If You'll Lie, You'll Steal, and if You'll Steal, You'll Kill

While planning for our trip I had read that Vietnam was notorious for trying to rip off tourists. For the first two weeks I had seen no evidence of this, and chalked this reputation up to naive or butthurt tourists who ended up regretting how much they ended up paying for something. However my perspective has changed over the past few days.

After finishing our time in Da Nang Zoe and I decided to take a public bus to Hoi An. I had read online that the fare collector tried to make foreigners pay a 50,000 dong (2.50USD) fare when the real fare is around 20,000VND. Sure enough, there was no fare posted on the side of the bus, and when we got on he asked for 100,000VND. I handed him 40,000, and he refused to take it.This continued for about 30 minutes, (it was a 45 minute ride) At one point he threatened to kick us off. I was very unbothered. I would have enjoyed seeing him go through me, take all four of our bags, and throw them off the bus. He finally realized he was fighting a losing battle, and that these were two tourists he wouldn't be scamming and accepted my money.

At least the bus driver just tried to charge us double. Zoe needed a pair of flip flops, so we stopped off at a shop. When she inquired how much they were the shopkeeper said, "500,000VND," (23USD) with a straight face. FOH. Zoe, like me, when given an extremely ridiculous price retorted back with one of her own, "10,000VND (.50)." Eventually a price of 50,000VND was settled on. Still, this lady thought she could get away with a 90% markup!

Finally, in what was probably the most egregious and brazen example so far, a noodle shop owner tried to overcharge us for some pho, except they weren't clever about it at all. Zoe and I each had a bowl of beef ho, and there were probably about 10 other Vietnamese people in the restaurant with us, all eating pho as well. As usual, no prices were posted. The Vietnamese people left, paying with no incident. When Zoe and I were ready to leave we asked how much our meal was. The waitress proceeds to pull out her cell phone, and call someone, presumably to ask someone how much to overcharge us. Keep in mind she did this right to our face, immediately after the Vietnamese who had THE EXACT SAME THING AS US, left without a problem. She ended up asking for 80,000VND, but we've been here long enough to know that's to much for pho, gave her 60,000 and went on our way.

I'm used to the give and take of haggling for things, but it is a bit disheartening when people try and take advantage of you. A dollar or two here and there doesn't seem like much, but when you are travelling for three months it adds up. I also don't buy into the sentiment that because these people may be poorer than myself that I should just suck it up, or that "that's just the way things are." If I am here staying in hotels, buying food, and merchandise then I am contributing to your local economy. Additionally, if tourists have the go along to get along attitude, it will only make things worse, and vendors more brazen. Either way, these episodes haven't changed my opinion Vietnam, I'm still having a great time!