A Travellers Kvetch

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I'll tell you all about Hanoi, our latest stop, later. But I've been mildly perturbed about the suckier side of travelling for a few days now, so I want to rant. I think most travellers make fleeting mention of these things, but they are the reasons why, despite how cool it is to travel through a foriegn country, you should remember that life on the road has it's share of frustration. Below is a list, in no particular order, of things that suck while travelling, mostly abstractable to any country, but specific to Vietnam right now.

• Being seen by the locals as a walking cash machine - In Vietnam, if you're not Asian, you are a tourist, and therefore everyone knows you came here to just go to a cash machine, take out millions of Dong (exchange rate: $1=17300 Vietnamese Dong), and then just give it away like a madman. It's not always fun to be so conspiciously other, especially when that brand of other is bugged to purchase street donuts, three year old travel guides, samizdat pro-Communist literature, take a cyclo (bike taxi) ride, a cab, motorbike trip, guided tour to a snake farm, or snap a photo with a rattan peaked hat and fruit baskets for only a dollar or five. Maybe the best was the police officer in Cambodia who offered to be a tour guide at one of the temples he was guarding . Noa and I weren't sure whether saying no would result in him taking our passports and deporting us. But regardless of shady cops, it just gets tiring to be seen by most people you interact with as a dollar sign. This annoyance leads directly to my next annoyance...
  
  
• Trying not to get ripped off - If you are traveling and you don't think you've been ripped off, you are either unbelievably naive or a total cheapskate. It seems like you are on guard for a scam 80%!o(MISSING)f the time. Getting a cab? Getting a visa letter from your travel agency? Renting a room in a hotel? Buying beer? Getting a 'genuine' silk scarf? You might be overpaying. Strike that: you ARE overpaying, but egregiously or just mildly? There are a few remedies for this. You can bargain for everything. But this just makes you look like a prick, especially when the price tag on that scarf or the meter reads 100,000 VND. Another remedy is price-hunt everything: check with five cabs, go to eight silk shops, bargain down every last bookseller. This is exhausting, maybe pointless, and with petty goods, will probably only get you about an $0.80 savings each time. It will also raise your blood pressure unbelievably and seems to defeat the point of calling this a 'vacation'. Also, when you've paid over $2 grand for your cramped airline seat, even 100 small victories still doesn't add up. Your last option, usually my choice, is to say 'let it go', remind yourself that it's still way cheaper than the US, and breathe. Still, you feel like a fray-ayr (Hebrew for 'sucker') while you do it.
  
  
• Trying not to get robbed, stabbed, or killed doing something really dangerous or seemingly innocious - Yesterday, we watched three Aussies chase down a Vietnamese guy and nearly break his face for stealing their cameras. After some literal arm twisting, he coughed three cameras and a wallet. I'm thinking: do you beat him up to teach him a lesson, since there's nobody here to help you arrest this guy? Do you wait for a cop, who may not take your side since your a foriegner anyways? Do you let it go, against all things good and decent and fair? I dunno the answer, but mostly, it just reminded me that travel is dangerous. This is evidently clear when cycling on a backcountry road with a restaurant full of poor Vietnamese rice farmers piss-drunk on rice wine mixed with snake's blood (I sh#t you not) are leering at your wife. Or passing three guys in a back alley carrying machetes. Or getting lost, anywhere. Or handing your passport to anyone. On past trips, I've been extorted by French cops, harassed by Muslim teens in Brussels, slept in hallway in Munich, a rooftop in Arizona, jumped off a 40 foot cliff in Guatemala, and watched a street brawl in Cambodia. You just never know when sketchy can become scary or that neat hike in woods will result in an ER trip. But hey, it wouldn't be an adventure if you were watching some other poor schmuck do these stupid things on a Discovery channel show.
  
  
• Eating food that is repetative, unreliable, or just plain bad - This is somewhat petty compared to the last few. But it still blows. I eat fish and rice nearly every meal. There just isn't a lot of other food here that Noa and I can eat, except at backpacker/Western folk, joints, and that's not why you went halfway around the world for vacation. There's also the sketchy foods you eat. Other folks (not us, we're pesce-vegetarians) have it tougher because they order 'beef' but they may get dog, or worse; or they eat at one of the many local sidewalk squat-stool eateries that are so unhygenic looking I wouldn't let my dog at there. I learned, for instance, that out in the countryside, they don't gut fish in Vietnam. They like to eat those parts. I've accidentally eaten fish guts a few times, which is really dangerous if it isn't well cooked. And here, it isn't well cooked. You are going to get sick at some point, that's just a fact. But at least you can get a good meal when you do get ill.
  
  

There are more, and I'll add some fun pics later, but rest assured, as sexy as this trip looks, there are some sucky parts too. Nonetheless, Noa and I are having a blast, and I wouldn't trade computer terminals with any of you. Especially you readers in Madison, Wisconsin or Hamilton, Ontario. Brrrr.

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Comments

[KevK]

Good Post
Great post! . A real reality check for those travelling in Indochina. I am currently in rainy central Viet Nam (Hue) Had a scary experience in Ha Noi (a couple of days ago) with a motorbike-taxi guy outside Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. I negotiated the price for the guy to bring me back to my hotel and all was well until this guy took me elsewhere to near the museum or something saying that I asked him to bring me there. Naturally I protested and next thing the guy did was showed me the kitchen knife he kept in a box on his motorbike. He said "Yu no pay me 30 dora veli bad for yu in Ha Noi" while displaying a fit of childish tantrums. Alone, faced with a vietnamese gollum holding a knife i chose flight and ran across the highway to a taxi. I was enjoying vietnam and just forgot to be more vigilent. Your post really serve to remind us of the reality here especially when its so easy to forget when having such a great holiday here. Safe journey to all fellow travellers Ps. It happens to asian travellers as well ;)