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Published: September 22nd 2010
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Vietnam!
The airport arrival was a little unorganised. First we queued up...big queues! Then I started thinking...what about my visa? Visa On Arrival? I hadn't picked one up anywhere...so I left Jane and Lauren in the massive queue and went over to a quiet counter and asked "Visa On Arrival?" and was pointed to the counter next door that I hadn't noticed on the left at the bottom of the escalators. I had to fetch Jane and Lauren back out of the queue (still massive) and hand them our passports and paperwork, no words were spoken but the woman pointed to the spots on the VOA applications where the photos should be and I pulled out a set of large photos and small photos and gave her a choice of size. She was happy with the smaller ones and stapled them to the forms for me. We then had to go around the other side and wait for some really unorganised Indians to figure out their visa payments (they thought they were getting ripped off...but they expected to get the single entry visa price for a multi entry visa).
Visa sorted and back to the queue, which had disappeared (yay!).
So we front up and begin approaching one immigation officer and he holds one finger up to indicate that only one of may approach at a time...WTF?!? The officer to his immediate right, in the very same booth is happily processing a couple together. Oh well, so I give Jane her passport and send her over to him. Give Lauren her passport and send her off to another guy and then go looking for a 3rd guy for me but the queue controller waggles a finger at me and I have to go back to Mr Individuality. No big deal in the end, but makes about as much sense as everything else we've seen since...get used to it.
Vietnam! Vietnam!
I'd heard this saying somewhere before, it all came back to me in the cab ride from Noibai airport as we witnessed the craziness on the roads that can only be described this way. Vietnam! Vietnam! Indeed! I'd read lots on taxis in Vietnam. Look out or you'll get scammed. Tonnes of stories posted about creative and clever scams pulled by dodgy taxi drivers. With this in mind I decided to stay within the terminal and find a taxi
voucher service for a pre-paid deal. First place US$25, second place US$30...seems like the scams and/or paranoia are driving the prices up inside...so we wandered outside to try our luck. I'd read about only trusting Vinasun or Mai Linh taxis...none of those here, just "Airport Taxi". We get into a big van of a taxi and it's US$15 fixed price (or 300,000 dong) either/or. Simple.
Since then we've taken cabs all over Hanoi. We've been cautious to be very clear about where we're going, showing maps where necessary. I'd also preloaded all the Hanoi maps from Google Maps onto my GPS so that I can track our path to have peace of mind we're going the right way. Initially the taxi drivers seemed to ignore my suggestions of direction and that didn't make much sense to me and I was okay with that as the fares are so ridiculously cheap compared to our ripoff artists in Australia. I eventually learned that while motorcycles can go anywhere they can fit, most streets in Hanoi are only one way for cars...there isn't any visible sign that I've noticed yet that seems to indicate which way. It's all good...don't think I'd ever
want to risk driving here though.
Just to update...we got a dodgy cab today. Taxi 83 was the company and he was hanging around the front of the National Army Museum and he hung around for us for a long time - obviously locals don't trust these guys. So we get in, the car interior looks a little nicer than the usual cabs, but there's none of the usual stuff either; like driver identification, passenger information, nothing but a meter...so I watch it...closely. It starts at 12000 dong and I'm hoping that there's a decimal point between the 12 and the 0 and that it's not 120,000dong as a starting figure. Stayed at 12.0 for a little while...about 100m and then jumped to 13.6, then 15.5, then 17.7 in the space of a few seconds! So I firmly said "Stop here!", handed him 20,000dong nothing higher as I wasn't going to risk the difficulty of getting change from a 100,000 note and exited the cab and walked the rest of the way to the One Pillar Pagoda (which we should have walked in the first place). Mr Dodgy was still hanging around the area when we'd finished at the
Pagoda...so we passed all the tourist buses and got a Mai Linh taxi up there.
Some of the crazy things we've seen include...
A guy carrying an entire fridge, in its box, sideways on the back of his scooter. Then his mate with the washing machine, also on a scooter. A scooter in tiny pieces all over the highway, rider not so good either. Two guys riding a cement mixer...not a cement truck...but literally a barrel with two rear wheels bolted to the back of something that looked like a scooter with a tractor steering wheel.
You haven't been to Vietnam unless you have...
Crossed a massively busy road with cars and scooters whizzing all about you! Extra bonus points for pulling it off by walking across the middle of a roundabout. We managed to pull that one off by zipping in alongside a large bunch of Vietnamese...in the dark...and me wearing a black t-shirt...death wish? me? It's a truly freaky experience, but you step out and go straight and slowly and the world just seems to melt around you, almost like something out the matrix I guess. I had a hard time getting Jane and Loz to
keep the forward momentum up when we got to the middle of a street, but you must keep moving - get unpredicatable and you could be roadkill or at least some particularly nasty bruises to take home.
Intercon
Our digs for Hanoi is the Intercontinental Westlake. It's a pretty flash pad to base yourself, but quite cheap for what you get. You can get a really nice room for around US$150 per night including breakfast and then maybe budget that you'll spend $300 per night and you're living the high life. Of course go out and sample the local fare - dinner at Pho 24 for 3 of us cost us a massive US$8 for all we could possible eat and drink (same meal in house would cost US$40). They promised us a pool view room, but we ended up with a front-view room overlooking the forecourt. I wasn't too impressed with this, but they assured me that they considered that we'd like some extra space with the 3rd body in the room so upgraded us to a 63sqm room. They let me look at the pool view room anyway and yes it was smaller, but would have been
just as comfy I'm sure...bathroom was bigger too (well shower part at least). I also pushed them for free internet as Gold Ambassador members are supposed to get free breakfast and internet at this hotel until Sep 30th, they tried to convince me otherwise but gave me the internet for free in the end.
Noise!
They don't use indicators here...they use horns! All the time! Traffic is a slow ballet of sight and SOUND. How we haven't actually witnessed a collision is amazing in itself, I've been waiting a few times for the ol' scraping of metal noise, but it doesn't seem to come. Amazing.
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