Review: Hoang Duc in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Hoang Duc is one of the many hair salon slash massage shops oriented towards oral offerings on Nguyen Phi Khanh street in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City. I doubt that the namesakes of either the city or the street would care much for what goes on there. But this is today’s reality.

Located at street number 74, Hoang Duc is nestled among several other shops including quite a few that offer that same kinds of services. Still it is somehow rather discreet. Perhaps that is because of the location or the entrance that is recessed back from the street a bit.

The building is of the typically narrow shop house variety but Hoang Duc’s lobby seems to be longer and thinner than most others around. Chairs line both sides of the lobby and they are usually full of women who sit around playing with cards or their phones until a customer arrives.

The women who work at Hoang Duc are for the most part attractive with sexy bodies. Some of the ladies even have manmade mammaries which is a rarity for the street. There are probably ten to twelve women working most times with their ages ranging from the mid twenties to mid thirties. Everyone on staff sports the same flared dress which is a nice touch that probably helps secure business.

All of these kinds of places tend to have a sort of queue where one staff member is always next in line to serve whoever walks in the door. At the same time all of these places also allow customers to chose their own service providers even if that is no explicitly stated.

Nearly all the hot tocs on Nguyen Phi Khanh seemed to be owned either by women or by male and female couples. I can’t be sure if she is the owner of the facilities by the mamasan style manager at Hoang Duc is one of the younger gals around in her position. In my subjective opinion she is also particularly curvaceous and aluuring which is not something I would normally say about a hot toc higher up.

After customers select a customer they are guided up a single set of stairs. That guiding is often done by the aforementioned manager even though she does not service customers herself.

The rooms are large and divided with a screen like curtain. Each room has two sturdy tables inside along with a sink at the head that is meant for washing hair but normally utilized for other types of hygienic practices. The rooms offer quite a bit of privacy when there is only one customer but the same could be said if there was a guy on each table more or less in arms reach of one another.

The standard oral option is offered at Hoang Duc for the same kinds of prices as other places in the immediate area. That means a payment of 250,000 Dong ($11 USD) for the house plus whatever tip the customer wants to give to the service provider. Payment is rendered after services and normally on the way out.

Foreigners have gotten into a habit of paying a combined fee of between 400 and 500 thousand Dong to shops on Nguyen Phi Khanh. Some shops even ask for that amount up front from guys they are not familiar with. In reality though the prices are as described with a required house fee and an optional tip. Locals often tip as little as 50,000 and sometimes they don’t even tip at all!

One thing that sets Hoang Duc apart from some other nearby shops is that at least a few of the women on staff discreetly offer full service to their customers from time to time for a negotiable all inclusive fee of around 1 million Dong ($44 USD).

It doesn’t seem that the management is aware of this since the women who do go the extra mile ask for the money upstairs most likely so that those downstairs won’t see a larger than normal amount of money being handed over by customers. This is somewhat typical in off the radar spots in Southeast Asia and gives at least some credence to claims by entangled massage parlor entrepreneurs that they have no idea what the women they employ do with customers in private. Three stars.

Hoang Duc. 74 Nguyen Phi Khanh, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Open every day from 11:00 AM until 11:00 PM.