The Horrors of Hanoi

In contrast to my lovely stay at Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi is a bit horrifying. I can just describe the people as money-thirsty scammers. Upon my arrival at the Airport, this guy approached me offering a cab for 50. I said 'No' initially cos compared to the minibus that is too expensive. Double the price actually. He led me to believe that the minibus takes ages cos they will be waiting for it to be full and it goes to every hotel destination of all passengers. huh? So I said 'Yes' eventually. Only to find out that the 50 he is talking about is in USD. WHAT?!?!

I bargained for a lower price but still ... It's too expensive. My 500,000 VND gone just like that.

To make it even worse, the cab brought me to a different hotel. I confirmed the hotel name and address. They said yes. How can I evaluate if they are telling the truth? All is in Vietnamese.

Maybe its a blessing. Cos its much better. $8 for single room compared to $7.50 which is dorm share. I thought it was fine back then. but when I started to checkout the next day. I paid for it in USD. $50 to be exact. He has done some calculations which has different buy and sell rates. More like FX trading huh?! And got only 405,000 VND in return. Effectively, it costs me 26 bucks for two nights.

And the biggest horror of them all is the massage. Imagine I walked 3km just to go to the massage place recommended by this schmucks. Massage costs 55 they say. I thought its in VND. Cos a massage in Saigon only costs 40,000 VND. Which seemed logical at first... When its finished, they billed me USD 55. I manage to bargain 300,000 VND. But that's not the horrific part. The one who massage me was asking me for tip. No... More like demanding me a tip. And get this, the schmuck is asking me for 500,000 VND and wouldn't let me go. I then have to travel back to my hotel and pay 720,000 VND, which is the total bargained price.

Few tips then:
- Finalise payment before entering into a transaction. Clearly ask the currency because they widely trade with USD here.
- Never talk to this touts. All they want is your money!
- Better ask for opinions from fellow travelers cos they already experienced this horrors as well.
- Read blogs about the place your going and how to survive topics. It helps a lot reading bad experiences from travelers.