Hanoi-ing Hotel Manager
The dreaded overnight bus to Hanoi wasn't anywhere near as uncomfortable as I imagined it would be. I actually managed to sleep for a large chunk of it. On the DMZ tour we ate twice, believe it or not, at that rubbish restaurant called Me Kong - the food's standard was only worsened by the pitiful portion size that even the Borrowers would have found insulting. So we found it hilarious when we pulled up there on the way up to Hanoi for a third time within the last 23 hours. Luckily, we had eaten already, otherwise the joke would have completely backfired.
Despite getting some sleep, we still had to deal with the chaos that is Hanoi at God-knows-what time in the morning. Agreeing to stay at the hotel that we were transferred from the coach to, the hoteliers quickly buzzed round us, trying to plan out our stay in Hanoi in fine detail - primarily, of course, because they make a lot of money from commission from the companies who they sign us up with.
One thing that boggles the mind in Vietnam is the seemingly non-existant copyright laws. Sinh Cafe, for example, one of the original tour operators in Vietnam, now has many imposter companies trading under the same name, acting as the original so that unsuspecting tourists use them instead of the original. So, many times walking down a road in Hanoi, you see Sinh Cafes - same logo, same setup - which are actually nothing more than counterfeits. And it happens with all sorts of companies, too. It must do the original companies' heads in.
I found a company that did some good trekking into Sapa and told them I would book up later once I had checked funds. When I arrived at my hostel, Michael - he certainly didn't look like a Michael - the hotel manager, who, let's just say, I didn't get on with, explicitly questioned why I would book with someone else when his was cheaper and he had told me about his first. I told him that I didn't like booking through hotels cos they were after commision without caring for quality, but he was having none of it. I told him that hotels should stick to hotel rooms and let tour operators handle the tours, telling him that, in the same way, just because supermarkets sell clothes, it doesn't mean everyone buys them there. He was the kind of guy that couldn't have an argument without trying to shout you down, so once I was done arguing with him, I retreated to my room.
The usual suspects met up that night to see a show at the Water Puppet Theatre. Not understanding a word of Vietnamese, I didn't have a clue what was going on, but the show was still an interesting spectacle. Then, still with a tiny bit of room in our stomachs even after eating a wonderful Indian meal earlier on, what better way to plug the gap than with a refreshing Fanny ice cream? Yum. It's the name of the shop, by the way.
Michael again tried to stir the ashes of our previous argument the next morning, so I just resorted to non-sensical replies (to him, anyway) to his constant, "I don't understand"-type comments; saying things like, "I can't understand it, either," or "Horses for courses" or "Never mind.
|
|
|||
|
|
