Although we are out of Vietnam for a month or so, I still have several topics to cover -- this one is about a typical house in Ho Chi Minh City.
We stayed at friends of Hien's during our five days in Ho Chi Minh City. Their house was in the Chinese district of HCMC called Cholon, District 5 in HCMC. This area of HCMC is a bit denser in housing density than in the other districts of HCMC, but not too much more, and I considered this house (actually a condo unit) to be fairly representative for house units in HCMC.
This is a condo because it is only one unit within a complex building block. It basically is a ground floor flat with two loft mezzanines. The unit is about 5 meters (16 feet) wide and 25 meters (82 feet) long. The area is thus about 1,600 sq. ft. including the lofts.
The house is off the street in a hem. Hems are small lanes entered off the street reaching into the block. Here is the entry to the hem off the street:
Most hem entries are not covered, but this one is -- you enter under some units above facing the street. The housing blocks off the hem are four stories high.
Once into the hem, housing units have addresses numbered from the entry into the hem, which itself has a number within the street numbering system. Therefore a typical address might be 62/12 (hem/unit). Here is the entry to the house unit off the hem. The steep ramp at the stairs is to allow motorbike entry into the house.
Entering through sliding metal gates, you enter an entry room where the motor bikes are parked. This room also has the altars or shrines for the ancestors.
Many Vietnamese families carry on small business or industries within their houses -- in this case, this family packaged laundry detergent. The middle room was used for storage of detergent materials. There was a large mixing machine in the corner of the room for combining dry detergent materials. You can see the steep stair to the lofts in the background.
The back room was the kitchen/laundry/bathroom. The "hole-in-the-floor" toilet is through the door to the right. When you get done, you throw a bucket-full of water down the hole.
Not shown to the right is the open reservoir (tub) for the water supply and the connected shower room. While many Vietnamese have hooked up heating supplies and shower heads, this family used plastic pots to scoop water out of the reservoir to dump over oneself. This may seem rather crude, but I found that it worked reasonably well. Even though the water was unheated, it was at room temperature (about 80F.), and the cool water serves to cool oneself down a bit. I got used to it very quickly.
The two loft rooms are reached via the stairs at the front of the kitchen. At the top, of the stairs, the rear loft serves as an air-conditioned bedroom, and the front loft serves as an air-conditioned living room and bedroom. Since the compressors for the air conditioners vent to the top-of-stairs area, this area serves as the drying area for the laundry.
The living room loft looks down into the front room entry.
The only downside to this typical house in my opinion was the lack of natural light. The only light came from the front vents and entry doors. There was a small window at the back of the loft bedroom. Other houses I saw in HCMC or other parts of Vietnam often had interior courtyards to let in light, but since this unit was at the bottom, it was not served by the courtyard above.
