An exotic garden of hassle - Vietnam complaints

• Johnnynomad's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Sapa

Trip Start Jun 05, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 15, 2007 Next
Entry

  Sapa, Vietnam
Sunday, October 1, 2006

So, I am in a small mountain town located just a few miles South of the Chinese border. It looks like in the morning I am making the big jump into China! I am really excited about that! Vietnam has been a great learning experience but I have had enough. Walking around the streets of Northern Vietnam I sometimes can't help to; If I was born just 20 something years earlier I might have been given the decision by my government to come to Vietnam and kill Vietnamese, or go to jail. I cannot really see any good reason that I would want to kill any of these people, but I have meet a few I would not mind beating the shit out of! Almost every traveler that I questioned before coming here to Vietnam had negative or mixed feelings about their time in the country. My first 2 weeks in the South of Vietnam where a piece of cake, I could not figure out what everyone was complaining about? The South of Nam is lovely! But having just spent a little less then 5 days in the North I understand completely what everyone was complaining about!

I think everyone in the world should at some time in his or her lives spend some time in a foreign country with a language barrier; it truly is a humbling experience. Luckily it has not been much of a problem so far on this journey, but when it does happen I am almost reduced to the position of a small child. I am at the mercy of the people I am dealing with. The problem here is the North Vietnamese people have a bad attitude when it comes to foreigners and do not have your best intentions in mind. Unfortunately many of people here do not see tourist as people, but only as a way to make a few quick dollars. They will send you 4 hours in the wrong direction to scam fifty cents off of you. The problem is not just that they are always trying to hustle you; it is also there attitude while they are doing it. The hassle factor here is high, but luckily not anywhere as bad as other places I have been, Cuba, Egypt, and Turkey. The difference with those other countries is that they smile while they are ripping you off! The lying and short changing tourist is really upsetting because it keeps the tourist away. Vietnam is an interesting/lovely country that has a lot to offer the world. Unfortunately I have gotten to the point where I do not really even acknowledge the locals on the street when they approach me. You almost have to develop a certain attitude to survive the hassle here in the North. It really is unfair to everyone when foreigners who come from all over the world to experience a foreign culture/way of life and have to spend the entire time avoiding the local people.

Vietnam is one of the only places that I have been in the world where you can make eye contact and smile at someone and they will just give you a blank stare back. I think that is just unacceptable anywhere! I feel bad saying this because of course it is not everyone, but it happens more then it doesn't in the North. Granted the Vietnam War was a really nasty war and things happened here that should have never happened to anyone (Napalm, Agent Orange, etc.) But if that is their reasoning for being "cold" to tourist that is just foolish. I had nothing to do with that war, as a matter of fact I was not even born yet! When it comes down to it they do not even know who is American and who isn't. Americans might make up 2% of all of the travelers here. I can't even think of anything else that I have experienced during my travelers that can compare to some of the attitudes I have seen here? Maybe the French (just because they dislike everyone who is not French?) Maybe a few locals I meet in Serbia when they found out I am an American? Maybe this is what it will be like to go to Iraq in 30 yrs from now as a tourist? I can say with some certainty after all the awful things we are doing to those people they will have a different attitude towards tourist when it is all said and done. I have spent time in the Middle East and to my amazement Arabs had no problem separating American politics from the American people.

No matter where you are in the world taxi drivers are all the same! Nothing more then $2 second-rate street hustlers (with a car of course.) I see it as my privilege and my duty to the world to stand up to these "sleaze bags" (even if it means I am going to get a "honky-tonk" ass whipping in the middle of the street!) I am willing to physically fist fight with a taxi driver out of principle or even over a few cents (I once ended up spending 2 hours in a Panamanian police station for almost fighting with a taxi driver.) I almost got into a fight just a few days ago with a moto driver (taxis here are motorbikes.) We agreed on one price and when we got to the destination of course he wanted 10 times more then what we had agreed on. At this point I had had enough and I lost it! I told him what I thought about him (using a few choice words of course.) I think I might have gotten myself so worked up that I told him "I would find him in his sleep, and rape his pet goldfish?" Or something like that? You cannot walk down the street without being constantly bombarded by these "street flees."

Moto drivers are always trying to get your attention by yelling "Hey You." My name is not "Hey!" The only 3 ways you will get a response out of me by yelling "Hey" at me:
1. You are a friend of mine (we might have gotten drunk together once and you maybe forgot my name?)
2. We never meet but you have something "free" to give me (ex. beer, socks, shampoo samples, etc.)
3. You have "big boobies" for me to look at!

A typical Moto driver conversation (All day, every day)
Moto driver: You want Moto?
Nomad: No thank you!
Moto driver: Where you go?
Moto driver: You want massage?
Moto driver: You want smoke? (Drugs)
Moto driver: You want Boom Boom? (Girls)

"Everything's a f#@!kin' travesty with you, man! And what was all that s#*t about Vietnam? What the F#!K, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the f#!k are you talking about?" ~The Dude


Anyway, "Charlie" Don't surf! ~Johnny Nomad

In an attempt to make the Nomad Project more of a "family affair" I choose to delete all the cursing in this last quote in!

Print this entry Share Sapa hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry