Saigon, officially named Ho Chi Minh City is a thriving metropolis with an unavoidable western influence offering quite a different experience to Hanoi. Whilst Hanoi seems a city to be savoured with more traditions and obvious traces of the red-tape, Saigon catches up better and faster with the best and worst sides of "doi moi" movements (renovation of the country) following the market economy rules. For many of the inhabitants of Ho chi Minh City, nothing has changed. The streets still swarm with life. People buy and sell things, bargain, cook, wash, sleep, eat, drink, and live on the streets of Saigon. Despite the large amount of money being thrown around, the filter effect is yet to manifest itself and thousands of people have to survive on virtually nothing. In one word, Saigon is facing all good and bad things caused by the new movements of Vietnam. It obviously promises lots of interesting things to discover, whilst remains an exciting centre for shopping and hanging around and somehow remind you of its one-time name "the Pearl of the Far Orient.