The Indian Contractor visits Vietnam and China on a Shoestring

We woke up late (10ish) and completed the check out formalities. All of a sudden we were charged a 10% "tax" which I suspect is the taxi fare from the station to the hotel. So once again guys, be careful of touts.

We took a motorbike to the station and deposited our luggage at the station cloak room. We then proceeded to make the booking for our journey to China. Since it was lunch time we were asked to wait for another hour and a half. We had lunch at a cafe opposite the station and returned to the waiting hall.

There were many Vietnamese armymen sitting around. I should say Army boys because these guys were only 23years old and were obviously very very curious about the wild man with even wilder hair. They all gathered around and started talking to each other with occasional glances at me. You dont have to be a college professor to figure to figure out who they were talking about. My buddy had gone out dor a smoke so it was me "against" them. After completing their discussion one of them looked me in the eye and gathered all the english words he knew and asked,"I hanoi, you.." and pointed at me.

I said,"Singapore" and offered my hand. He shook and the rest offered their hands too with friendly smiles.

Another one who knew a few more words asked"your name".

I gave him my name and he gave me his.

He then said,"too rit?" I said, "yeah I am reading"

He just nodded. What he meant was "tourist?" I only knew when they asked the same question to my buddy.

Vietnamese have problem pronouncing "st" together hence "stone" becomes "tone".

His next question was the clearest of them all. He used his hands to show me the curves of a woman's body and added the word vietnam. Following which he held up his last three fingers to signal "good looking".

I smiled at him, returned the gesture and said,"yes, Vietnamese girl, Very pretty, very Beautiful".

The whole group burst out laughing and several of them made a mental note of the word beautiful.

By this time my friend was back and it was her turn to answer questions. Then one of the soldiers grandmother joined me and told them I looked like a gangster. Very soon the parents also joined in and the same stream of questions followed.

We took pictures with them and for some unknown reason the old lady laughed and ran away when I stood next to her for a picture. I guess I was a bit too wild for her.

This is exactly why backpacking is so exciting. You mingle with the locals and overcome the languange barrier. And contrary to the thought that people from poorer bacgrounds would shun richer people or cheat them, here were people who genuinely welcomed you and made you feel comfortable. Even if their idea of comfort was offering a ciggarette(which I politely refused), its the thought that counts... And this is exactly why I stay away from organised tours. The tourist becomes some sort of a elite visitor who stares down at the locals from his throne in the air conditioned bus. Interaction is a basic human necessity, and there's no better way to do this than to have a nice chat with the working locals (even if that chat involves making wild gestures to get your message across .

The ticket counter opened again at 2pm and we were the first to buy the ticket. The ticket to Beijing costs about VND1.89 million. And they hand you a ticket that is printed in three languages namely, Vietnamese, Chinese and RUSSIAN! NO english here.

We secured the ticket to China, wished the army boys goodbye and started walking around hanoi. This time we went to the Womens Museum. This place housed the relics from the womens efforts in liberating vietnam. Everything from the clothes to the communication devices were up for display. Some photographs showing tribal women carrying supplies were quite nice. There was an art exhibition upstairs which had some interesting representations of Vietnam as seen by both foreighners and Vietnamese artists.

We walked aroung the Hoan kiem lake and all of a sudden we were caught with the russian watch fever. We started bargaining passionately, finally securing two watches for VND200,000. These were not the traditional wrist watches but a pocket watch complete with the chain and all. Cooolness.. Especially since they were hand wound and battery free. Mine was a SEA games edition. We settled down for dinner at this place called pho24 and their phot without meat was just noodle wioth nothing. Not even vegetables. So i asked for some garnishes and chilli ketchup. We then walked to the station to take our train to Lao Cai. And thus we fell victim for the second scam.

Now, we had our ticket and we were asked to goto platform seven. Numbers in Vietnam are written in english so its pretty easy to find your way. But as we walked to the end of platform 1 and onto the tracks, we were stopped by this guy who looked like a railway official, complete with the blue uniform and all. He demanded our tickets and took them from us and asked us to follow him. We did so. He brought us to the train and showed us our compartment and seats. Now I thought this guy was just one of those nice workers in the railway who like to help foreigners. (You probably think I am a gullible sucker but many guys fell for this guys tricks). So after we put our stuff in our cabin this guy demanded VND50,000. I was tempted to show him my middle finger but decided against it. I also realised that his blue "uniform" was just a shirt with no railway logo or anything! I cursed audibly at my folly. i gave him 20,000 and asked him to go away. I wish him ill.

We put our stuff in the cabin and shut it before going out to take pictures in the dark. the lighting at the station was nice with bright sodium vapour lights casting very nice shadows. Take a look at some of the pictures.

It was after our shoot that we saw our "friend" once again ecorting three other foreigners to our compartment. I moved over to the door and told them that they'd be expected to pay for his services. Hearing which they immedietly took the ticket from the ticket checker outside and ran into the train.

I dont mind porters and others who make a living by genuinely offering services and quoting prices before hand. But trickery is intolerable.

This was not the last battle with railways in vietnam. One more decisive battle was yet to be fought.

The train set off and after a few exchanges of words with the other foreigners we went to sleep. It was an aircon soft sleeper car. So it was sweet night's sleep too.