The journey to Saigon was a bit different to normal, as it involved getting a public bus and the bus conductor paying for me to go on another one.

After much discussion with the various people on reception, we established that I wanted to get a public bus to Saigon. The other option was getting on a smaller bus outside the hotel which would take me to a bigger bus at the bus station, but this was going to be more expensive and I didn’t want to get on a big bus. I walked outside with one of the other people on reception, who I hadn’t spoken to and wondered if he knew what we had been talking about. After getting some Bahn Mi, a bus turned up and the bloke from the hotel help me put my stuff on it. The bus conductor was in a rush, as he wanted to pick up as many people as possible and asked for 300 000 VND. This is roughly what the other bus was going to cost and it was too much, so immediately after me complaining he lowered it to 170 000 VND and I got on.

The bus was crowded and was basically a Ford transit with some windows put in, but it didn’t go too fast (as with some other public buses) and not too many other people got on. Once we were past the main part of the city, there was a core group of a few people from the beginning who continued all the way to Saigon.

About half way the bus stopped in a petrol station and we all got out. I was just stretching my legs, but I think the bus conductor and the driver must have thought it was uneconomical to continue and so he unloaded my stuff. We waited by the side of the road until another bus to Saigon showed up and we all got on that, the first conductor paying the second conductor the appropriate fair for the journey between there and Saigon.

Once in Saigon, some of the people from the first part of the journey and an innocent bystander helped let me know when to get off. I was accosted by a very persistent moto-driver who I had to be very direct with and then found a public bus to where I wanted to go in Saigon; the main backpacker district.

I got to the backpacker district and walked around until I found somewhere to stay. It was a little bit expensive, but in comparison to what else was on offer, it was very good. I spent the next few days doing the following:

• getting my camera repaired
• buying an SD card (and backing-up my photos)
• getting my coat repaired (the sleeve had a hole burnt in it from Chengdu)
• buying a (fake) rucksack
• buying a (fake) Lonely Planet guide for Cambodia.

In the meantime I also went for a bit of a night out, found some good places to eat and ended up moving hotel to a much smaller, nicer, friendlier one, which actually meant that I ended up staying slightly longer than I intended to. After doing all of the jobs, I realised that I should really go to the Reunification Palace, so stayed there an extra day and went there too.

Whilst in Hoi An, I decided to do a tour of the Central Highlands with the Vietnam Easy Riders Group. It meant that I got to see the Central Highlands, avoiding the east coast and without having to buy a bike!

Day 1: Hoi An > Kon Tum

The journey began in Hoi An, where I met Jack and we set off on our 4-day voyage. In order to get the tour down to 4 days, we had to drive a long way on days one and two, as usually the trip would be 5 days. This meant not making a lot of stops on the first two days, or at least only making stops to stretch legs. What we did do is as follows:

• stopping on a bridge, with some impressive surrounding countryside
• stopping at waterfalls
• seeing a short section of the original Ho Chi Minh trail
• seeing the new Monkey Bridge. The old Monkey Bridge was only wide enough for one person to cross, but this one seemed just as dangerous!
• stopping for sugar-cane juice in Indochina Corner
• helping a man remove a wing-mirror from his van. It was his birthday, so after this he sat me down for beer and sweets
• having a long discussion with the waitress in a seafood restaurant as to whether I should have got noodles or not, based on the picture in the menu.

Day 2: Kon Tum > Buon Ma Thout

• seeing the Bana ethnic minority village. This was different to the other ethnic minority villages I had seen in the past, as it was on the outskirts of an already fairly-well established city
• seeing the wooden church
• stopping at a tea plantation and taking leaves for tasting later
• seeing a black-pepper plantation
• eating barbequed pork and beef (which you barbequed yourself).

Day 3: Buon Ma Thout > Dak Mil

This days was a lot shorter than the first few days and we didn’t really cover much distance at all. We did see a lot though:

• rice paper making
• rice noodles
• Tray Sap waterfall
• drinking coffee (Buon Ma Thout is meant to produce some of the best coffee in the region)
• seeing a coffee plantation
• stopping to buy mangos, directly from the farmer
• seeing a rubber tree plantation
• eating spring rolls (that you made yourself) and a kind of pancake (with beansprouts).

Day 4: Dak Mil > Bao Loc

• eating Bahn Mi (baguettes)
• drinking coffee (I had discovered that I quite liked coffee at this point)
• stopping at a passion-fruit plantation, quite easily the best plantation we went to
• seeing a hydro-electric dam. I walked over to the control office and the bloke showed me how all the equipment worked. I couldn’t touch any of it though!
• a drive through the jungle (which was more of a forest).

We got to Bao Loc, where Jack and I departed and I stayed the night, before heading to Saigon. I was a little frustrated that we didn’t get to do more on day 4, as we had agreed that I could go trekking in the jungle on that day, but Jack had interpreted me asking questions on a non-sensical topic in a coffee shop as a cue to miss that step. I told him that I wasn’t happy and I think I got the point accross, but it didn’t change the fact that we spent quite a lot of time sitting around on the last day.

