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2020 : Trip report for a virtual trip


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We were in mid October 2020 when I started writing this TR. October already. I hardly realized that Spring and Summer had come and Autumn's cold weather was already back. I should have gone to the Embassy of the Vietnamese Republic to get a visa to travel in November but nothing would happen this year 2020. Early in March , governments announced they would decide a lock down or ban international travel because of a disease that had started in China. In January, we still believed the disease would hit China and a couple more Asian countries but it spread all over the world and it dangerosity worried Authorities in every country. 7 months later, the crisis hadn’t been solved yet.

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As we were advised we woud have to change our lives for a while, I first believed that we would be bothered till Spring comes back but I soon understood it would take a year or more to get mass vaccination, so I could put a cross on 2020 to get a profitable job, travel and have fun even at the end of the year as I usually do. As we were reaching the end of the year, it was likely to last longer but I still hoped that I had lost one year only and that traveling and mongering could return to normality by June 2021.

What I tell is the other side of the story. What I did in the back scene consists in hours searching the net. This is an activity I recommend to everybody but what I see in forums are guys who don't think, waste their time posting the same BS thread after thread instead of using forums to create groups. My crime for the clique of PY was to be a lonely wolf, but I feel more efficient now working as a lonely wolf. In 2020, I had been deeply annoyed by mongers posting they knew the pandemic would be over one month before they get their holidays. They became mad as the rest of the world confusing their wishes and what was actually true. They wasted their time argueing about China, vaccines and stupid politicians, those who were unable to maintain civilized manners in such a time of crisis.

The purpose of this thread is not to deal with covid19 and even less to argue about it. I would like to focus on ladyboys and ladyboys only. A couple of months before media dealt with covid in China. I was having one of my best ladyboys trips in Vietnam. To sum it up, I had been with 11 ladyboys 16 in the room, had spent time with ladyboys in bars, and had even met a ladyboy in Hanoi. I had never paid so low prices to shag ladyboys. I was still worried about my approach though. I had collected as many contacts as I could before departing. As I arrived in Vietnam, I had about 49 ladyboys contacts in my files (plus a couple of spots for street action). At the end of my trip, I had gone down my entire list. (see my previous TR : 2019 : like a Vietnamese monger) to the point I decided a new target of 150 contacts by the end of 2020. This sounded ambitious and I was starting depressing in February since I understood I would hardly reach 130. Moreover, I had poor quality contacts (not so pretty ladyboys or too many ladyboys not replying my contact requests), so I was starting worrying about it. Very amazingly, Covid19 was about to change the deal.

 

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You probably read the story KenW at LBR. He lived in Vietnam more than 10 years ago for his job. He didn't look for ladyboys but found them. That was another time in another Vietnam. If I got it well, most of the ladyboys he had been with were maid or neighbours of his landlords. I wouldn't be able to do the same again. I didn’t know his story and I proceeded differently

My story isn't logical. I didn't decide I would do it at my first meeting with a Vietnamese ladyboy. I just kept in mind there were ladyboys coming from Vietnam , one of them outshined other nationality ladyboys and Vietnam might have cheap prices. I had been disappointed in Cambodia and started in Vietnam a new adventure from from zero.

This is the story I am going to try to tell you in this report for a virtual trip. But first, let me come back to my strategy in Vietnam.

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39 minutes ago, Woodie said:

Sounds good so far.

I like the one in the larger photo. With the vacation book in front of her.

This is a model photo made by a professional photographer. This is Huỳnh Đan who wants to be called Daisy now. I could write a novel about our relationship. She shared an appartment with another ladyboy and Châu Kim Sang during the pandemic. 

She let her mates influence her to make clients pay 2 million for a ST. She welcomed me in HCMC during my last trip but never wanted to come to my room. I banned her from my contacts before leaving Vietnam. 

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The first event that needs to be pointed had been reported in my 2018 TR. I had gathered as much information as I could. Most of it was general information dealing with p4p, the legal status of ladyboys and Vietnamese laws. I had also brought links to « international escort » websites. I mentioned a couple of details that no one noticed.

Since information on Vietnam was missing in forums and sex blogs, I was searching ordinary travellers blogs and had found 2 tips in a blog written by a French female journalist (maybe a French Vietnamese girl). The first one said that Vietnamese young people used to meet in small hotels to have sex . She described these dates as love dates but I understood the method could be used to have sex with a p4p girl or ladyboy. The second one mentioned a messenger application that I am going to call «Viet Vui Vé». Both the name and the logo are fakes I created to protect the real name. (I decided to use another name as a forum fellow does when changing ladyboys names to “Coca cola”, “Mowgli”, “John lennon” etc ...). To make a long story short, this app works similarly to the Chinese Wechat, Line or Viber. I tested the App in North Vietnam in 2018. It had been so unsuccessful that I deactivated before I reached Central Vietnam.

