|
  | |  |
Moto THIS!
Entry 33 of 44 | show all | print this entry |
|
Please don't arrive in Dong Ha without enough money in your wallet. It will only cause problems.
Dong Ha is the capital of Quang Tri province, and as such has the most resources of any city in the area. That is a frightening prospect. However what with necessity being inventions mama and whatnot, things often end up in surprising ways.
We arrived from Hué by early morning bus, with the hope of getting a half-day tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ- the former division line between North and South Vietnam). That's what the tourists do, and that's how the resources in this town are set up.
Across the street from where the bus drops us off is the aptly named DMZ Cafe where we me Mr. Tinh, an outrageously friendly and perky former South Vietnamese soldier who offered us a place to put our bags and rest for a bit before discussing details of the tour. We plopped down in a tiny room with paper thin walls and an inadequate table fan (what do you want for $4.00 per night?). The also room came with a refilled bottle of water and a Vietnamese condom. Very nice.
The problem is, we're low on funds, and Dong Ha isn't the kind of place where you can find 24 hour ATMs. (Well, actually that's not entirely true-- you can find them, but they don't service international ATM cards.) We have exactly enough money to hire our guide ($7) and rent the motorbike that's part of the deal ($8, which is fully double what we paid for a bike in the capital, Hué... but we figure we'll just pay it).
Imagine our surprise when he tells us that with two people, we need to pay a double fee... $30! What? But it's the same motorcycle, the same guide... why double? Regardless, the issue was moot as we simply did not have the funds and the formerly amiable Mr. Tinh was unwavering in his insistence. "Maybe I take boy and girl stay here?" Sorry Mr. Tinh, that's not part of the deal.
We asked if we could just rent his bike and go ourselves as we had done countless times before in Vietnam and Cambodia. "Cannot do-- police arrest foreigners here for riding motorbikes alone." We're not sure if this is true or just a scam to get us to split up, so we leave.
We found ourselves back out on the streets of Dong Ha, with our heavy packs and nowhere to stay.
An annoying moto driver wearing North Vietnamese combat fatigues starts following us around in an intensely annoying way, trying to book our hotel arrangements for us.
We say no.
He wants to take us on a tour.
We say no.
He wants to find our hotel for us again.
We... SAY... NO!!!
He follows us into every hotel we go into, to try and get a commission from the hotel by pretending he brought us there. This is intensely annoying to us, but this is how it works in developing countries when there's not enough money to go around. We are hot. Frustrated. Profoundly sweaty. We are not in the mood to deal with desperate fools such as this one who refuse to take no for an answer. I scream at the man, telling him that he is annoying the shit out of us, and that he needs to go away because we do not like him.
Finally, he gets the picture and goes away. We continue our increasingly desperate search for a place to rest.
Eventually we discover a place with an inviting name... The Melody Hotel.
The place seems brand new, very inviting-- as a hotel would tend to be if you were to walk in and recieve a round of applause and laughter, as we did.
As an obvious foreigner, Adam especially is used to being treated in "unique" ways throughout Asia, so we didn't flinch. It turns out that we're the very first customers to walk through the door. What an honor! The rooms were brand new. There was still plastic wrap on the pillows and comforters. And the glorious air conditioning worked perfectly.
Of course this being Vietnam, the honor of being the first guest wasn't enough to prevent the mama of the operation from trying to rip us off. Earlier, Papa told us the room was $8.00. Mama later told us it was $10.00. We called mama on it and she yelled at Papa, and we got the room for $8.00.
There were apparantly no hard feelings as we were subsequently invited to eat lunch in the lobby with the whole family. This is exactly the kind of warm welcome we needed to help reset our batteries.
Nobody spoke English, so it was back to the old Lonely Planet phrasebook. We asked how it would be to rent a motorbike from the hotel. After about 20 intense minutes of awkwardly smiling conversation, the cute young receptionist goes out to find someone to help me. Ten minutes later, she returns with... guess who?
