April 9 The College of how to Overcharge Newcomers (CON)

Somewhere in Hanoi, behind an innocuous-looking noodle shop, down an
alleyway and up a dark stairwell, there is malicious teaching afoot. In the
College of how to Overcharge Newcomers (CON), aka the College of How to
Swindle Tourists, travel agents, motorbike drivers, roadside vendors and
just about anyone else related to the tourist industry, is learning how to
cheat travelers. They start by learning how to take advantage of people
before they even enter the city.

"When tourists come up on a bus from Saigon, drop them on the edge of
town," Chapter One reads. "Tell them the large bus can't make it into the
center of the city where all the hotels are and charge them $1 to take them
in a minivan to their destination, even though the ticket they paid for to
get to Hanoi is supposed to take them all the way to center of town. When
they protest, suddenly pretend not to speak English, wave a few dollar bills
in their face and point to the minibus. Start to drive off with their large
bags still on the sidewalk and they'll get the message."

That's where it started ¨C on the outskirts of Hanoi. From Saigon to Hue, I
had no problems like this. I got to where my ticket was supposed to go. But
getting into Hanoi center, I and the other backpackers on the bus, had to
pretend we would pay the $1 charge. When we got to the main tourist area, we
took off, leaving the cheating touts yelling after us for their money.

Food vendors are told to charge five times what Vietnamese would pay for the
same food. If you bargain hard with them, they will eventually get down to
the price they normally sell the food for. So, for example, asking a woman
how much a roll of bread in her basket is, she'll say 10,000 Dong (about 75
cents US). After a few minutes of shaking your head, laughing, and
pretending to walk off, she'll come down a bit at a time until you can
actually buy the damn bun for 2,000 Dong, which is what she normally sells
it for to other customers.

I arrived in Hanoi early in the morning and didn't actually need a place to
stay as a fellow Jew had invited me to stay with his family and spend the
second night of Passover with them. I was just biding some time until it was
a reasonable enough time to give him a call. But biding time in the old part
of Hanoi means leaving yourself open to all the tourist agents, motorbike
drivers and vendors trying to grab your attention and it can be quite the
pain in the ass. So I found a little caf¨∫/hotel/tourist agent that had a
" Sinh Cafe" sign outside and went in for a coffee and to arrange a tour
to Halong Bay. The Sinh Cafe∫ company was one of the first to set up tourist
buses and trips in Vietnam so it's a trustworthy name (usually).
Unfortunately, this tourist agent was not affiliated with the company; he
had just ripped off the name and put it outside his hotel. There are,
apparently, no means for legitimate companies to prevent this so it's buyer
beware. I was, unfortunately, at 6:00 in the morning, quite unaware and I
took the tourist agent at his word when he said he was a legitimate Sinh
Cafe member.

I asked about a two-day tour to Halong Bay, one of the best-known tourist
destinations in northern Vietnam, and he said it would be $21 US for the
tour and an extra $4 to sleep on the boat. It seemed rather pricey but it
did include all meals and a full day on the boat. I was tired from the
overnight bus ride and didn't feel like traipsing around looking for other
prices. Plus, in Saigon, if you bought a tour from one tourist agent (for
instance, for the Mekong Delta) most tourist agents offered similar tours
for a dollar more or less so I naively thought the same would happen in
Hanoi.

I dished up the money and, after calling my host to get his address, found a
motorbike driver who would take me to the apartment. He assured me he knew
where he was going. We haggled a bit before leaving and finally agreed on a
price of 20,000 Dong. After getting lost in the neighborhood for about five
minutes, we finally found the place I was to stay but the motorbike driver
insisted I pay him another 10,000 Dong because he had used more gas than
expected driving back and forth looking for the address. This guy was
actually trying to get me to pay him more because he got lost. Frustrated
and angry at yet another attempt to weasel money out of me, I swore at him,
grabbed my bag and took off.

After a day in Hanoi, I left the next morning on the tour. A half-day's bus
ride got us to Halong Bay City where we and a million other tourists —
foreigners and Vietnamese — poured out of tourist buses and tried our best
to follow the correct guide to our boats. Halong Bay is beautiful. Even in
misty weather, the scope and splendor of the area was spectacular.
Unfortunately, the overnight accommodation on board left a lot to be
desired. Some rooms smelled badly of diesel fuel; the rooms were so damp
there was mildew on the pillows; God only knows if they actually changed the
sheets between cruises; and in the middle of the night I was awakened by the
sounds of rats in the walls. I had visions of Winston in George Orwell's "1984."

"Do it to Julia," I cried out as it sounded like a dozen rats were about
to claw their way through the ceiling and drop onto my bed.

As bad as the night was, what made me feel worse was finding out the next
day how I'd been cheated. Talking to a few other travelers on my tour, I
found out they had paid between $13 and $15 for the same two-day tour, and
only $2 more for the overnight stay on the boat. I had had it with Hanoi
scams and was intent on getting some money back.

Arriving back in Hanoi in the afternoon, I headed straight to the "Sinh"
Cafe and told the travel agent I wanted $5 back. He argued with me for
about 15 minutes and said no. I told him I would stay outside his caf¨∫ and
tell any travelers planning to enter to stay away as he would rip them off.
And that's what I did. After half an hour, I had succeeded in sending two
people away. All of a sudden, I felt something fall on my head. Looking up,
I saw the owner sweeping dirt from a balcony, trying to get me to move. I
brushed the dirt off my head, backed up under protection of the balcony and
continued to stand there. After another half an hour, in a less surreptitious gesture,
the same owner threw a glass of water at me. I told him he could dump a whole
bucket on me and I wouldn't move. More tourists came and I sent them away, too.
At one point, two tourists staying in the hotel came out and told me that they, too,
had been swindled. Having bought a plane ticket to Bangkok a week earlier,
they were told on the day they were supposed to leave that the plane was actually
full and they had to stay another four days. They didn't want to stay in that hotel
but were afraid if they left the owner would screw them out of the ticket completely.
Their story emboldened me to continue.

After another half an hour, the owner finally called me back into the cafe.
He offered me $3 back, telling me that the problems of the different pricing
were due to a lack of government regulations. So, in other words, because
there were no controls, he was powerless to be honest. Knowing that the $3
was as much as I was going to get and that it probably meant a lot more to
him to hand it over than for me to get another $2 back, I took the money
with a feeling of vindication.

*****

The hotel, by the way, is Mai Phong on Hang Ba in Old Town. If you go on a
Halong Bay tour, spend a bit more and get a smaller tour (16-people max).
I'm told they have better accommodations on board.