 

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fake icon for a fake name for a true app

 

I could say that everything took place before the eyes of forum mates as in a magic trick and they saw nothing. (I was in the Canuk forum at that time and posted very little at LBR. I had just finished posting my TR (for November 2018 so it must have been around February 2019) and kept on searching the web with as many keywords I could input in search engines when I found a Vietnamese website looking like a forum in which every thread was an add for gay boys. Each page also had plenty of banners for gay massage institutes or spas. Then guys interested posted their phone numbers. I made a search using several words I looked for ladyboys and eventually found a few old adds. I then wondered how to use phone numbers. I noticed that a few of them advised they used VVV.

 

 

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Then I kept on searching the web and found another website with adds only. It had around 500 adds posted since 2015, It is supposed to be gay but more than 95 % of advertisers are ladyboys. I started making contacts and collecting phone numbers. Most interesting is that ladyboys advertising their prices asked for 300 K or 400 K Dong, the lowest being 250 K.

 

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I kept on searching and found an adult forum. I was unable to understand how it was organized but I found more ladyboys. (It took me more than a year to understand the sub forums titles and organization). I kept on adding ladyboys datas in the file I had created. I added photos too. When I had too many photos, I started posting photos in a  thread (in the Canuk forum). I understood fairly rapidly I was not well organized. A few ladyboys had deleted or disconected their account at VVV, other ones would change their names and sometimes new ones turned up to be ladyboys I knew but using another account or phone number.

I decided to keep confidential contacts and how to contact ladyboys. I just posted photos. I needed an efficient way to store my datas in such a way I could use it when traveling in Vietnam. I first created a file in a spreadsheet to store it in my phone but it didn't work really well. Eventually, I created a blog to add contacts and pictures. I created several pages : “Can Tho”, Hanoi”, HCM”, other cities, “expensvive”, “not very attractive”. “never replied”, “lost contacts”.

 

 

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Then I found a third forum with a few more ladyboys contacts and I kept on adding datas. This is how I had 49 contacts when I departed to Saigon in 2019.

After, I completed my TR, I started changing the blog structure. I changed it several times till 2022 . I added a black list and a “greedy/expensive” list (The purpose of such lists is to stay away from and avoid wasting time with scammers or ladyboys asking for too high prices for a ST).
In the last version, the blog has 40 pages, 32 of which are dedicated to provinces or district of Hồ Chí Minh. 

 

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As mentioned in my first post, 49 ladyboys were not enough to have a comfortable search. This makes a rate of 20 % of passable ladyboys. I don’t know whether that is good or poor but I decided an objective of 150 contacts in order to monger ladyboys in comfortable conditions.

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Note : this post may be boring for many readers. I explain how I found contacts in Vietnam during the Covid pandemic. I believe it was important to take advantage of the lockdown period to explore the web and find new opportunities. If you don't like it, just skip. 

 

What’s amazing now, is that I can't remember the exact chronology of what I did with ladyboys during this time as if it happened years ago. It seems that all I did between January 2020 and June 2020 happened in one week with always the same events every day.

I added first ladyboys who were not in my data base, I had met in street freelancers areas. I also kept on searching forums and adds websites.

 

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Early in the year,  I had estimated I would have only 130 ladyboys on my lists in October. Given I was losing contacts every month and  not all them would be able to meet (see above), it wouldn’t be enough, athough I was using 3 Vietnamese forums on a daily basis to find contacts ( I stopped using the 1st one, but I used the second one I will call forum “B” , the 3rd one forum “C” and the new one forum “D”. Amazingly, D was developing its ladyboy activity fairly fast.

 

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Sub-forum index in forum "D". The sub-forum is dedicated to ladyboys



I started using facebook in February or March. I didn’t have a classical facebook profile with my personal photos, address, family and employers (what more and more people deem as dangerous in Europe), I had a facebook account with an avatar as we do in ladyboys forums. One day, Ly Ly posted a link to her facebook in VVV. I searched her friends and found more ladyboys including one whom I knew (the one who made me meet Ly Ly. Then I looked for the friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends etc … . This search was not really efficient. I had to filter ladyboys and GGs. I must admit I found many Vietnamese ladyboys (maybe up to 80) but couldn’t find how to contact them if I felt like so. I wouldn’t even try for most of them since they were ladyboys over 35 years old, not the kind a tourist would like to meet in a bar or in a beach city. I sent a few messages to ask for VVV contacts but got zero answer. I then forgot facebook for while. As I tried to use it in August, I was advised I had been banned from facebook. I don’t know why, I don’t know who complained about what. The message just said I didn’t share facebook’s values. I tried to create profiles twice but the ban remains operational in spite of my cleaning cookies and using VPNs. At least this justifies that facebook don’t respect users’ privacy. Regarding just ladyboys, it proved me that many ladyboys live out of the scene in Vietnam.



