After two long hard days of work, Heather, Sebastian and I headed to the Incheon Airport outside of Seoul. We had a 5 1/2 hour flight and landed in Hanoi, Vietnam around 2pm. After getting our bags we headed outside to find a taxi and were immediately approached by a guy who spoke some english offering us his taxi. We knew about all the taxi scams so we were immediately skeptical. After more talking and debating we decided to take the taxi. The guy said he'd drive us into Hanoi for $12 US. (Vietnam uses both US dollars and Vietnam baht) So we double and triple checked with the guy that he meant US dollars and he assured us yes.
So we hopped into the taxi and headed towards Hanoi. We saw many motorbikes, bicycles, triangle shaped hats, people working in rice fields, cows, potholes, power lines...etc. One thing we were not expecting to see though, was the back of a motorbike piled high with slaughtered dogs! The guy in the front of the taxi pointed it out to us all excitedly. He was smiling and pointing saying, "Vietnam people love dog, so delicious!" We were horrified, it was quite the site. I think we were all too stunned to even take out our cameras for a picture.
So once we got into 'old town' Hanoi the taxi driver said, "ok here you go, now pay." Since we didn't have $12 US on us we were trying to figure out the conversion into baht. The taxi driver said, "Oh no, not dollars. I said 12,000 baht!" Then he got very angry and started yelling at us. Sebastian spoke very calmly to the man explaining that we had confirmed with him that the price would be $12 US, but the man would not listen. He was obviously trying to scam us and when he realized that we weren't going to deal with it, he became very very angry. He started grabbing our money and throwing it in our faces. We kept trying to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen, he just kept yelling. We didn't know what to do because our luggage was in the trunk and he wouldn't open it for us until we paid. So after what seemed forever we finally worked out that we would pay him 5,000 baht (about $50) which was still a huge rip off, but lower than what he was originally wanting. Then he let us out and gave us our bags.
After that we were all a bit shook up and pissed off. Welcome to Vietnam, ha! So we started walking around looking for a cheap place to stay. Motorbikes were everywhere and it was hard to dodge them and not get hit. In fact I'm surprised that we got through a day in Hanoi with no motorbike encounters. After walking and talking with some other foreigners we found a good and cheap hostel. The people who worked there were very nice, but after the taxi incident we were reluctant to trust anyone. The room they gave us was huge with three beds, a bathroom, a balcony overlooking the noisy street filled with motorbikes, and a mini tv that had no sound.
We left our stuff and headed out to explore the streets. After not walking too far, we had yet another encounter with an angry person trying to scam us. Sebastian, Heather and I were standing to the side of a street trying to figure out where to go when a lady fruit vendor put her balancy-fruit basket thing on heather's shoulder, grabbed her camera and started taking pictures. Then she did the same thing to me. It all happened so fast that we didn't know what was going on. After she finished she demanded us to pay her or buy some fruit. So we thought, ok thats only fair. We tried to buy some pineapple pieces but she kept charging way to much and then yelling at us. I think in the end we just shoved some money into her hand and took off. Phew! By this time we were tired, untrusting of anyone, had horrible headaches from the honking of motorbikes, and hungry since we hadn't eaten all day. So we found a great little street restaurant and paid maybe 50 cents US each for huge bowls of Pho Bo soup. Ahh, Christmas dinner! :) The soup did the trick! We felt awesome afterwards so we walked around some more, bought some things and headed back to our hostel.
The next morning we woke up early, had the hostel call us a taxi with a pre-arranged price (thank goodness!) and headed to the airport for our flight into Bangkok, Thailand. Vietnam was a whirl wind of a stop before Thailand, and I can't say that it was too enjoyable. I would like to go back one day though so see the rest of the country and hopefully have a better experience.
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