Although I have been covering the commercial sex scene in Ho Chi Minh City for many years I have only scratched the surface. While many foreigners and even a good number of locals overlook the homegrown sex industry it is in fact massive.
There are thousands of shops of various types in the city of Saigon alone where adult services of one kind or another are offered in exchange for cash. None are really open about their services and only a handful are oriented towards foreigners which explains why people used to in your face action of the kind found in Pattaya may not think anything is going on in Vietnam’s largest city.
BJ Bar 29
As I have explained in the past Thailand and Japan are home to numerous blowjob bars. No other country has a large blowjob bar scene but similar businesses do exist in other places.
The previously reviewed Dragon Club in Hong Kong is a go go bar where oral sex is also provided to customers. Vietnam has countless hair salons like Ben Ny’s where blowjobs and not blow dryers are the focus. Bar 29 is about the closest Vietnam comes to having an actual blowjob bar.
The old hostess bars on Hai Ba Trung followed a name and number model with the name of each bar corresponding to its street address. So “49” was located at 49 Hai Ba Trung. Despite its name Bar 29 is actually located at 27 Dong Khoi in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1. It is nestled in the midst of mind blowing development with huge pedestrian parks and a massive subway project only steps away. The area is also home to a surprising number of luxury shops selling the kind of high end consumer merchandise that the city’s namesake showed little interest in to say the least.
The women at Bar 29
Bar 29 is marked by a small sign out front. Otherwise it is easy to miss. Inside the clear glass door guarded by a middle aged Vietnamese guy sits a small but clean and relatively well appointed bar. Five or six women in their thirties and possibly forties sit around the edges of the bar in lounge wear while an even older female manager waits behind the bar.
The manager or “mama san” at Bar 29 is very similar to the dragon lady who runs the aforementioned Dragon Club in Hong Kong. She speaks enough English to do her job and is quick to ask anyone who enters if they want a woman to sit next to them.
The women at Bar 29 are mostly average in looks. None are overweight or necessarily unattractive. It is quite possible that a few were real head turned in their earlier years but Bar 29 seems to be a place where women who have aged out of other aspects of the industry end up. Quite a few of the women have obvious signs of surgery with big boob jobs being quite common. Although the women are on the older side for the local scene they aren’t any worse looking than a lot of the Vietnamese women who ply their trade at places like the Beach Club in Kuala Lumpur.
If a customer agrees to be joined by one of the women on staff at Bar 29 he is quickly asked if he would like to buy her a lady drink. All prices at Bar 29 seem to be fluid. There are no receipts or menus. The general idea seems to be that the bar will get as much out of a customer as they possibly can. The management at Bar 29 apparently knows nothing about sheep farming.
Services and summary
After buying a lady drink customers are soon asked if they would like to go upstairs. The manager usually asks any customer who agrees to this for 2,000,000 Dong ($88 USD) on top of several hundred thousand Dong more for lady drinks and tips for the mamasan though this is all negotiable.
Customers who navigate through the fluctuating prices are led up a short flight of stairs to a lounge one level above the street. This area is also kept very clean. On the left side there is an open room with several long couches lining the walls. On the right side there is a square hole in the middle of the wall.
Customers are led through the large square hole into a smaller area with a couch on the right and another on the left. Customers are instructed to sit on the couch to the left while their chosen lady runs off to retrieve her materials.
Upon returning to the cubbyhole the service provider typically strips down and performs oral services in between clinking glasses and toasting the night away. Generally speaking the women at Bar 29 are skilled as their mileage might suggest. Most are also pretty fun loving and easy going which runs counter to the cutthroat image the place has thanks to the management.
On top of oral most of the women at Bar 29 are keen to go the extra mile and perform full service. This is evident since they pack prophylactics along with their wet wipes and other supplies. Since prices are flexible at the bar it is impossible to say whether or not this full service is included in the price the bar charges customers to go upstairs with a woman but suffice it to say that the service providers usually ask for a tip for providing it. That is just the nature of the place. Two stars. 
Bar 29. 27 Dong Khoi, Ben Nghe, Quan 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Click here for a mapMap. Open every day from 4:00 PM – 12:00 AM.
2 million is really steep for this kind of service, even in vietnam.
You can get an hour with a hooker for half of that.
Wechat is full of them.
It is definitely an expensive place. I would guess that most of their business is based on tourists who don’t know the scene or local language. Cheers.
going to Phu Quoc Island next month. has anyone been there to offer me some advise?
also, the 2m in a bar and 1m referenced above: is that normal prices?
thanks
It’s difficult to talk about “normal prices” since Bar 29 is in a league all its own at this point. I plan to write about the hostess bars in Ho Chi Minh City again soon. Most of the bars organized around bar fines are gone. Some women in bars will still go with customers though and they usually ask for 2 million or more. Most freelancers who find customers online are happy with 1 million which is a little less than $50 USD right now. Freelancers in nightclubs like Apocalypse can ask for as much as 4 or 5 million nowadays. Babershops are usually 300,000 – 400,000 for oral or 500,000 to 1,200,000 for full service at the places that offer it. A high end escort service offering Vietnamese models was just busted and apparently it charged up to $2,500 dollars per appointment. I don’t much about Phu Quoc Island but you can see it from Cambodia. Cheers.
I was stationed 10 months on the island during the war. lived in a hut with no ac and slept on a cot. I made reservations for this trip at the best hotel, took their deluxe beach suite.. with tax, sc, and breakfast cost is only $100 a day. I will try and send you a trip report.
Thanks. I look forward to hearing about your stay. Cheers.