We were advised mid March that the country was locked down. I also found out end of March that regulations were changing in Vietnam. Vietnam banned international flights around March 22nd, then closed “non-essential business” then banned domestic travels and eventually ordered a lock down starting April 1st.

As a wave of panic swept through Vietnam, I began to sponsor ladyboys.

I knew that Ly Ly needed some help. I had suggested her to go back home as she complained she was not meeting customers and had to keep on paying her hotel room . It took her several days to make a decision. I asked her how much she needed for her fare since she was broke and sent her the double of the amount so that she can travel comfortably. But Ly Ly is not able to plan and comply with a plan, so she stayed in Nha Trang. As a matter of fact, she had decided to accept money too late and the Vietnamese government had banned domestic travels in between. I felt upset, but this is Ly Ly, She’s a sweet angel but always going the wrong way.

I also contacted Uyên. Uyên came from Cần Thơ as Ly Ly and they had known each other. She was also the ladyboy with whom I had spent the longest time in Vietnam although we had never been in the room together. After Covid19 started hitting Vietnam, Uyên was all right in her family’s home.She has messaged me a litany of anti Chinese comments as well as anti Governmental comments but she was all right.

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I had also new contacts with Đan. Đan was the last ladyboy I shagged in HCM last year. She had posted a few pics in which I noticed she seemed to have silicone boops. I knew her as a femboy. She confirmed me that she had done a breast surgery. When the Vietnamese government ordered a first lock down, people working in closing business had to stay at home. They receive no unemployment assistance of any kind. They must stay at home and risk of being fined the same amount as in European countries. No care about starving people. Meanwhile, I had a first contact with Jessi Ca. Jessi Ca was crying for help. She couldn’t go back and live to her parents (I don’t know all the details, but she probably had to protect them and she couldn’t terminate her apartment lease.) I couldn’t help unknown ladyboys. It would be enough with one. As Uyên needed no help, I accepted to help Đan as she explained me she was broke after her surgery since she had spent all her savings to do it. We then started a long distance relationship chatting every day.

End of April, as the Vietnamese government announced the lock down would be over, Uyên asked me for some money since she was tired to eat instant noodles every day.

I kept on helping Đan. Bars re opened within a week or two after the end of lock down but remained without customers. However, bar girls are paid only on commissions on ladies drinks. The first time a customer went to her bar was like a great event. We would celebrate each ladies drink she made (40 K Đong for her) as great news each time. It’s a strange feeling to see people you know as luxury party mates struggling for survival. Đan and Jessi Ca used to meet in an organization who probably helped them or provided them some food. Meanwhile I had also been very busy during that period.

 

But I got busy rapidly on another front. I started finding more and more ladyboys adds looking for customers. The website B (forum with adds) had about 2,740 adds on February 29th, 2020 and 420, 12 months earlier. This makes an average of less than 200 adds a month. In March 2020, I found 284 adds (a little bit more). In April, I found 1486 more adds. I was becoming crazy. Ladyboys came from nowhere. I would find new ones every day.

I had to organize my file system to make sure to manage it correctly. The procedure was always the same. Before adding pictures in theladyboyforums/asiaboard, I tried to “become friend” in VVV so that I would know more about the ladyboy and then would have the possibility to copy more than just a photo. This tactic is risky exactly as it’s risky to contact Thai ladyboys on Line from your home country when you find them in Thaifriendly. I did it however since I knew I was maybe the only foreigner to contact them. So I had to explain them I wouldn’t be able to meet them for a while, that I was a foreigner but interested in keeping in touch for a long time. I had another concern doing this ; try to increase my rate of actual contacts ie ladyboys allowing me to chat with them in VVV. It worked fairly well last Springs.

Then I would enhance photos using photoscape (a freeware with interesting functions to replace photoshop, actually the freeware I use is photoscape V3.7, not photoscape X), provide pictures with 9 photos (if possible) and post them in this forum and in my blog. I had rapidly chosen the 9 photos form that was the easiest to use here (it had been such a pain in the ass to post 9 pics one after another) and also used it in my blog for the same reasons. Photoscape creates a file to save original photos so that 2 pics are saved when the work is complete : the original and the new one. I had checked fairly early in April and found out I had about 1 Go of datas in my HDD just to post pics here and pics and texts in my blog. On November 4th, 202, I had 3,44 Go of datas, 409 sub files and 5330 objects (sub files, text and pictures) in my HDD.

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I remember this time when guys complained of policies to struggle against Covid19 and anticipated normal conditions of traveling by Summer 2020. I knew we would need to be patient and had already anticipated that I wouldn’t travel in 2020 (I should have been in HCMC inNovember 2020) and decided to focus on making my contact list grow. It started fairly slowly then more rapidly. The more I would find contacts, the prettier they were. I remember I was so much busy that I would have needed 26 hours every day to do all that I felt like doing. I had a strange feeling I had in my hand when using the mouse of my PC to create new files. That was the same feeling I had when I was addicted to cigarettes and held one smoking in my hand.
It started calming down in May. A few ladyboys took the habit of posting more and more adds in “B” but the number of ladyboys actually posting decreased.

