Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 1

In traveling through any country, one of the things that you have to on the lookout for is an entrepreneuring local looking to make a quick buck off a farang. Having acclimated myself to the sliding price scales of goods and services having traveled through Asia over the years, I pride myself in being able to minimize the fleecing. I’ve realized that what we as westerners perceive as a normal price would be astronomically high to a local in south east Asia and what we perceive as really really low is still high but somewhat palatable for a local. That being said…boy did I get ripped off in HCM…not once but a couple times and multiple other attempts were assuaged

So I get into HCM after about a 5 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh…and WOHHOOOO …welcome to the city of rip offs. After disembarking, a taxi driver comes over and grabs my bag and puts it in his cab. While I was a little surprised with the taxi driver’s audacity, I chalked it up to a cultural difference in customer service; and since I was planning on I was planning on taking a taxi anyway I hopped in. I first noticed that something was fishy when the meter was moving very fast. At one point, the meter was at 100,000 dong and then I looked away and looked back and it was in the 200,000 range. When I asked him about that, his English all of a sudden stopped working. Then I noticed that we made two left hand turns and were going back in the exact same direction that we had come from. We drove for about 15-20 minutes and when we got to the guesthouse the meter was at 320,000 dong which came out to be a little more than $23 USD. No twenty minute cab ride in a third world country should even approach what it cost to take a taxi in Manhattan much less supersede it. At that point there was little that I could do but pay as I really had no idea where I was and if the driver had truly driven around in a circle or not.

Later in the evening I was perusing some shops and restaurants looking for a place to grab some food. A lot of other foreigners were in the area, and I ended up running into a lovely couple from Austria who happened to be on my bus in the morning. We were chatting and they mentioned that they were staying in the area as well. I asked them how much their cab ride was. They looked perplexed, shook their heads, and pointed to the park across the street where we got dropped off. What?! Huh?! I could have walked there!? Saweeeeeeet!

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 1