Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Vietnamese Adventure with a Lesson Learnt.

I know, I know. I've been MIA the past week. I bet you thought I wouldn't come back for a long while eh? Nah. This blog is something I started when I was younger. Of course I'll keep coming back to it. It's been my listening ear and venting mode for as long as I can remember.

Anyway, I just got back two days ago from Vietnam. The family and I left on Merdeka Day for five days in Ho Chi Minh city. It was a good trip. Good for the family, good for me to get away and clear my head. Especially since recent events.

We reached, we went shopping, visited monuments and went site-seeing. We even went to the Mekong River and sailed a bit and visited little villages along the river. When pictures are on Facebook, feel free to go for it. It was a nice little family trip.

Of course there were bumps and humps. No wait, no humps. Just bumps along the way. On our first day, a taxi driver tried to rip us off. Luckily, Dad was smart and realised that the taxi driver was pulling some trick. We had just been shopping at Ben Thanh market and were getting a cab to go back to our hotel. First, I can tell you that the cabbie's meter was definitely rigged because when he dropped us, the fee according to the meter was about 20 US Dollars. I can tell you it definitely did not cost that much because that was the fare from the airport to our hotel. And Ben Thanh market was really near.

Second, the taxi man didn't even drop us right in front of our hotel lobby. Our hotel was in front of a roundabout. He dropped us to the right of the hotel because the roundabout was heavy with traffic. And then, my sister and mum got out of the cab on the right and I had to slide over to get out on the same side (because cars were passing on the left) and he is literally waving his hand at me and telling me to get out. I thought that was odd but I got out anyway.

Dad was still in the cab paying the man and he was taking a long while, which to us was odd. so mum knocked on the window and door to find out whats going on but the door was locked and that was strange because we had just gotten out of the car. So why would the door be locked? It was all a bit kecoh but when dad got down from the car, he told us what happened. The taxi driver locked the door when I had gotten out and there was no one in the back seat and told dad it cost something more than 20USD. So dad gave him a USD20 note, looks down and next thing the guy is telling dad that he gave him a USD1 note and dad looks and sees that it was a USD1 note. So then dad says that he doesnt have change, and hands him a USD100 note.

Next thing, the taxi man is holding up USD20 dollar note saying it's not enough. Now dad knows something fishy is going on cos he tried to open the door to ask mum for change earlier and it was locked. So he says to the taxi guy (and i'm paraphrasing here), what did you do don't lie, i gave you a 100 dollar note. The taxi man just looks at Dad and reaches in the backeat and has the USD100 note in his hand, gives it to dad. Then dad hands him a 20 dollar note and gets out of the car.

So the taxi guy ripped us off of USD20. Dad only realised what the taxi man had done when we got back in the room. That's why the taxi guy was rushing me out of the backseat. Anyway, it was two lessons learnt. 1) Never carry a lot of money and when paying the taxi driver, don't make your money in the wallet visible. 2) No one gets out of the car til after the taxi driver has been paid.

Otherwise, it was a good trip. Did lots of shopping, went to the monuments and the Mekong River. Will post pictures later if I feel like it. Anyways, I'm back now and classes have started. So between class, the book and Skippy's, I'm swamped with work! Oh well, better than having nothing much to do these past few weeks.

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