 

I decided to create a mini forum to invite Vietnamese mongers to participate and share information. I managed little by little, I reached 50 then 100 and even more BMs. But Vietnamese mongers, especially ladyboys mongers don’t participate. They come, they read adds and never post reviews nor new possible contacts. However, the mini forum had been usefull as a back-up to my blog.

 

 

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The traffic calmed down during the summer, but I kept on adding ladyboys to my contact list. In August, Vietnam ordered a second lock down. The same process started over again but not so important. As a matter of fact, ladyboys who had come to the scene in April either withdrew or stopped posting in forum “B” since they had migrated to either forum “C”  or forum “D”  or even probably estimated they had stabilized their clientele.

I found a few more forums in June and July but they had poor information regarding ladyboys. One of them is dedicated to women. A couple more are dedicated to all kind of discussions for adults (including money games, speculating or advertising for new freelance business). Last but not least, I found in the forum ”C” the spot of ladyboys street action in Đa nang. I will deal with Đa Nang later.

Although the activity decreased, I had reached my target in early July : 150 ladyboys contacts in my files. It had seemed so easy to me but I kept on finding more ladyboys. I eventually had my first day without new contact, then my first time without having photos to edit, but I was also busy since lock down had been released in May in farangslands and job activities restarted a little bit. My mind remained focused on to the best looking stunners found in April whereas I would sometimes find a new contact with an average looking ladyboy.

 

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I was always busy though. I would sometimes realize that a new contact was a ladyboy who had changed her account in VVV. Ladyboys are sometimes banned from the network. Exactly as in Line, they can post pics in their timeline. In order to advertise for their escort services, some of them post sexy pics but Vietnam is a conservative country (with still a communist administration), so accounts would be deleted rapidly. Banned ladyboys usually manage to create a new account with a new phone number a few days later but it had been a part of the job to find out which one would come back and using which name. It happened sometimes that the new account would be spotted by moderators and immediately banned again. The same happened to a couple of ladyboys I had met in 2019. Bans are sometimes decided after a contact reported inappropriate behavior. The problem at my side is that I find an empty account with no name, no photo and I can hardly read the last few sentences to try to know who’s banned. Having about 190 contacts (quite a few have 2 accounts) in my phone, it’s the best way to forget about one who has no account any longer.

 

 

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At the end of July, Vietnam announced new cases of Covid and ordered a second lock down for 1 month in August. Since Đan was not making enough money in her bar and had to stop working, I kept on helping her. After a few days, Uyên asked me for money too. Uyên felt extremely nervous. She made extremely violent racist remarks against Chinese people. She had to go back to her family in Cần Thơ again. After Vietnamese bars reopened, Đan kept on telling me she had no customer. On a Saturday afternoon in September, she announced me that Uyên had passed away. I had feared a bad joke due some kind of a rivalry between Uyên and Đan but Đan ignored that Uyên was jealous of her. So, I contacted Kate who was Uyên’s boss and Kate confirmed. Officially, Uyên died of a lung disease. I  was explained one year or so later what happened. Uyên didn't die of Covid but what happened to her is really sad. 

The second lock down didn’t bring me as many ladyboys as the first one. It seems that most of those who sometimes met customers in the place where they worked had already advertised during the first lock down. Moreover, their Vietnamese customers must have been missing money, so ladyboys would prefer to stop wasting energy to try to find them. However, I saw a new wave of ladyboys coming. They seemed to be newbies in p4p as if they didn’t know uses, habits but seemed to be in a real need for money.

Early in October, I reached 200 contacts. I then decided to clean my files. I did it after I had been disturbed by a fake ladyboy. I sometimes realized that an account with a ladyboy (or girl) photo would then become a boy’s account. I don’t know whether phone numbers are reassigned quickly by phone operators or if ladyboys used a friend’s or a brother’s phone to create their account, but I sometimes found a boy or a gay instead of a ladyboy a couple of months earlier. I also noticed that an account created by a ladyboy would sometimes belong to another ladyboy a few weeks later. Last but not least, I found evidences that a couple or a groups of accounts belonged to one ladyboy each. So I deleted duplicates. It had been a fairly long job to do. I started mid October and completed in early November. It kept me busy since a curfew had been decided by my government starting on October 30th. I even found that a single ladyboy had used 15 phone numbers and I had created 15 profiles. I suspect that 2 ladyboys are using these numbers but I was unable to separate which numbers belong to each owner. 

