Blogging Pubbitch

We're now in Hue, not far from the middle of the country, Dong Ha and the coast. It's slightly cooler, and we've seen some rain, and that's fine. What's not fine, and is what I am going to blog about now, is the attitude that the Vietnamese take to western tourists. Perhaps an example would help.

There were four of us wandering around the citadel in Hue, wondering what to do. We thought we'd check out the American Museum and sauntered that way, meeting some cyclo drivers on the way. They told us that nothing was open and asked us to take a tour with them. Since we'd been repeatedly lied to in other parts of this country, we didn't believe them. Incorrectly, as it turned out, but we've decided that it's always wise to check.

We arranged to take a tour "that should take an hour" with two of these cyclo drivers, and agreed a price before setting off, because if you don't, they'll try and rip you off. We did the tour, and it was lovely. Really great. We saw sites, chatted to our drivers, heard stories and learnt some history. Fantastic, this was exactly what we had wanted. We were contemplating giving these guys a tip and recommending them to anyone who would listen. Until we got off the bikes 2 and a bit hours later, when they pulled out watches, insisted that we'd spent 3 hours with them, and consequently owed them three times as much cash. We refused to hand over any more money, they refused to accept the amount we had agreed, so after much deliberation the four of us disappeared into a restaurant.

They followed us, harrassed us, stared at us and generally wouldn't leave us alone until the restaurant owner, who'd clearly seen this sort of thing before, got them to leave. They waited downstairs. They came back up. They argued with us. We had agreed a price, and no amount of shouting at us would make us change our minds. They took the money in the end (after an hour of abuse) and left saying "fuck you" to us "bad people".

And it's like this everywhere. All the time. For the simplest things, the Vietnamese will routinely try and scam or overcharge us. You can haggle over the price of a room with air-con, agree on one, only to find out that actually using the air-con costs more. Getting your passport back at the border control involves bribary, though not just for westerners, despite the fact that we get the privilege of paying more.

The worst thing about this is that it's not everyone. It's just practically everyone selling things. The Vietnamese people that we've spoken to have been, to a soul, charming, friendly and welcoming, willing to share their stories or just keen for a chance to practise their English. We're slowly picking up a little smattering of the language through chatting to the random folks that come and talk to us, and it's great, but our view of the entire nation has been badly coloured by the constant scamming. It's deeply disapointing.