Background info via Blogs

Here's some background reading on the state of Vietnam in 2006:

Noodlepie (southern Vietnam - read Saigon/HCMC - food blog)
StickyRice (northern Vietnam - read Hanoi - food blog)
VietnameseGod (blog by a Vietnamese in the hospitality industry)
Down and Out in Saigon (American ex-pat in HCMC, teaching English)
Hanoi Days (American ex-pat in Hanoi, working at a Vietnamese newspaper)

There are quite a few others, obviously, but this gives you the flavor of the ex-pat [for the nephews, that is shorthand for "ex-patriot" - no, not an American deemed an enemy combatant by Bush, but a general term for any foreigner who comes to a country, say Vietnam, and lives and works there for a period of time] experience.

For those who are bewildered by the cost of food and other consumer items mentioned in the blogs above, this calculator provides a handy resource. The currency in Vietnam is the Dong (yeah, it's kinda funny Freddy Smoot), and is abbreviated as VND. At the current exchange rates, $63 U.S. Dollars (USD) would be slightly over $1 million VND.