It's Mr. Annoying Combat Fatigues! He also tells us that foreigners will have trouble with the police if they ride bikes alone, contrary to all our personal experience everywhere else in Vietnam. The problem is, they could be right. Or they could have misinformation. Or they could be lying. The problem in Asia is that accurate information is at a premium here; you can never really know.
We tell him no, without trying to appear ungrateful to the kind hotel clerk for going out of her way for us.
We're starting to get frustrated again. Eva went upstairs for a nap, and I went out on a mission to find a motorbike to rent.
Herein lies the trouble that exists when you leave the beaten tourist path in Asia. Typical Vietnamese people do not seem to travel much outside their immediate sphere of influence (in most cases this means the town they are born in, then grew up in, and most likely will die in). Therefore things that are commonplace elsewhere (like renting motorbikes for the day) are a strange and bizarre curiosity in this town where the locals only have experience with foreigners hiring guides. I visited hotel after hotel, shop after shop, only to be met with quizzical stares and emphatic head shaking at my request to rent the motorbikes that were parked out front.
Mr. Combat Fatigues motored past me several times, silently mocking me as I attempted this seemingly futile mission.
I finally found a motorbike shop and, just out of curiosity, inquired to the two guys sitting out front about how much they cost to purchase outright. Quite affordable, really at a couple of thousand dollars. The "Hondas" are more expensive-- well, at least the bikes that had Honda decals on the front. Through very broken Vietnamese, I ask the merchant if I can just rent a bike for the day. I point to myself then motion wildly to the Melody Hotel, trying to indicate where we are staying. I look up the word for "rent" (which is pronounced "tway") in the glossary of my phrasebook and say "tway moto??" while enthusiastically gesticulating towards his bikes. He cocks his head to the left, then turns to his partner. He talks with his friend for what seemed like five minutes. He looks at me. He discusses some more. he asks me "How much?" I hand him a $5.00 bill. He says "Okay." We have a bike! Fantastic!
I wake Eva up and tell her the story. "How did you do it??" I tell her that it was just blockheaded persistence.
It seems that's the way things work around here. Maybe that's why Mr. Annoying Combat Fatigues works the way he does.
I think I just learned something about Vietnam.
Adam
---------------
Eva's thoughts:
Somehow every time we rent a motorbike, they run out of gas right immediately. How do they do that?? We drove our new bike for 500 meters and it putters out.
We stop one meter away from a homestyle gas station. The woman in from of this shop is sceaming and calling out her husband across the street. We do realize there is no gas in the tank but we have trouble opening the seat to access the gas tank. Her husband pops it open with no effort. We've attracted a crowd at this point, as we are wont to do.
All the other villagers surrands us and stare. The woman has returned with two soda bottles filled with gasoline. The price of gasoline at a commercial pump is 11,000 Dong per liter. At these homestyle soda bottle places the price goes up to around 14,000 (they often water the gasoline down). But we're rich foreigners in a fix, and she knows it. So the price goes up. (16,000 VND = $1 USD)
"2 liters for 45,000," she says.
"That's double for what we paid. No!" I say.
"Doy beit ya!" Adam yells out... which means "I know the price."
The woman laughs and said "Ok, ok, 2 liters for 40,000."
"Let's go!" I lock the seat and pretend to move to try to get them to lower the price.
"Ok, 1 liter for 12,000." The seller woman finally agrees and smiles beautifully.
"Ok!" I smile beautifully back. But then... the seat is stuck again... we can't open the gas tank!
Then this is the sad part:
The husband points out a 10,000 Dong bill as an indication that he wants 10,000 for helping us open the seat. I am so angry and sad about this kind of man, which is everywhere in China. So I took back my money and just want to leave. I don't want to give these people our money at all. But there comes a young kid who just wanders over and helps us open the seat.
There are beautiful people in the world, no matter how bad the situation seems.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Vietnam or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
30 votes 
This is a top pick!
