Cyclos

A cyclo is a modified bicycle where it has a big cart in front of the driver that allows one person to seat on. The "steering wheel" of that driver is the actual cart. If he wants to turn right, he pushes the cart with you in it, to the right while peddling. There are many cycle in Ho Chi Mina city for the locals as well as tourist. They are very cheap and is fun to be on a cycle because is wide open, you can see the cars and motorbike are very close to you. I freaked out when we were in the middle of the red light junction when it turned green. Cars and motorbikes were all heading to you! We took 2 cycle during our free time thinking of experiencing the fun ride of a cycle in the middle of their crazy traffic. The fun started when this 2 old mad approaching us saying they can bring us anyway, and only 15,800 Dong ( USD1=15,000Dong at time of travel) for two of us. We didn't believe them because it was too cheap! We asked them many times and that's the same answer = 15,000Dong for 2 cyclo from the Bahn Tahn Market to the Rex hotel (about 5 minutes ride.) We had a deal. While riding, the drive speak OK English asking if we want a city tour by cyclo to see Notre Damn, Post Office..Etc all the main tourist attraction. We politely refuse because all we want was to stop at the Rex Hotel for have a coffee/beer. They stop us by the side of the hotel where the construction site next to the hotel, NOT in front of the hotel. We knew something is not right. True enough they asked for 150,000Dong! They now pretending they don't speak English and we " miss understood" at them at the beginning ?!!! They insisted us to pay 150,000Dong and My fiance got so mad, telling them to talk to the local at the Rex Hotel. Guess what ? They refuse to see the people in the hotel and start yelling for money!! At the end they were ready to move away not taking any money. My Fiancé just put down 20,000Dong on the side of the road, telling them to get it, and then we left without looking bad. This is the only bad experience we had in Vietnam. Over all are very good. We learned a lesson from this. One must write down the agreed price on a piece of paper before getting on their vehicle so that they will not able to argue with you.

Get an agreed price on how much your ride is going to cost BEFORE you sit down as a passenger on a cyclo. Make sure you are talking about the same thing (ie) PER HOUR or in TOTAL. Hold up the number of fingers to make sure. $2 US is fair for a 1 hour ride.

Some of these guys will ask for a ridiculous amount of money when the ride is finished and even argue with you and even feign a crying tempertantrum if you are not clear on what you want and how much you are agreeing to pay.