Many tourists, after short-changing themselves by 200% for the poor-looking cone-hat merchants who look like they're from the 1420's , would be surprised at the modern Saigonese homes.
Here is where I'm squatting. Our house is one of the nicer and more expensive ones, as it's right off the street. Most people live within the maze of alleys in the center of the blocks (where the tourist never goes), though many of these houses are also really nice. The interesting thing about houses on the streets is you can't really see the entrance. In the front is a sliding metal door and grill just like every other house--at night, it can be pretty confusing trying to find your house. During the day it is one of hundreds of busy little shops selling rice and all sorts of junk--the merchants rent the little space in the entrance--and you have to squeeze through this to get in.
You can see above that we don't have standard windows, but glass doors leading to a balcony. Every floor has a little balcony (where the parents like to watch the rush hour every night) and the top floor has a nice large open balcony AND another one above it.
Jenny's expat friends were saying how an earthquake would level the whole place. Each tall, narrow structure has a frame of concrete, with supporting walls of BRICK, the kind we use for decorating our gardens. So basically, buildings lean against each other like dominoes. Let's go inside, shall we?
On the left is my bathroom. The whole thing is within the shower stall. It's a unique way of doing things, though it could lend itself to some foreign perspective--Howabout you switch the toilet and the shower, then you don't have to squeegie-dry the toilet every time you need to use it? Taken by request is Jenny's bathroom (right). She says it's nicer, but since the showerhead isn't as conveniently placed and it takes longer to wait for hot water, she uses mine.
Speaking of hot water, this thing is amazing. It's a little single-serve electric shower heater. You flip a switch, and in less than a minute you have a nice hot shower. Here's how we do it: Get a huge tank of water, enough to last the building for a day. Heat it up under a constant oil or gas fed blaze. It's a huge waste of energy, and you have to jump every time someone in the building flushes the toilet. Why do we do it this way, I beg? Probably the system has been monopolized since the invention of oil, and the ironically free-er market here lead to cheaper, more effective devices.
Here's something else we don't have: an air-conditioner that doesn't block the window. Again, it amazes me how everyone in the states unthinkingly does things the wrong way. It's like the Indians discovering penicillin while the Europeans were enjoying their syphilis.
My room is the only one with air-con--elsewhere the ceiling fan rules the air. See, it's just a simple oscillating fan. Isn't that awesome? We all know they work better than fixed ceiling fans, we just didn't think to stick one up there. One thing bothers me though--since it's on the ceiling, why do you need the protective grill?
In the US, we're trying really hard to convince unwilling or indignant consumers to switch from horribly inefficient bulbs to florescent lights. Here, everything is florescent. You won't find any other bulbs in a market. In the house, we use the dreaded bar. But why not? It is noiseless, has more light than a halogen but barely any heat, and in my opinion white is a better hue than the shadowy yellowish standard. The one flaw is the minute of quick bursts until it turns on.
Ants! Ok, I'm weird. Instead of freaking out, I actually like living with insects so long as they don't bite or sting, and ants clean up the crumbs and even their own poop. And they generally stick to neat trails. No one here seems to mind, though they do keep the place spotless to dissuade pests--the ants are probably living off fungus inside the shower drains. Here I found them swarming. They were probably sick of their new roommate (me) dousing their home with the shower, so they were moving their grubs to another place. They also had some winged queens with them--I'm kicking myself for not bringing my ant farm.
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