As we didn’t get to do much on day 4, early on day 5 I got the bloke on reception to drive me to Dambri Falls, which was only about 18 Km away. This was worth it, as it helped fill the void from the day before and I got to walk through some impressive jungle.

This is something that happens fairly frequently and is something that you will get used to over any period of time. It is something that I now have experience of, having spent several weeks in Vietnam.

Previously, in countries such as Russia and China, this was not a problem. If it was, it was not obvious what was going on. Bus fares would be the same as what the locals paid and if they weren’t, they were only one or two Yuan more, which is 10 or 20 pence. When someone was trying to charge much more, it was clear what was going on. Also, I bought most of my tickets at bus and train stations, so the officials I bought them off were charging the right price.

Things are slightly different in Vietnam and there seem to be many ways that local, well-practiced individuals can extract your money from you. This is not to say that everyone is trying to rip you off. Usually there is a tourist price, which is more than what the locals pay, but this is normal. Usually this will range from between two and three-times the usual cost. This is not people trying to rip you off however, it is just them giving you a ‘special price’. The people I’m talking about in this post are the ones that are tricking you into handing over more of your money than you have to.

My experience so far is of 3 separate scams:

1. The open-tour scam. This is a type of bus that you can get a ticket for (I think) which allows you to hop-on and hop-off the bus services, as you travel up and down Vietnam. It only applies to private, open-tour bus services.

I had to get one of these services in Ninh Binh, where, I thought, there were no public busses available. What happened was that I packed my bags and checked-out, hoping to go to the bus station to get a ticket to Dong Hoi. My friendly hotel recpetionist man offered to give me a lift, which I agreed to, as he had helpfully transported me to other places in the city during my stay. At the bus station, he came inside, offering to help me. What I believe happened was that he told the woman behind the desk to tell me that there were no bus services available. This I found odd, as they were saying that there were no buses going south for the next three days and I quizzed them about this at the time. The woman who I had originally spoken to was quite irate and seemed to be unhappy that I was speaking to the other woman behind the desk. When I asked about buses going north, this seemed to perplex her slightly and she said that this was fine.

Outside, the recpetionist man seemed unhappy that I wanted to go to the train station, but this was normal, as he had given the same reaction to other things I had wanted to do. We went anyway, but the office was closed, which was something that he had said at the bus station. We went back to the hotel, where he offered to sell me an open-tour bus ticket.

The price would normally be 350 000 VND, but at it was the Tet lunar new year festival, it would be 450 000 VND. This was for the ‘old’ bus and the ‘new’ one would be 500 000 VND, which is very expensive. I didn’t think I had a choice at this point and went for the ‘old’ bus, which is something that I think I will only do once.

The lesson learnt from this was that I should double-check everything once. I knew this already, but forgot on this occasion and I am sure I could have got the ticket for cheaper elsewhere. The other thing that didn’t help was that the receptionist man came into the bus station with me. I was not expecting a scam, but this is something that I will be doing on my own in future.

2. The tourist attraction scam. This is something that happened in Hue and I am almost certain that I got ripped-off.

Whilst paying for the ticket to the Imperial City, I noticed something funny about the transaction. It was first thing in the morning, but I was sure that I had handed over a 100 000 VND note. I had been to the cash machine the day before and my wallet was full of them, plus the fact that I had got 10 000 VND and 100 000 VND notes mixed-up in the past and so was happy that I was handing over the right one. I am sure that I put this into the right hand of the ticket-selling lady, but something very fast happened and she closed the desk drawer next to her (also on her right side) as soon as I had handed this over. From her left hand, she presented a 10 000 VND note, which she said was “not enough”; quite good English (or quite a specific phrase) for someone who can’t really speak any English at all. I took the 10 000 VND note back, something that she didn’t seem to be expecting and gave her another 100 000 VND note, which she said that she didn’t have change for, so could I give her another 30 000 VND. This was fine, as I was aware that there were scams where people exchange so much money that you lose track of who owes whom what, but the maths added up so I handed over the extra money. She gave me 50 000, which was correct and I got my ticket.

I went back after getting into the citadel, asking if I had in fact given her 100 000 VND instead of 10 000 VND to begin with. She said no and did a very good job of making me think that she had no idea of what I was talking about. It was an amicable situation, but I wasn’t sure about what had just happened.

What I learnt from this was that you should be extra careful when in tourist areas, or in situations where you are buying tourist-related services. Also, be completely sure of what you are handing over.