Wondering if this Bar 29 is the residue of the old Linda’s Bar on either Mac Thi Buoi or Dong Du in the early 2000’s. I remember going there twice. Everything goes at the time. You could do anything with the girl in or near the bar as long as you bought drinks, put your hands anywhere and do anything. BBBJ were given in the back of the bar for around 250K, but this was when it was 15K VND to the dollar. Full service was available upstairs, but I forget the price.
Thanks for the comment. There were several places like this operating a few years ago. Often they would allow for all sorts of services in the bar. That included full nudity for victors of bar games and oral services in back. Cheers.
Damn. When I read these things I wish I had been born a decade earlier. I only started traveling internationally in 2013 and I missed out on so much.
That said, not all is lost in Vietnam. Even on touristy Bui Vien you can get some women to take their tits out in some of the smaller bars, and many of the massage/handjob girls will go full nude for the right price (which can be as little as 200k VND in some cases). Of course it’s nothing for a girl to pull her panties down at a hot toc, including the popular Benny’s.
Next door in Cambodia all sorts of fun can be had in the hostess bars. I got a blowjob pretty much out in the open in two different bars, and I witnessed it in a third bar. I never had sex on bar’s premises in Cambodia but I’ve heard from multiple sources that it’s common at some places.
Apparently bar action is still a thing even in Thailand (in some towns more than others, I should add), though it’s getting rare. Indonesia has turned prudish as of late, but for a modest fee of 200k IDR people can still access the “secret room” at D’s Place, although no one there will mention it unless you ask.
You could have caught the tail end of things in terms of Ho Chi Minh City hostess bars at least. I reported on a big shut down that brought a lot of it to a close in August, 2013. Back then there were few to no bars on Bui Vien. Phnom Penh went from having several bars were oral and full sex were common to almost none. And now some places are getting adventurous again. There are lots of bars where public action is common in Thailand. I can think of 10 off the top of my head with no effort. In Indonesia, things seem to be going the other way. Though I hear guys do still get BJ service at Malioboros. Cheers.
Back in 2013 I was too busy with Thailand and Eastern Europe to pay any attention to Vietnam. Classic newbie mistake, but we all have to start somewhere.
As I recall I first visited Ho Chi Minh City in 2014, and I was only there for a week. Somehow Vietnam stayed off my radar until 2016 or 2017, so I don’t have a whole lot of experience with that country. However I spent several months in Saigon over the last couple years, and now it’s one of my favorite cities in Asia. It’s growing on me and I’m starting to get a feel for the place.
As far as hostess bars go, I visited the strip at Hai Ba Trung after reading your reports, but those bars aren’t very interesting these days. There are still many bars left even after the crackdown (or new ones have opened, I can’t be sure), but I didn’t get any action on premises, and I’d be surprised if anyone else is. Things are rather subdued now, which is why I wish that I had gotten there 5 years earlier.
The Bui Vien bars are a lot more lively, but that has to do with the general vibe of the street more than anything else. Not much debauchery going on there, either, though you can grope the girls discreetely, and most are available for full service in nearby short-time rooms. As mentioned earlier, I got one hostess on Bui Vien to take her massive jugs out after a few drinks, but that was around 5:00 AM and I was the only customer left in that bar.
Much as I love Vietnam, I don’t go there for the bars. Massage and hot tocs are where the country shines in my opinion. I keep hearing about caphe oms and bia oms but I haven’t found any yet, and I have to wonder if they aren’t another relic of the past.
Then there’s the KTVs, but I don’t feel confortable going there alone as a white guy. Although I did that in Cambodia and the Philippines and I didn’t run into any problems.
You likely wouldn’t run into any problems at the KTV. Though some with the really good looking women in HCMC KTV have almost no relation to the sex industry. Massage is indeed a high point in Vietnam. More to the point the places meant for local men tend to provide better service and employee more beautiful women. There are exceptions. Caphe and bia om still exist. They’re not too difficult to find if you look around. Quality varies greatly from one place to the next. Some have women who look to have come of age when the tank crashed through the presidential gate in 75. Cheers.
Dont know if they will be in business when things settle down, return to normal.
A big variety in the atmosphere I experienced on different trips.
Can recall one visit when there were several girls downstair in the narrow Bar and a friendly and horny vibe. Went upstair with a lady and she offered FS, I avoid condoms and passed this offer down, we went for a nude btb with bj, perhaps a 69?. The girl delivered a PSE and a GFE, no rush waht so ever afterwards and I only paid 1,5- 1,7? including everything.
Next visit didnt go well. Mamasan did not want to haggle about the price – she nearly got aggressive, and older girls in the Bar. Maybe just bad luck – I left at once. Dont remember the year (2015-2016?) but everybody said the hands on Bars were extinct by then- but that was not my experience. Other places nearby as well. I like to stay in the Dong Khoi area.
Thanks for the report Alex. A lot went down in that little bar. Vietnam has become one of the most closed off countries in the world over the last 2 years. I am not sure what things will look like if it ever reopens to regular tourism and travel. Cheers.
Apparently Smileys is still an option, but they close at 9 PM according to Google. On one of my visits a few years ago I as usual found many girls downstairs and I took two to the upper floor. No real lounge area resembling #29, a bit awkward and cramped with the pool tables but enthusiastic girls for a double blow job.
There was another place on Le Loi around the corner, they had sofas close to the entarence and I remember making out with a heavily tattood girl, but did not ending up having sex with her for some reason.
Eager to get back to Saigon. Been there more than 5 times and I always find new spots. Cheers.
Saigon is home to a huge number of venues! Cheers.