Cameron Vs Vietnam

Cameron in Hanoi

I've yet to do any sort of write up for my trip overseas, but to save myself some time here is a story I told Claire via Facebook. (PS - My pictures are fricken awesome) (PPS - Welcome to 2008. First Post of the Year!)

When we got to Vietnam, a guy met us at the airport and started asking whether we wanted to take a taxi.. of course we both assumed he was trying to get our money so we said

"Nah, we are getting the bus" so he says he is also getting the bus.So we get on the bus, hes helping us out with stuff and ended up getting off after two stops without really even asking for anything - just asked us what hotel we were staying at and we told him we had booked a room already.

So we get off the bus and there is this other guy standing there holding up a sign with the street number, name and the name of the hotel written on it.. we both thought it was pretty weird and the guy then told us he was the brother of the guy who ran the hotel we were staying at... (alarm bells should be ringing)

So we get off and soon after were booked on a halong bay tour, and a Sa Pa tour.. costing $180 all up. The halong bay one about $75.

Next day we get up and were goign to Halong Bay - turns out we have paid $75 for the same tour that another guy staying at the same place has paid $35 for.. and it is SHIT.

We basically get stuffed around for most of the day, dont get to sleep on the boat like originally promised and then get dumped off in Hanoi at the end of it..and this is the worst part.

They drop us off, not out the front of our hotel, but in the middle of the Old Quarter of Hanoi.. we have no idea what our hotel is called, the bus driver is a prick and wouldnt help us at all and we dont even know what street we are on.. everything looks the same!

So we walk around for 2 hours trying to find our hotel and finally we put a few clues together and found it again, grab our backpacks (which have been there the whole time) and tell these guys we dont want to go on the Sapa tour and that we would like a refund.. we tell them the halong bay tour has been absolute crap.. they act all suprised and that we were supposed to go on a different tour..

Next day neither of us can be bothered going back and just want to get on with seeing Hanoi and off organised tours so we lost probably $120 on the whole thing..