3. The bus ticket scam. This I witnessed first-hand on a bus from Danang to Hoi An.

After getting on the bus, I realised that the ticket conductor was asking for 50 000 VND for a single ticket. This was a lot, as the journey was only an hour and I had spent 60 000 VND on a private bus a few days before. I had also asked two separate people how much they thought the ticket should be; the woman in the train station had said 30 000 VND and the man in the hotel had said 12 000 VND. What they were asking for seemed expensive but the Spanish couple next to me just handed over 100 000 VND for both of them. You could see a villager further down the bus gesturing to some Chinese girls who had got on at the same bus stop that the ticket fare was 50 000 VND. To anyone who has spent any time in Vietnam, the idea that someone like this has 50 000 VND to spend on a bus ticket is ridiculous. Then, to my amazement, the friendly woman next to me who had joked about falling asleep on my shoulder, handed over 50 000 VND. I was refusing to pay at this point, but what confirmed it was a scam was the minute look that the woman gave me, to check that I had seen how much she had handed over. This I could see out of the corner of my eye and so I continued to refuse to pay. Later, as I had moved seats to allow someone else to fit in on the back row, I saw the ‘friendly’ woman get off. As she was unloading her stuff from underneath the bus, the bus conductor got a load of notes out of his shirt pocket and handed them to her, the top one being 50 000 VND. This I wasn’t meant to see and so paid the 18 000 VND at the bus staion, when the bus driver was asking me why I hadn’t paid.

The lesson learnt from this is that there is a ticket scam on buses and you just need to be aware of roughly how much it should cost. On public buses, ticket prices should be printed on the outside of the bus (see below), but the bus will have a bus ticket that will confirm the price. Even during the Tet festival, it’s not 2.5 times the actual amount!

Bus prices in Vietnam.

I got up for the train to Da Nang early, as there was only one train available for the day that I wanted to travel and I took it. The journey was meant to be scenic and it was, but I didn’t find it that interesting. It was quite spectacular, but all the tourists straining themselves to take photos meant that it wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. I left the train in Da Nang feeling slightly un-impressed and sat down to figure out what I would be doing over the next couple of days.

As I had a week in Hoi An, I had a few options as to what I did next. Either I could buy a motorbike to Saigon, or I could rent one, or I could get the train. As I was in the train station, I thought that it was a good time to make a decision and as the soft-sleeper train tickets were 1 300 000 VND, I decided to keep my options open and continue on to Hoi An.

I asked a woman in the train station how to get to Hoi An and she pointed me in the direction of the nearest bus stop. Here I could get a bus to Hoi An without having to get a motorbike taxi to another bus station. Whilst waiting for the bus I met a girl from Taiwan who was on her way to see some karst mountains using the same bus route. We just had time to establish that she was from Taichung, before the bus turned up and the scam unfolded that I talked about in the Being Ripped-Off in Vietnam post. We got to Hoi An and I called my hotel, who offered to come and pick me up.

Once in Hoi An I spent a very special couple of days exploring the surrounding countryside during the Tet holiday. Tet itself was spent in Hoi An, wandering around the city and watching the 15-minute firework display show from the riverside. The next few days were spent cycling around the nearby villages, having motorbike after motorbike of people saying ‘hello’ and being invited for nuts, coffee, beer, tofu and buffalo in nearby restaurants. It was very unique and I got to interact with the locals directly, who were feeling very generous.

Whilst in Hoi An, I spent at least 2 days researching and organising the options for getting to Saigon. I had 3 main options, which changed in preference regularly and these were: buying a motorbike, renting a motorbike and paying for an Easy Rider tour. The Easy Rider tour would be the most expensive and would mean that I wouldn’t need to buy (and sell) a motorbike. I could rely on someone else to do the driving, fix the motorbike if it broke and generally take me on a guided tour of the Central Highlands. Renting a motorbike would be the second cheapest, as I could return it (theoretically) in Saigon and have someone to ring if it broke. In reality, it would be difficult to organise, uncomfortable and I’m not sure having someone on the end of a phone would be much help. Thirdly, I could buy a bike. This would be the cheapest, as I could sell it again in Saigon, but after riding a semi-automatic and an automatic moped, I had decided that I would need a full-size motorbike. As I hadn’t ridden one on my own before, buying one for a journey to Saigon didn’t seem like a very good idea. One point that precluded all of this was that I wasn’t able to find a motorbike for sale in Hoi An. In addition to this, I wasn’t able to find a decent map either. It is because of this and the fact that I was able to get the Easy Rider price down that I decided to go on an Easy Rider tour.

I had one day spare before having to make a decision on whether I bought or rented a motorbike and I used it to practise riding a semi-automatic bike, just in case I wanted to buy one for the trip to Saigon. Once on the bike, I needed something to do with it so decided to go to the My Son temple remains in the same province. I got there, got round the temples and managed to get the bike back before my time ran out. The woman who rented it to me wanted an extra 10 000 VND for petrol, but she was very good-natured about it and I gave it to her. The decision from that experiment was that a semi-automatic would be too uncomfortable to ride for the 850 Km to Saigon.

The last day was spent moving hotel, as the one I had been staying in was out of places and the other one I had reserved changed their booking at the last minute. I stayed in a new, expensive hotel for one night whilst I waited for my Easy Rider tour to start. I met Jack, my tour-guide the same day and we agreed to start at a fairly respectable time of 07:30 the next day.