Vietnam has its priorities firmly in place. While the rest of us are stuck wrestling with a cost-benefit analysis of splashing an extra buck on a sandwich with real animal meat in it, horny Hanoians are meeting in specialized motels called Nha Nghis across the city for some afternoon delight. Considering they start at just three dollars an hour, the rooms are remarkably clean and well-furnished. In Vietnam, sex before marriage is common but still considered a bit too taboo to engage in openly, so Nha Nghis provide the ideal cover for young lovers eager to escape the judgment of their parents.
But the hotels aren't just for the youngβadults all the way into their late 60s rendezvous with their bit on the side at Nha Nghis. Some of them book rooms months in advance for Valentine's Day and public holidays. When it's so easy to hook up, Vietnamese find it difficult to be faithfulβespecially the men.
As with most tales of 21st century sordidness, the internet had a large role to play in the explosion of Nha Nghis. Yahoo Chat became wildly popular in Vietnam during the mids and, all of a sudden, cyber Casanovas had an endless amount of potential partners to poke, persuade, and plead into the sack.
All they needed was a place to do the deed. Hung, who didn't want his face pictured, sits in a coffee shop in Hanoi's Old Quarter. As you can probably deduce by now, Nha Nghi liasions can come with a sizeable dose of misogyny. Of larger concern is that though hookup culture has made its way to Vietnam, contraception isn't often used, especially by young people. Vietnam has by far the highest rate of teen abortions in Southeast Asia, and incidences of STDs are also thought to alarmingly high, though since it's common for people to quietly get treated by private doctors those statistics are difficult to find.
Trang, a sex worker, waits for clients near Thuyen Quang Lake in Hanoi. Although they have been targeted for their links to prostitution, Nha Nghis seem safe from government censure for nowβthe Communist Party seems more focused on tackling the spread of HIV.