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I sometimes wondered who are the ladyboys I contacted or met. I haven’t made stats for mainly one reason: I don’t know about most of them. Once in a while, a ladyboy would tell me about her job, but that had never been one my goals when chatting. I mainly wondered about these ladyboys changing numbers and avatars too often. Occupations they mentionned or I could observe are studients (pretending to get a high level job later), sales ladies in shops, waitesses in a bar, pub or restaurant, nursing home staff, daycare staff, night bar attendant (bar girl), beautician, massage girl, hairstylist, model or drag queen. One of them them even told me she’s an escort. I am not sure she pays taxes as registered doing this job. Only a few of them are studyig and are young. I guess they couldn’t study before because of discriminations but as mentionned 2 years ago, ladyboys have now the same rights as everyone in Vietnam. However, a couple of them told me they had stopped going to school very early (10 years old for one). I extrapolate but I guess that it was not easy to be a teen ager at a time the country where they lived didn’t accept them legally as ladyboys. This probably explains why they have low qualified jobs, except studients or ladyboys living in a well off middle class family who don’t need to make money in P4P.

These ladyboys are usually young with low qualified jobs with low wages and short term jobs and ladyboys need money, so they need customers. I guess quite a few are jobless and don’t really care as long as they live in their family and save money made in p4p to pay for surgery.

In January and February I had searched Facebook and had found older ladyboys .Most of those in p4p are 18 to 30 years old and sometimes older, ladyboys found in Facebook were usually older than 30 years old, not in p4p, not often attractive and busy in provincial jobs.


Regardless of these socio-economic considerations, I have now an accurate view of the geographic distribution of Vietnamese ladyboys. As the sample grows, some proportions remain about the same although I could not draw any conclusions when I started making contacts last year. I had read theories stating that there are far more ladyboys in South Vietnam than in North Vietnam either since communism didn’t tolerate transgenderism in the north, or because ladyboys appeared in the South since it’s a typical phenomenom of the Khmer culture that also irradiates Issan in Thailand and the Mekong area. Instead of dividing Vietnam in 2 areas (North and South), I’d rather split it in 4: North, Central, South (including Saigon) and Southwest (including the Mekong area that extends to the West sea (Gulf of Thailand). See the map attached here.


What I can definitely see in my sample is that more than 80% of the ladyboys are in HCMC. Here are exact numbers:

 

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Warning : the above numbers were valid on November 17th, 2020 when I first wrote the post. They have increased since then.

Edit 2023 : Early this year, I have 423 ladyboys in my database. Just over half live in Saigon, but if we add those who live in the southwest, the number is over 80%. This sample is consistent with the idea that they mostly live in the Mekong Delta or in the Saigon region.
Locations were updated (although I haven't updated numbers, I added locations as they were end of 2022).  

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After exploring some small clusters in cities around HCMC, I decided to create a new section in my blog / address book to keep track of the ladyboys I had discovered. At first, progress was swift, but as I continued my search, I uncovered more individuals whom I had previously overlooked. While these ladyboys may not possess the breathtaking beauty that can be found in HCMC (for those fortunate enough to encounter it), a select few are charming enough to warrant a visit.

 

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These cities offer a convenient alternative to long trips, allowing travelers to combine sightseeing with leisure. At first, I assumed that most were merely suburbs of HCMC (and some, in fact, do resemble Pathum Thani's proximity to Bangkok), but the various modes of transportation in Vietnam make them feel much more distant. During my exploration, I also realized that I had overlooked a few ladyboys, some of whom I had mistakenly classified as HCMC residents. As a result, my to-do list for my next trips has grown, and I'm considering a personal visit to Tây Ninh, as a ladyboy I met in a bar in 2019 returned there. If she agrees to a more reasonable price, it could be an interesting encounter. (edit 2023 : actually, I haven't pushed to her city during my last trip. I was too busy struggling with expensive ladyboys in HCMC and she had requested for 2 million in HCMC in 2019). 

 

 

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After revisiting my search for ladyboys in HCMC, I realized that a quick check was not enough for the type of statistical analysis I prefer to conduct. I needed to conduct a more thorough examination and gather additional information before proceeding with my investigation. Despite my initial confidence in locating ladyboys in HCMC, I soon discovered that I needed to refine my radar settings to increase accuracy. The results showed me that HCMC can be an unpredictable city at times.

 

 

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Readers should be aware that the data provided in this post have not been updated since November 2020. Therefore, any conclusions drawn from this data may not reflect current circumstances. It is important to consider this when interpreting the information presented in this post.

 

Hô Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, is a popular destination for tourists, especially ladyboy mongers. Although Bangkok has a larger population and surface area, HCMC appears to be quite big, probably due to its lack of rapid transportation like the skytrain. However, this may change soon as two subway lines are expected to be operational in 2023, unless the project is delayed. One of the reasons why HCMC seems larger is that ladyboys in various fields can be found almost everywhere in the city.


