I woke up feeling good and refreshed. I took a shower and went down to say good morning to Mrs. An. I borrowed a bicycle from the B&B and rode into Hoi An to eat Cao Lau for breakfast. Cao Lau is a dry soup. It’s like soup but it only has a little water. It has crunchy rice chips, meat, and noodles. It’s ngon (delicious).
After I ate Cao Lau, I went looking for clothes to buy. I had heard that Hoi An had a lot of tailors so I wanted to see if I could find some custom made shoes. As I was looking around, I ran into Meital form Israel and Jonathan from China who I had met in Hue. They were getting their bus tickets so they could go south the following day.
I went with them and ended up at their hostel. Carolina was there and I gave her the nickname Princess Mononoke. I was hungry so I was getting ready to go eat lunch, but then I went into the kitchen at the hostel and saw some banh chung. I talked to the owners about banh chung and they offered me some. I shared it with Meital, Jonothan, and Carolina. Then we were offered spring rolls and pork so we had lunch at the hostel.
The owner said that he was interested in opening a new hostel and he wanted ideas about what backpackers were looking for in a hostel. We took about 30 minutes telling him all the things that we look for in a good hostel. We came up with about 20 items including laundry service, wifi, maps, etc.
Carolina, Meital, Jonathan, and I left the hostel on bicycles and headed for the beach. When we got to the beach we parked our bikes, watched the ocean, played frisbee and spelled VIETNAM with our shadows.
We walked down the beach for about 15 minutes and I got a text from Paul saying that I could play guitar in Hoi An that evening at a restaurant on the beach. He said I should come ASAP. I told the group that we should go together.
We rode our bicycles to the restaurant and I played guitar for about an hour. The only problem was that there was no capo, so I had to play only songs that didn’t require a capo. People clapped for me and I got a free dinner and a drink. I ate a pork sandwich and drank lemon tea.
Paul invited me and the others back to Da Nang for a party. We got into a cab and went to Da Nang. In the cab, Paul taught Meital, Jonothan, and Carolina how to count in Vietnamese using the following story:
“Imagine a castle. What’s the first line of defense around a castle? A moat. So moat is number 1. Then, what’s the second line of defense for a castle? The walls. To protect the people inside the castle, the walls have to be high. High is 2. The third way to defend a castle is the bars on the windows. (Paul is from New Zealand so he pronounces bar like “baa.”) So baa is 3. Then, imagine you are holding a bong. Your hand is wrapped around the bong and looking down, you can see 4 fingers. Bong is 4. Now we’re half way to 10, the cow, mooo-ie. Half of 10 is 5. Half of Viet Nam is nam. Nam is 5. How many nipples are there on a pig? Six! And what do you call a female pig? A sow. Sow is 6. Imagine the number 7. If you look at the right side, it curves in. It makes a bay. Bay is 7. When you’re hungry, you rub your stomach. If you rub your tum in a figure eight then you can remember that tum is 8. Now, number 9... What is number 9? I’m trying to remember... And when I try to remember, I rub my chin. Chin is 9. We’ve made it to the cow. Number 10 is moo-ie. Moo like a cow. Moo-ie is 10.
Let’s recap:
1= moat
2= high
3= baa
4= bong
5= nam
6= sow
7= bay
8= tum
9= chin
10= moo-ie
If you want to count higher than ten, it’s really easy. To say 11, you just say ten, one. Moo-ie moat is 11.
12 = moo-ie high
13 = moo-ie baa
14 = moo-ie bong
That pattern works for the teens. By the way, 15 is moo-ie lam. Change the “n” in nam to an “l” so it rolls off the tongue. If you want to say numbers above 19, for example 20. You just say two, ten. High moo-ie is 20.
50 = nam moo-ie
60 = sow moo-ie
70 = bay moo-ie
80 = tum moo-ie
90 = chin moo-ie
For numbers like 47, you would say four, ten, seven. Bong moo-ie bay is 47
21 = high moo-ie moat
34 = baa moo-ie bong
56 = nam moo-ie sow
65 = sow moo-ie lam *notice the L instead of N in “lam”
78 = bay moo-ie tum
If you want to barter in the market, you only need two more numbers. Cham means 100 and nyeen means 1000. The way to say 100 is moat cham. For numbers like 269 you say two, hundred, six, ten, nine... High cham sow moo-ie chin is 269.
300 = baa cham
490 = bong cham chin moo-ie
753 = bay cham nam moo-ie baa
In Vietnam, prices are usually between 5,000 and say, 500,000. So you find yourself saying the word thousand, nyeen, all the time. You can probably guess how to say a number like 56,321. It’s five ten six thousand, three hundred two ten one. Nam moo-ie sow nyeen, baa cham high moo-ie moat is 56,321. It’s as simple as that. Here’s some examples.
20,000 = high moo-ie nyeen
35,000 = baa moo-ie lam nyeen
500,000 = nam cham nyeen
468,579 = bong cham sow moo-ie tum nyeen, nam cham bay moo-ie chin
Finally, here is a bonus. 1,000,000. One million is moat chieu. Chieu sounds a bit like the sound you make when you sneeze, after you say “ah.” So imagine you’re sneezing and you say “ahhh-chieu.” There you go.
3,000,000 = baa chieu
987,654,321 = chin cham tum moo-ie bay chieu, sow cham nam moo-ie bong nyeen, baa cham high moo-ie moat.
There are a few nuances with the numbers you can pick up if you get really into it, but with this information, you are well equipped to survive in Vietnam. Here’s how you barter:
Point at something and say “Bow nyeew teeyen” (How much money)
They will say a number. Like baa cham nam moo-ie nyeen. 350,000
You divide that number in half and say it while smiling and nodding your head. 350,000/2=125,000 moat cham high mooie lam nyeen.
They come down, you come up or pretend to walk away and eventually, maybe, reach an agreement. It’s an art form so you’ll have to practice and find what works best for you. Good luck!
We reached Da Nang and went to a bar to watch live music and play pool, foosball, and an intense game of darts. Jonathan, 22 years old from China, had never played foosball before. It was fun.
After all the games we took a cab back to Hoi An. I picked up my bicycle and rode it back to the B&B while Jonathan, Meital, and Carolina took the cab back to their hostel. When I got back to the B&B, the doors were locked and the owners were asleep so I had to climb up a brick wall, carefully ascend a flimsy, sloped chain-link fence that was covered with vines, and knock on the window where Morta and Lukas were awake. They came downstairs and let me in. It was 2:30 am.
Hoi An
At the beach with Meital and Carolina
