Goodbye Vietnam!

The littlest, oldest, wrinkly-est woman ever!

The time has come for us to leave yet another country on this trip of ours.  To be honest, we didn’t enjoy Vietnam as much as we thought we would, and we both agree that it was our least favorite Southeast Asian country.  Vietnam definitely has some beautiful areas that are worth visiting – the challenge for us was dealing with the people.  Our guidebook told us that the Vietnamese believe it is socially acceptable to rip off the tourists, which we found to be true - and they do it in all kinds of creative ways!  It was a constant battle to hang on to our money here, and we never knew if we paid a fair price or not.  Overall it is small money, but over time that small money adds up – and sometimes it's not even about the money, but the whole idea of getting ripped off.  Of course not everyone had their hands out – we did meet some very friendly and gracious Vietnamese people along the way as well.

All of that on a bicycle!

I purposefully did not include all of the scams we encountered during our travels across Vietnam in my other blog postings as I thought it would be more interesting to include at the end.  So here they are:

Taxis were the worst!  We tried not to take them too often, as we met many people with quite the taxi horror stories.  We heard that the taxi drivers would agree on a price, and then change it when you reached your destination and it came time to pay.  The drivers would get belligerent and in your face about it. Luckily that never happened to us (except for a moto driver with Daron - see below).  Our experience included getting into a taxi that had a tinkered meter in it, so the fare increased faster than in the regular taxis.  We took one from the train station to our hotel in Hanoi, and it cost us $5.  We didn’t know we’d been had until we took a taxi with a reputable company from our hotel back to the train station and it only cost us $1.50.  Oh well – at least we didn’t take it a long distance.

Yum!

The other taxi story we have is from the same darn train station in Hanoi.  One time we got off the train and a taxi driver latched onto us as soon as we exited.  We asked his price to the Old Quarter and he wanted $5.  By now we knew that was too much and politely declined his offer.  He followed us to every taxi driver we approached after that and told them not to deal with us.  We would start the negotiation process with a taxi driver, then this guy would come over and say something in Vietnamese, and the driver would roll up his window and drive away.  It was so mean spirited!  We ended up walking down the street a bit and getting a taxi for $2. Ugh!  Stay away from the train station if at all possible!

One evening Daron was out with a friend and took a motorbike taxi back to our hotel.  The driver agreed on a price of $1 (they were already close to our hotel, but Daron was lost as the Old Quarter is a maze!).  When he dropped Daron off, Daron tried to give him $2 to be nice and the guy said the price was $5!  Heated words were exchanged and the guy eventually left with his $2. 

Fancy lighter anyone?

While walking around Hanoi, there are these guys that would constantly approach us, wanting to clean our shoes, even our Teva sandals.  We would laugh about it because if you stopped for any reason (like a crosswalk), they would pull out these toothbrushes and try to start cleaning your shoes, even though you hadn’t agreed to let them do this.  They were very persistent!  On our last day in Hanoi, Daron broke down and asked one of them how much for the cleaning – the guy said $1.  So Daron gave in and let one of them clean his shoes.  He even took them off to make it easier.  Big mistake.   The next thing we knew the guy called a buddy over to help him and they started gluing every little seam on Daron’s shoes – then the big needle and thread came out and they sewed the entire sole around both shoes.  I call it smoke and mirrors because none of it really did anything – it just looked like it did.  Daron gave them both $1, then the first guy said the price was now $25.  Daron’s shoes aren’t even worth that much!  Daron had to walk away after paying them the $1 each – it’s what you have to do here, even though it feels rude.

Our favorite gum-selling girl in Saigon!

While Daron was sitting shoeless on the street corner during that debacle, a vendor selling lighters came by and tried to get Daron to buy a fancy lighter.  Daron told him he didn’t need one, no thank you, etc. (you begin to sound like a broken record with these guys!).  The guy wouldn’t leave and eventually started cussing at Daron in English – more f-bombs than I’ve heard in a long while.  Daron was a captive audience because he wasn’t wearing any shoes, so he just calmly listened to the guy spout off.  Eventually the guy left, cussing all the way! 

Streetcorner gas station!

Another thing that happened often was shortchanging.  Pretty much everywhere we went they tried to shortchange us.  I’m not so careful at checking my change (too trusting I guess), but Daron was good at it and caught them every time.  Sometimes they knew they’d been caught and would smile slyly when Daron asked them for the correct amount back.  Along a similar vein, we caught many food and drink vendors trying to overcharge us too.  We would order from a menu where the price was listed, then when it came time to pay instead of presenting a written bill, they would just verbally tell us the amount due.  It was usually more than what we would come to by adding the prices in our heads.  Sometimes we challenged them until the price was right and sometimes we didn't.  The language barrier made it difficult - sometimes it was easier to just pay the inflated price (which is probably what they were hoping for!).   

Sign at Hanoi Hilton prison - see #3 on frolicking!

These are the ones that happened to us, although I could go on and on about scams that happened to others.  We tried to be cautious and watch our money.  Daron always said, “at least they’re only trying to get a dollar or two, and not the whole thing.”  Thank goodness!  

Vietnam was very different than the other Southeast Asian countries we visited in other ways too.  For one, we hardly came across any beggars.  To be honest, I don’t think the Vietnamese would put up with them.  Buddhist monks in the other countries are not allowed to grow their own food – they are completely dependent upon the generosity of others.  In Vietnam, they did away with that and put the monks to work!  They may have a communist government, but the people are natural capitalists through and through!


We were asked all the time by other travelers if we were treated badly or differently because we were Americans.  Others asked if we told people where we were from.  We were constantly asked where we were from (this is a common question in every country we've traveled) and always answered truthfully  We did not feel any anti-American sentiment from any of the local folks we met.  In fact, just the opposite. Many people said they loved the USA, or wanted to visit there, etc.  The only time I was nervous to be an American was in the War Remnants Museum in Saigon - not that anyone said anything to me, it was more that the entire museum had an anti-American slant.

Anyhow, our time here has come to an end.  We enjoyed traveling throughout Vietnam, but found the whole money situation challenging, tiring, and a little depressing.  We are looking forward to our next destination – South Korea!

P.S. The Vietnamese love little chairs and stools - all the outdoor seating was basically kid's furniture.  Here are some of our favorite pics as giants in the land of little chairs!