yitbos
The dong has tracked the dollar pretty closely for the last 6 or 7 years and is a pretty solid currency.After their period of insane inflation in the 80s to 90s the government decided it needed to rationalize the money as part of getting to a functioning market economy. The size of the individual unit of the currency is not related to how “good” the money is. That is a function of stability and Viet Nam has done a pretty good job of keeping the money stable over the last several years. Also with the tiny unit and the lack of “big” bills you have to carry around a pretty good wad of currency to buy stuff, not so much that it is a real pain but enough that money just doesn’t get stolen, not at street level. Little kids walk around with what looks like a lot of money but it is 20-30 cents to an American kid. The country reintroduced coins last year and the smallest is 500 dong.