Day 16

After arriving in Hue and finally finding a hostel, eating lunch, etc, we decided to try out riding in a 'cyclo'-- the now ultra touristy and slow way to get around town. Lonely Planet advises to bargain with the drivers heavily beforehand and to be as clear as possible, as it's not uncommon for them to change their prices in the end. A cyclo sort of looks like a stroller- you sit in a seat while the person pedals you on an attached bicycle.

I'd call it a success that we've made it this far into our vacation without REALLY getting ripped off- of course there have been numerous situations where I'm sure we're getting charged the higher, 'foreigner', 'you have lots of money' price, but that's sort of to be expected.

This particular cyclo driver was incredibly friendly, calling us 'my friend', bonding with Martin immediately and even following us from our hotel to a cafe to see if maybe now we wanted a cyclo. We decided to go for it. After all, how many times in our lives will we ride a cyclo in Vietnam?!

We agreed on a fixed price to have him take us to the historical site, The Citadel. We tried to be clear: 100,000 dong for both of us, there AND back. We had an enjoyable ride (I sat in between Martin's legs, felt like I was going to fall out and we looked like fools), chatting with the guy with his little bit of English and taking in the views of the city.

Upon arriving back to our hostel, the dreaded and all too common "No, it's 200,000. 100 to the Citadel, 100 back" scam began. He told us his English was poor, he was sorry. We told him he understood, he knew what we had agreed to...and yet, we still handed over the 200. Really, it was a difference of 5 USD- and sometimes, it's not worth the fight. He was friendly, we enjoyed our ride, and that 5 USD means a lot less to us than it does to him at the end of the day. Although a bit frustrating, just another thing we can shrug off as a SE Asian experience. It gets exhausting always having to barter and avoid scams for sure, but it's also always good to keep things in perspective.

We spent the rest of the day setting up a boat tour down the Perfume River for tomorrow and a boat to Laos for Tuesday.

An overall good first day in Hue!

~The Goose