Hanoi, Vietnam

...okay, so re-reading the sub-heading, I guess it wasn't that bad. But our arrival to Vietnam was pretty stressful.

We arrived at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport later on in the evening of October 17, 2007. We were immediately on guard, as we had read and heard time and time again from fellow backpackers that Hanoi was the SE Asia capital of scams on poor, unsuspecting travellers, especially those coming from relatively laid-back Laos. The most frequent scam goes something like this- you arrive at the airport, looking for a cab to take you into the city. You go to an official looking taxi stand with a sign with a quoted "set" price- maybe 10 USD, for example- to the city center. The guys working the taxi stand all have matching, official looking polo shirts and are uber-fake helpful. Looks legit, right? You tell them where you want to go, show them a map, point out your hotel or guesthouse. Of course they say they know where it is. You get in the cab, then proceed to be driven around in crazy circles for an hour and a half or more, and finally when you're beginning to feel like something is really amiss, they deposit you at some shady looking, generically named hotel (usually the sign says something like "welcome to our hotel!" out front) down some not-so-fun alley. Some dodgy character taps on your window, indicating that you should come into the hotel. You ask where you are, and the hotel tout, having already spoken with the driver, says you're at whatever hotel you named at the beginning of your trip. You get there, check in, it's a total dump with hidden charges, and you get ripped off, big time. Our guide book warned about this, but said that if we get an official taxi, and didn't go with the freelance guys working the area outside the airport, we should be okay.

We totally weren't. For starters, our guesthouse was supposed to send a driver for us, as to completely avoid aforementioned headache. Through an email miscommunication, they didn't, so we ended up waiting around the arrivals terminal for a good half hour at Noi Bai. Finally we realized they just weren't coming, and got the most "official" looking taxi from the matching polo shirt guys that we could find. The taxi driver was totally incompetent- or pretending to be. After driving erratically for ten minutes, he pulled off the highway to a gas station (stalling the car in front of the pump). We waited for an extended period of time in some dark corner of the parking lot while he used the gas station office to charge his cell phone. Back on the highway, we swerve all over the road until we start to get into familiar territory (for Megan, as she visited Vietnam on a business trip in 2005). All along we're showing him on the map where we want to go and he's indicating that yes, that's where we're going. Surprisingly, despite his assurances, we pull into a sketchy side street in front of a generic hotel. A sleazy looking Vietnamese kid opens the car door- "welcome to my hotel!" Last time I got a curbside welcome at a backpacker-type guesthouse was NEVER, so we knew immediately that we were falling victim to the predictable scam. We insisted that no, we weren't going here, and no, we weren't at our hotel. There are several people now trying to intimidate us to go into the bogus hotel. The cab driver got super pissed off and smoked like three cigarettes outside the car while we sat in the car, not sure of what to do. It was like a staring contest- who would break, first. Finally he stopped this random motorcycle driver and asked for directions to the real hotel we wanted- the "City Gate Hotel." We proceed to follow this random motorbike the wrong direction- BACK onto the highway and into a completely different section of Hanoi. At this point we're getting nervous because if this sort of thing happened in DC, it would be considered kidnapping and the end of the drive would be something worse than an attempted guesthouse scam. Catt- very patiently- tells the driver to pull off the highway and back to the Old Quarter. Again, the taxi driver gets out of the cab and smokes, yelling at us. Language barrier is a huge problem. He tries to kick us out of the cab in a sketchy looking area without taking us to our final destination. We insist that, no, we aren't paying until he takes us to our hotel, just as he promised back at the airport. Finally we make it to the hotel. We get out, and again he tries to overcharge us. We walk away as he's still demanding more money. To make matters worse, the hotel dropped our reservation and is now totally full- no rooms left. After almost 2 hours in a cab whose destination we couldn't control, and now no place to stay, Megan sort of had a miniature internal meltdown and just sat in the guesthouse looking at the floor for a few minutes. Laos was just so lovely, and our entire Hanoi experience was a rude awakening- like a "welcome back to Asia, sucker!" for us. Anyway, the guesthouse people at City Gate felt really bad, turned out to actually be very nice and ended up taking Catt on the back of a motorbike to see the manager's friend's guesthouse to see if we'd like to stay there. We agreed on the other place, and then Megan was loaded, packs and all, onto the back of this kid's motorcycle, just like that whizzing through the streets of traffic-crazy Hanoi, top speed, side-saddle on a motorbike to a guesthouse we've never heard of. In the end all ended well, but not without frustration. We seemed to be magnets for this sort of behavior all through our visit to Hanoi- the next day, we had a similar episode with a cyclo driver, who gave us quite a verbal bashing when we failed to pay him a tip on top of an amount we'd already agreed upon (and he drove us for less than the agreed-upon amount of time.)

Getting taken somewhere against your will is far too common of an occurrence for travellers- budget, and top end, alike- in SE Asia, and has the potential to really ruin an otherwise wonderful cultural experience. We've had the same thing happen in Bangkok, too. It's scary, because you never know if they're attempting a garden-variety guesthouse scam, running up the meter, or really taking you into serious, dangerous trouble. Tips that we always heed that really help keep you in control: never put your backpack or suitcase in the trunk if you can help it. Keep it in the backseat with you. That way, the cab driver can't hold your luggage "hostage" while they try to get more money out of you. Also, never pay beforehand- this is just asking to get dumped at the end of the wrong dark alley. Finally, if using a meter, ask for a price, also, beforehand for "an idea". Many meters (at least in Vietnam) are cooked and rigged to overcharge. The best thing to do? Ask your guesthouse (or another trusted local) for the approximate price for a drive from point A to point B. If will give you bargaining leverage, and save you lots of headaches later on.

Apart from our initial negative impression of Hanoi, we ended up having an amazing time in Vietnam on a whole. We spent a few days checking out Uncle Ho's haunts, the Ho Loa Prison (that housed John McCain after he was captured during the War) browsing shops and evaluating bun cha and pho at various foodstalls in the Old Quarter before signing up for what turned out to be the best value tour of our trip so far- a three day, two night excursion to Vietnam's lovely Ha Long Bay. Before we get there, though, here are some pictures from our time in Hanoi:

swan boats in Hanoi... almost like Boston!

Vietnam's most famous resident... the motorbike

Hoan Kiem Lake in central Hanoi

Hoan Kiem Lake and the turtle pagoda

motorbike traffic in Hanoi

transporting bamboo

at the "Hanoi Hilton" prison

...and the next day it was on further east, to Ha Long Bay!