 

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Same scale maps of Bangkok and HCMC

 

I took me time to gather data provided by 163 ladyboys who were willing to meet their customers in specific areas of the city. Out of the 163 profiles, 64 did not provide any further information about their location other than “HCMC” or “Saigon”. The remaining profiles gave either one or several districts. The 99 other profiles gave either one district or several districts. Locations appeared as follows.

 

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By calculating a "density index" of ladyboys per 100 square kilometers in each district, I found that the most densely populated area is district 10, followed by district 4, which is where ladyboys working in district 1 have accommodations.

District 1 has the most possibilities for dating, but its number is lower if we don't count the ladyboys who add district 1 in their profile since they work there. Here is a map of "ladyboys density" of HCMC.

 

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Binh Thanh and Go Vap are also interesting districts to explore as there are several ladyboys living there who work or have worked in district 1. About 40% of the ladyboys didn't specify where they can meet, which means they are willing to travel to meet their customers but may increase their price, especially for foreigners.

 

Edit 2023 : the above is no longer the most relevant. A new trend has emerged, whereby ladyboys are no longer staying in a single area but are willing to move throughout the entire city. However, let us refrain from anticipating the novelties of 2021 and 2022.

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Focus on a few districts



District 10

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Adding more details on District 10, it comes as no surprise that it has the highest concentration of ladyboys and “density index”. Its reputation as the preferred location for ladyboys meetings has become commonplace. The district itself is relatively quiet, with only a few heavily trafficked avenues, and its smaller streets provide a pleasant walking experience. The area is abundant with neighborhoods filled with low-rise buildings, pagodas, parks, restaurants, and even a swimming pool.

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In the heart of the district lies an area that could be deemed a red-light district, with a myriad of small hotels for short-time room rentals. This is a favored location for ladyboys-client meetings.
Ladyboys typically request their clients to book a room and wait for them inside.
It's essential not to book a room unless the ladyboy is present or has announced her arrival within "5 minutes."
Additionally, it's customary for the client to provide condoms for the date. (The habit has been slowly changing since the covid).
Never pay upfront, and if a ladyboy requests money before the meeting, politely decline and leave. ( It’s probably better to lose 50 K or 70 K ($3).
While it may be a common belief that hotels prohibit ladyboys or their GGs from entering guest rooms, this is, in fact, a fake idea. In my experience, hotels have been accommodating to ladyboy-client meetings, and I have never encountered any issues, particularly with ST hotels

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ST hotels, with their discreet "Khách Sạn" (Vietnamese for hotel) signage, are easily found, and prices for 1-2 hours are typically advertised.

 

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District 4

 

I was surprised to see District 4 at the top of the list. I have only one explaination to find it with a high « density » of ladyboys. District 4 has a small surface and it’s contiguous to district 1. Ladyboys accomated in D4 are workers in bars and restaurants in D1.

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So far I knew D4 as the place where I boarded the boat that brought me to Vung Tau. I won't be long commenting. I have nothing else to say.

 

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Edit 2023 It seems that many ladyboys have deserted District 4 since the end of 2020, since they seem not to work any longer in District 1. Even ladyboys working or spending time in District 1 seem to have moved to outlying districts to find affordable rentals. 

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District 1

 

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Initially, my intention was simply to append a post elucidating the minor markers incorporated in D1, which can be found three posts above the current one. However, I deemed it unjust to solely remark on D10 without providing my thoughts on other regions that have a higher concentration of ladyboys.

It is my opinion that any individual seeking sexual tourism in HCM would hasten towards D1, as it is renowned for being the hub of Red Light Districts. Nevertheless, I assert that such a decision could be a misstep in HCMC as I knew it in 2019. (I had to change my opinion in 2022 though)

 

 

 

Little Japan

The area adjacent to the first blocks of Lê Thanh Tôn, commonly referred to as Little Japan, is a bustling pedestrian area that boasts a plethora of massage shops, Japanese night bars, and restaurants frequented by Japanese and Korean tourists. Although I have explored the area, I have not availed myself of any massage services. However, I once chanced upon a passable massage girl for a Thai masage in a street around Little Japan. It is worth noting that Thai massage in Vietnam are typically expensive and offer subpar quality.

Numerous videos can be found on YouTube, showcasing the vibrant atmosphere and unique offerings of Little Japan, such as the ones linked below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq0cLJ7_3_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yne24Tg4AQM

However, the most reliable expert on Little Japan would undoubtedly be a Japanese vlogger, whose insights can be found in the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJXFLTgSUNc

From what I have read, sex offered in massage shops in the area are also expensive and of poor quality. Customers are typically required to pay for a massage, and then led to a room with other clients, where they can negotiate for additional services. Getting a blowjob for 800 K is considered fortunate, as most girls only offer a basic special that is only a handjob. Another potential service is WC, which is ass licking. However, it is important to note that I am not an expert in these matters.


