How Much Is It?

My knowledge of the Vietnamese language is nil as is English to many of the people I meet here on the street in Hanoi, but we all understand money--as long as we have a common denominator to value it.

But even simple amounts can be confusing here.  Today's rate of the U.S. dollar to the Vietnamese dong is 21,263.02 dong per $1.00.

That means I pay, at 20,000 dong per cup, just a little less than a dollar for the excellent Vietnamese coffee the shops in my neighborhood serve.

You can check this page to see tomorrow's dong/dollar rate, and so on:

https://www.google.com.vn/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=qUm6U_f0OMSJ8Qee2oHwAw#q=vietnam+dong+us+dollar+rate

Check out this page to see Vietnam's colorful plastic banknotes, all of which feature Ho Chi Minh's visage:

https://www.google.com.vn/search?q=vietnamese+currency&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=YEi6U6DfHIal8AWd8YHoBw&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=639#q=vietnamese+currency+images&tbm=isch

All I have to do to become a "gosh dong millionaire" is change $50 in greenbacks.  At today's rate I'd pull in around 1, 063,151.18 dong.

But when I took a moto taxi to a location not very far from my hotel and I asked the driver how much, he said "Five."  At first I took this to mean 5000 dong (about 25 cents), but then I knew that sometimes the Vietnamese will indicate price with one finger for each 10,000 dong (50 cents) requested.

So did my driver mean 50,000 dong ($2.50)?  This seemed like a reasonable price for the distance.  But still I wasn't sure.

"Five what?" I asked.

"Five dollars, " he said cheerfully.  In other words, he wanted more than 100,000 dong.  This seemed to be far too much money for the service.

"How much in dong?" I asked him.

"One hundred five thousand," he said.  I asked him if he could give me a discount. "I'll take you for 100,000," he said.

When I asked the desk at my hotel how much was the cost of one of my loads of laundry, after some intricate calculations, I was told "Two point six dollar."  How much was that in dong?  "A little more than 50,000",  I was told.

Sometimes prices on fixed-price items such as restaurant menu selections and convenience store goods will indicate however many K, as in 20K for a 1.5 liter bottle of water or soft drink, 23K for a bag of chips, etc.

The items on the menu at a good, medium-priced restaurant on my corner run from 50K for Vietnamese food to 150K for some Western-oriented dishes like burgers and fries.  This can get confusing sometimes.  Somehow I have a hard time remembering that 100 grand in dong is just $5, so 200 grand is $10.

Anything that approaches 400,000 dong in cost ($20) seems so expensive here, I can't even conceive of it.

I asked for my hotel bill yesterday, and the final, itemized invoice read  3,896,136 dong.  That's close to 4 million dong!  Or how many dollars?  I'm scratching my head in confusion here.  Should I run out to the ATM and withdraw the cash, or should I settle it up with a credit card? 

It bears pointing out, by the way, that the smallest Vietnamese banknote is a 1000 dong note.

When I produced my credit card to pay the hotel bill, I was asked:  "Do you want us to indicate payment in dollars or dong?"  I said dollars would be fine (and much less confusing for me!).

After another brief calculation, I was shown the dollar figure:  $183.78 for a week's hotel room plus incidentals.

That's a bargain in any currency!