

Saigon Trip Report

 

Absolutely gorgeous women in Vietnam. I think more beautiful than the Thais (hard to generalise, but I DO prefer the Chinese/Vietnamese look to the Isaan look). Can be very shy though and take a lot of wooing to get them to be your gf/bed-partner, but can also get lucky at times. It's still quite a novelty and status-symbol for a VN girl to have a western boyfriend.

 

A very interesting country to travel in and I'd recommend it. Not specifically for sanuk, but for sightseeing, there's some awesome places to see.

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A good sign of the living-standard is that in Pattaya you can find malay, burmese, nepalese, chinese, lao, vietnamese and khmer girls working in the bars. Sure there are russian, probabably also indonesian and taiwanese the last 2 I've never heard of however. :cool:

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"probabably also ... taiwanese" girls working in pattaya bars????? :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

you obviously never have been to taiwan or have ever met a taiwanese woman. given their living standards, they're about as likely to go work in a shithole like pattaya than a danish chick. perhaps you can find some desperate women from rural mainland china, though they can make better coin in hk, sing or even in kl or at home...

 

but is vietnam in the third world (whatever that means)?

yes it is: no mcdonalds, no starbucks, few obese people, few highways, a currency named "dong"

no it aint: excellent local food (on par with thai), even better coffee (thank you, french colonialists), stunning women, plenty of country roads to explore, dumb cheap

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A good sign of the living-standard is that in Pattaya you can find malay, burmese, nepalese, chinese, lao, vietnamese and khmer girls working in the bars. Sure there are russian, probabably also indonesian and taiwanese the last 2 I've never heard of however. :cool:

 

Er.. what's Pattaya got to do with Vietnam??

 

Chinese and Taiwanese girls in the bars??? In Pattaya? Maybe Chinese-Thais... but 100% Chinese?? You're having a laugh! Same for Vietnamese. Tell us which bar(s) so we can go check it out. :rotl::rotl::wave::rotl::rotl:

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Er.. what's Pattaya got to do with Vietnam??

don't forget that for a good few board members, pattaya is the first (and their only) world.

for these enlightened creatures, any place where renting female company takes twice as long, or costs twice as much, qualifies as the second world. three times as long or trice the expense? call it the third world. remaining parts of the planet are too far gone to even think about...

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Taiwanese and indonesian BGs I've never seen but some friends report that such exist. Rest of the nationalities I've met over the years including from people's republic of china, the most surprising for me however is the girl from Nepal.

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As I said it's not an economic background, it's a cold war phrase.

 

# 1 - USA + Nato (except Turkey) + Australia + NZ + some neutrals - as Sweden and Switzerland but not Japan

 

# 2 - Soviet Union + allies - first including but later China and Yogoslavia were moved to 3rd world

 

# 3 - rest including Japan, a country thought as the big copy cat of the world stealing the copyrights and patents from the West.

 

---------

 

If you want to use the words today they're not clearly defined

 

# 1 OECD

# 2 ? maybe Russia, Thailand, some parts of China

# 3 developing countries

# 4 hopeless cases

 

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