 

Đường Bùi Viện

Bui Vien Street is renowned as the preeminent red light district in HCMC, and it also has a reputation for attracting drug dealers. Tourists should be aware that it's not uncommon to encounter trouble, especially since a busy police station is located in the middle of the street. In my opinion, Bui Vien Street is similar to Khao San Road in Bangkok. Many westerners visit the area to enjoy a drink, but they often encounter massage girls and waitresses who promise them a good time in a bar. However, these bars do not offer the option to barfine a girl, and visitors should be cautious. If you're lucky, you might spot a ladyboy. BTW, I did when watching Edward Sweeney's video in Bui Vien. In my Vietnamese forum post, Ngoc Trinh suggested that I not ask too many questions, but she did provide me with the address of a bar where ladyboys like to dance during their free time, which could be an opportunity to hook up.

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The difficulty in Bui Vien is that you cannot barfine a ladyboy, as barfines do not exist in Vietnam. Ngoc Trinh told me that she could offer me a short time during her working hours, but I'm hesitant to seek a bar gurl in the area, as I fear she may be in a rush and cut the short time even shorter. Ladyboys from all over HCMC come to Bui Vien to have fun in discos, but this doesn't mean they are looking for customers, especially when they are having fun with their friends in the street. A few other ladyboys working in different jobs than bar girls also frequent the area, possibly looking for customers. It's important to know who they are. Ladyboyss in Bui Vien are incredibly beautiful and could easily be mistaken for girlls. Although I have seen a few in person, I've also seen their pictures on social media.

Edit 2023 : although I confirm the general impression posted in 2020, I can add I hadn’t seen so many ladyboyas In Bui Vien as the last time I went there. I can add they weren’t as pretty as I believed (a few of the orettiest grew old or fat) and they requested for 2 million to go to a nearby ST hotel.
I met with ladyboys in a perpendicular street (Đường Đỗ Quang Đẩu). The first one is a bartender who provided me with a poor quality sex service during a home visit (See My Trinh in my 2022 TR). The second is Anna, whom I have already mentioned in my 2022 TR. Finally, there is a group of models who gather in Đường Phạm Ngũ Lão near the Ngã năm Cống Quỳnh roundabout, waiting for modeling contracts. They also accept clients from TS-dating for 2 million VND.

 

Night bars

Between Bui Vien and Little Japan, there are a couple of streets I previously mentioned in one of my threads. I had discovered Senorita Bar on Pasteur street, but the bar has since relocated to a new address. To locate the new address, head to the old location and walk down the street a little bit. Turn into the next street, as indicated on the picture, where you will see more bars on both your left and right. To find the new location of Senorita Bar, keep walking till you see the bar on your left.

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This is the area where real night bars are situated. Here, girls hope to earn a bit of money, most of them being students or having another job. They receive no wage, but instead a commission on ladies' drinks. It's important to note that each bar has its own set of rules, so it's best to be informed before making a visit.

In 2018, a ladyboy had worked at #60 Pasteur, which was mentioned on the internet. Last year, I came across ladyboys in two different bars and spotted a couple more in other bars along the 90-100 block of Pasteur. In 2019, a bar girl (ladyboy) had accepted to come to my hotel. In 2020, I had discovered even more bars with ladyboys. I've made connections with some of them, who advised me that the best way to meet them is to visit their bar. Through Twitter, I even found a ladyboy who indicated her bar in a photo on her profile.

Bars were closed as non essential businesses in April 2020. They reopened once they got closed during the “blocus” in 2021. Many bars have not reopened. They first reopen clandestinely (but probably with police waivers). Whatever the conditions, in 2022 ladyboys told me it’s prohibited to go out with a customer as I did in 2019.

PS : during the walk, as you turn right, you will see the main location with the most ladyboys working in a bar that is Lust bar.

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District 8

 

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I decided to highlight District 8 as it is one of the most sought-after areas in Ho Chi Minh City. While 19 ladyboyss advertised their services in the district, a few of the most intriguing ones prefer to meet in District 4. Despite my familiarity with District 8, upon studying the map, I realized that my knowledge of the area was limited to only a portion of it. I can see a long shape district separated in 3 parts by the double canal (Kenh Doi), and I have been in the eastern part of it. My visit in 2019 to meet with Ngoc My Mino served as a chance to explore further.

I opted for the municipal bus, which set me back only 6,000 dong (equivalent to 0.25 US dollars) and took me to an avenue that was flanked by a lush green alleyway. The neighborhood was devoid of the usual traffic snarls and featured a variety of short time hotels. Despite our late start, Ngoc My and I managed to find a suitable location to conduct business.


 

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It was only recently that I discovered that the hotel where we had met was actually located in Binh Hung, a suburban district of Binh Chanh, rather than District 8. This revelation served as a reminder that I still have much to learn about the city.

