I have been staying in Vietnam for over a week now and I think I am finally ready to write a little bit more about my experience of the country. The reason why I decided to hold on with this post is because I didn't want my first and negative-emotions driven impression to paint most likely unfair picture of Vietnam in my head and especially in the head of somebody who will read the post but have never been to Vietnam before.
Darwin and I arrived at the airport in Hanoi in the North of Vietnam on a flight from Bangkok. The airport although being a main one in the North and in the Vietnam capital, is much less organized than in Bangkok, quite small and with very little signs where to go after you leave your airplane and even where to collect the luggage (surprise surprise, apart from big signs and clear pathway where to have your visa on arrival done for which you are required to pay US$45). After immigration control we went to find a place where we could buy simcard so we can use internet on our phones (super useful for googe maps, this app is saving our lives here!) and very quickly realised that people do not really speak english there (although still being at the airport) and we had quite a trouble communicating what we want in our plan. Although we managed to purchase the simcards, we still are not quite sure how long our 'unlimited' internet will last. I am writing about it because as we realised soon enough, it is not just in these shops; we found it generally difficult to communicate with Vietnamese in Hanoi and its surroundings; but it is not a kind of funny, smiley and 'whatever' not understanding each other like in Thailand, the miscommunication make you feel very uncomfortable and unwelcome here.
After checking in to our hotel (fantastic place, rooms and staff I could even say luxurious, very nice included in the price breakfast and all for only £5/night!) we went to find something to eat. The city is very loud with hundreds of people on the streets and even more on motorbikes on the roads and every time we managed to cross the street I was thankful we are alive. Also, for the first time since landed in Asia, for some reason I didn't feel safe; although we were in a quite touristy district (you can tell by having many hotels around and one tourist office on top of another) I found that there was something frightening and scary in Vietnamese people eyes, in the way they looked at me. I'm not talking about everybody, but especially from men on the streets I had quite a few weird and certainly not nice looks at me and it was freaking me out. Its like I cannot read them when looking in their eyes which is very strange for me. I was just glad I am there with Darwin. Eventually, we found a lovely food serving place nearby and as we were very hungry, we ordered 2 main courses each plus two bottles of beer and bottled water paying around £6 total.
The next day we woke up quite early and after a breakfast (Darwin had two of them cause he woke earlier than me and had one and second time he went with me again) we went to explore the city. And I think that's when the freaking, scariness and unwelcome feeling of the people really hit me. We were hassled on every corner and literally followed for a while by 3 street sellers trying to sell us something, they would almost stand on your way or grab your arm to buy from them. Moreover, the price for every single little bracelet or magnet according to them STARTS at US$1 (maybe I just discovered the origins of 1-dollar shops or UK's poundlands). In a corner shops, in other words their local supermarkets there are no price tags and when asking how much it is for the water, the seller look at you, see you are white and foreigner and make up the most silly price you can imagine. For the same drink you can buy in Thailand for £0.2 in here miraculously seem to cost £2 which is even more than it would be in Tesco in UK. And it is not even the fact that something cost more, it is the fact that you KNOW these people lie and take a piss of you straight in your face charging you 5 or 10 times the real price. Moreover, I was really scared that someone would still my belongings while walking the streets in Hanoi which I never felt anywhere we have been to in Thailand. And this constant horrible look in their eyes... I just generally found Hanoi people to be one of the rudest and most dishonest people I have ever met.
We quickly noticed that although in terms of comfort and organization our hotel is fantastic, the people working there are not better in trying to rip us off and treating us as complete idiots. For example we have been told by the receptionist that it is soooo difficult to book a flight in Vietnam and after being so kind to us and calling an agent to find out the flight prices down South by plane, he came back to us saying prices starts at £100. Bad for him we have the skyscanner app on our phones and while he was calling withing few seconds the app scanned all flights going to the south of Vietnam giving us prices in the range of £20. Later on while asking about shuttle bus to the airport (which we used to get to the hostel in the first place) we were told is much better to book the taxi and they can organize it for us as the bus station is sooooo far away. Yeah, right - google maps showed us its literally down the street form our hotel, 7 min walk. And the final example I will write about is the one that completely exhausted my patience for Vietnam, and made me want to leave the country immediately. We decided to book the tour to Ha Long Bay (the 2 day 1 night cruise which pictures I uploaded before) and of course we have been offered high price at the hotel (US$79) but we went to shop around and we came back to the hotel after finding the place which offered us US$60 for the same tour. Eventually the hotel booked the tour for us for US$65 which sounded reasonable considering the fact that all meals were included. Only after arriving to the place and being given ticket to the boat I noticed that the real price on the ticket for this tour is... US$7. I don't think I need to comment on that.
After the cruise and coming back to the same hotel, I was so tired of the way these people treating us, I decided I do not want to spend a single penny more in this country and I was about to book flights back to Bangkok, leaving Darwin behind who for some reason didn't mind it as much as I did and still wanted to travel the Vietnamese coast.
In the end, Darwin booked his flights down to Da Nang while I still couldn't decide what to do. I gave up on Vietnam, but I didn't want to take away the chance from Cambodia, because if I fly to Bangkok I would probably never come back to Cambodia again which otherwise is on a perfect way back from Vietnam to Thailand. After long time thinking, I booked tickets to Ho Chi Minh City which is the main Southern country in Vietnam, very close to Cambodian border where I would wait few days for Darwin and together we would go travelling Cambodia. And that's how we got separated and that's how I ended up on my own in Ho Chi Minh City, completely not knowing what to expect and preparing for the same treatment and unwelcomeness as in Hanoi...
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