USD or VND?

Which is your preferred currency for use in VN?

In sim lim square there is this exchange agent give good rates for VND..
I got it for SGD 1.00 -> 13600 VND on 24th June.. I can't find such a good rate in Ho Chi Minh when i reach there on 25th June.. The best rate i ask around is about 13500...

As for USD I dun't know why they give better rate if you exchange in $100.00 USD notes..
If you give them small notes like 20.00 or 10.00 the rates is lower..

Some Jewelery Shop do currency exchange with good rates too.

apollo2008 wrote:

In sim lim square there is this exchange agent give good rates for VND..
I got it for SGD 1.00 -> 13600 VND on 24th June.. I can't find such a good rate in Ho Chi Minh when i reach there on 25th June.. The best rate i ask around is about 13500...

As for USD I dun't know why they give better rate if you exchange in $100.00 USD notes..
If you give them small notes like 20.00 or 10.00 the rates is lower..

Some Jewelery Shop do currency exchange with good rates too.

There are shops which can change vnd in sgp?

Where? where?

I dun no the place, my bx bring me around... Most of the gold Jewelery shops have it..

apollo2008 wrote:

I dun no the place, my bx bring me around... Most of the gold Jewelery shops have it..

I meant in sgp... you mentioned sim lim square.

Or is there a sim lim square in vn too?

ok... in SGP Sim Lim Square 1st floor. If you enter from Bencoolen Street left entrance you will see it ..
the entrance facing burger king.

apollo2008 wrote:

ok... in SGP Sim Lim Square 1st floor. If you enter from Bencoolen Street left entrance you will see it ..
the entrance facing burger king.

26th June, I change at the normal goldsmith shop opposite cho ben thanh.

S$1.00 = 13,700vnd

I will always use VND in VN and bring some USD for emergency. The reason why USD is so popular there is due to the perceived stability of USD by the local Viets. VND is very weak and keeps depreciating while USD is perceived to be strong currency (though the rest of the world begs to differ on this!) and as such USD always get good exchange rate in the gold/jewellery shops in VN.

The banks in VN are also always short of USD to meet their customer's demands and the people in VN basically do not trust their local bank like we do in Singapore. So normally when a local Viet get USD, they will literally keep the physical note until they really need to spend in VND before bringing the USD to exchange to local currency... it is a mentality thing which has been passed down through the years since the turbulent times of the Vietnam War. When the communist north forces conquered the south, the southern VND (yes they had 2 VND currencies back then!) depreciated greatly in value against the northern VND and basically people in the south just lost faith with their local currency as fortunes were wiped off easily and they increasingly turned towards the USD as the way to preserve their wealth.

USD in $100 denomination are given slightly better exchange rate as the vendors need not keep so much notes for the same value of the same currency and hence become a preferred form of denomination. Imagine having to keep 100 pieces of US$1 compared to 1xUSD$100 note and the note size is the same for all denominations of USD.

By the way, They LOVE S$ too..........

So it's more recommended that I should change my money to VND before going to Vietnam??

How about the hotel in Vietnam? Must use USD, or can use VND as well?

miua55555 wrote:

So it's more recommended that I should change my money to VND before going to Vietnam??

How about the hotel in Vietnam? Must use USD, or can use VND as well?

Everything in VN can be paid with either USD or VND.

IMHO, using USD gives either party the opportunity to 'round off'

Adguy wrote:

miua55555 wrote:

So it's more recommended that I should change my money to VND before going to Vietnam??

How about the hotel in Vietnam? Must use USD, or can use VND as well?

Everything in VN can be paid with either USD or VND.

IMHO, using USD gives either party the opportunity to 'round off'

Hotel in Vietnam can definitely accept USD or VND... you can use USD at almost everywhere but of course you will stand to lose out on the lousy rate they use to convert your USD to VND...