Although I have no photos from my visit and cannot recall the exact location of the hotel, I do remember strolling along this street with Ngoc My on that memorable day.

This is the end of my virtual trip report from November 2020, which I wrote during the second lockdown when we had a curfew. I've made some edits, but the details are based on my knowledge and experiences from that time. I hope my style changes, thanks to using ChatGPT to improve my English, didn't confuse anyone. I plan to add a few more posts to cover 2021 and the changes that have happened in 2022.

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2021

I will attempt to summarize my recollections of 2021 in a single post. Although I began a second trip report for a virtualtrip, I struggled to find noteworthy events to recount.
In January 2021, I continued to collect profiles, but soon became worried as fewer and fewer ladyboys posted ads. Although most of them were jobless, they began to disappear from the scene. I remembered losing 40% of them in 2019 and feared that even more would vanish, forcing me to seek out new profiles every week.

After realizing that Trinh and a few other ladyboys had removed me from their contact lists, I expanded my search efforts. I created a forum specifically for Vietnamese clients, hoping to find valuable reviews and information, but to no avail. Despite signing up, the Vietnamese mongers rarely posted any reviews or relevant information, and those who did only made vague statements about seeking ladyboys. The only noteworthy contribution came from an Americano-Vietnamese client, who shared a couple of stories about being scammed or robbed by ladyboys. It dawned on me that I had the largest network of ladyboys contacts in Vietnam, and that relying on Vietnamese clients for assistance was not feasible.

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Trinh

 

Then a Thai-Vietnamese guy created a Telegram group to exchange information. This guy was probably the Vietnamese client who knows the most ladyboys after me, though he was far from my numbers. He's the only monger who posted reviews dealing with ladyboys in a forum, which helped me find new contacts. However, after about a month and a half, I discovered that I could no longer connect to the discussion group. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but it seems that people not posting in the group were automatically excluded since the number of participants is limited. This is also what may have happened with Trinh’s and other ladyboys’ contacts lists.

More and more Vietnamese mongers complained about price increases, describing ladyboys posting as "the industry". While I'm not sure if ladyboys live in one group gathered in some kind of union, I noticed a few of them had a fairly rude behavior with clients who didn't pay them for a visit. In one of the ad websites I was using, I found older ladyboys suddenly posting ads and trying to find customers at 2 million VND for a ST. I identified them as ladyboys who had posted their ads on "international escorts" or "shemale escorts" websites. Discussions were terribly aggressive, and they were so rude and aggressive that I blacklisted them.
 

I had to find new methods of discovering ads after the forum, which I called "Forum B," ceased to function. It reached 80,000 ads and would no longer accept new ads. It's a shame since some ladyboys would post the same ad 10 to 20 times, obscuring other ladyboys' ads. They effectively killed the goose that lays golden eggs.
I also began exploring three Facebook groups created by ladyboys where ladyboys looking for friends and guests would post. While I was able to add a few more profiles, they weren't of the best quality.

 

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As the Covid-19 situation in Europe improved, my work kept me busy and I didn't have much time to think about changing my strategy. Despite this, I was able to find more ladyboys profiles on Twitter with relative ease. I have to confess that I stopped verifying profiles at the end of 2020 out of fear of disturbing the ladyboys and getting banned from their contacts, since I still didn't know why I had been “unfriended” from contact lists. I continued with this routine until the end of 2022.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 situation in Vietnam worsened while it improved in Europe. In July 2021, the Vietnamese government imposed a lockdown on the HCM province (called the blocus). I posted a thread dealing with the event in my club, but what was strange was that I didn't see life returning to normal even after the blocus was lifted. Some ladyboys posted documents showing they had been vaccinated, but I was never informed when the army withdrew from the HCM province or when bars and non-essential businesses reopened. I only learned in October that bars had reopened clandestinely under police control. The bars that had let their staff go out with customers before remained closed, and those that were allowed to open had strict guidelines in place to prevent staff from going out with customers. Lastly,  I found  information on when travellers would be allowed to return to Vietnam in April 2022, 3 weeks after the effective date. 

I recall one additional detail: during the lockdown, ladyboys continued to post ads. Some of them began offering video chats or videos. I tried it once and paid for the price of a ST (400 K) but received only a few poor-quality videos in return. I'm not sure what other ladyboys did during the lockdown. It appears that some of them were able to visit places and meet customers in "business as usual" mode, while many others chose to cut costs by discontinuing their phone line subscriptions, resulting in the loss of their messenger accounts and contacts. The situation was quite perplexing.

 

2022

As I kept on searching twitter for new ladyboys profiles, I would always come back to the same ones in the area of HCMC. However, I started finding more profiles in the delta of Mekong during the Summer 2022 and in cities around Hanoi in September 2022. This was already time to get prepared for a new trip. 

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