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The number of foreign travelers to
bordering nations, Laos and Cambodia, are half those coming to
Vietnam. However, international visitors’ complaints reveal
that Vietnam has much to learn from its neighbors.
Where has all the hospitality
gone?
A traveler nicknamed Eileen 76 on the
Lonely Planet tourism forum, wrote: “My friends and I just
got back from a five day trip to Hanoi, Vietnam and frankly, it was
a trip from hell.
Why? From the moment we stepped on the
plane (AirAsia), you get ignorant and stubborn Vietnamese who
turned on their mobiles mid-flight! Not one, but several, despite
sterm reprimands from the stewardess.
The next day, I had my mobile stolen from
my backpack. We were standing on a sidewalk near the lake, trying
to figure out which road we were on and where to go when I felt a
tug from behind. I turned around and saw a guy standing too close
to me. I yelled at him and my first reaction was to quickly check
my bag to see whether my digicam and money were missing.
The ‘expletive’ yelled back
but I ignored him and walked away when I realized that, thank god,
that I still had my money and camera. It was 2 to 3 minutes later
that I suddenly remembered my phone, which was kept in another
outer compartment and sure enough, it was gone!! And so was the
sketchy man!!
To add insult to injury, a shopkeeper was
sitting and saw the whole thing, and yet, he did nothing! We were
less than one meter away from him. What’s wrong with these
people anyway?
Oh, who can forget the horrendous traffic.
Normal traffic rules don’t exist here. As far as I know, red
means stop, while green means go. But to the Hanoians, both colors
meant the same thing – go, go, go. I lost count of the number
of times we were nearly mown down by motorbike when a pedestrian
light was clearly green and intersecting traffic lights were
red.
I know they like to honk at anything and
everything that moves, but does that mean it absolves them of all
responsibility? I mean, just coz you honked while riding your bike
against traffic and nearly crashing into pedestrians, does not
necessarily mean you can simply shrug it off with the excuse
‘I used my horn didn’t I’?
I’ve been to Cambodia where the
traffic was equally chaotic (in Phnom Penh at least), but at least
there was method to the madness. There, you just cross and drivers
will automatically avoid you, provided you don’t make any
sudden moves or freeze halfway. But try to apply that system in
Hanoi, and you’re liable to lose a few limbs, if not your
life.
Regarding service quality, Eileen wrote:
“And what’s up with Hanoian’s attitude anyway?
They’re rude, crude and uncouth. OK, so they don’t
really speak English. Fine. I can accept that. What I can’t
stomach is the way they don’t even look you in the eyes when
you speak to them.
There was this incident at the Water
Puppet Theatre where we wanted 3 tickets for the 8.30pm show. The
ticketing girl curtly said "no" but tore three tickets and gave
them to us. We asked (politely) what does no mean – is it no,
there are no more seats for the 8.30 show or no, you don’t
have VND20,000 seats?? (There were two classes of seats - VND20,000
and VND40,000).
She just mumbled No again and eventually
figured out the tickets she sold us were VND40,000 for the 9.15pm
show. We told her we wanted the cheaper seats and again, got the
mumbled no.
During the entire (one-sided)
conversation, the girl was scribbling on some papers on her desk!
And she didn’t even look up while we were trying to
communicate!!! In the end we gave up and just gave her the money.
But what happened if a person didn’t want tickets but just
some information?
We encountered the same sour-faced and
negative attitude among merchants around the Old Quarter market
area when we asked them to take some pictures. For example, we went
out to sampled biahoi (the austere local beer halls). The
restaurant owner’s smile turned sour and her attitude
immediately changed for the worst when we asked 2 simple questions:
1. How much (a reasonable enough request); and 2. Can I take a
picture?
And let’s not forget the attitude of
Hanoians in general. They either poke (if you’re lucky),
shove or ram you aside if you happen to walk a little slower or
disrupt their route. And what about their inability to queue?
What’s worse is they think its their god-given right to cut
queue? Is all this really necessary?
And before all you guys take potshots at
me, note that I’m an Asian and as polite as possible, with
smiles and thank yous (in the local language) to the people I meet
whenever I travel. I’ve been to a number of countries, from
Asia to Europe and in all my travels, never have I experienced a
colder, ruder or more selfish people than in Hanoi. What happened
to the reputed Vietnamese hospitality touted by everyone?
Although Vietnam is more developed than
its immediate neighbors Cambodia & Laos, it still has a lot to
learn from them. They should learn from their regional peers how to
be warm and friendly. It’s a smile here or a friendly
greeting there that really makes a visitor feel welcome and makes
all the difference in the world.”
She concluded: “Thank you very much,
Hanoi, for your "wonderful" hospitality. Return to Vietnam??? Not
in this lifetime. Give me Cambodia or Laos or even Thailand
anyday.”
A tour guide that doesn’t like
tourists
An Australian visitor, Harry Ledger, who
lived in Vietnam for ten months, shared the same opinion. He wrote
about his “hard” trip to Ha Long Bay on BBC. According
to Ledger, a tour guide named Nguyen slept and snored the whole way
from Hanoi to Ha Long, except for when he led visitors to a
souvenir shop, which offered items for double Hanoi prices.
This tour guide sometimes mumbled
negatively and Ledger remembers most him saying “I
don’t like tourists. But foreign girls are really beautiful
and you will see that when you go to Ha Long.”
At noon, Ledger’s group stopped to
eat lunch at a restaurant located near a railway station. It was
terrible with overdone and cold food like prisoner rations. But
“superintendent” Nguyen told Ledger that he
hadn’t acquired a taste for Asian food because he was a
foreigner.
Ledger wrote that he had lived in Asia for
years, at least ten months in Vietnam and that lunch was the worst
meal he had eaten here.
“But I and other visitors knew that
if we complained, nothing would change. Finally, we arrived at the
wharf. I saw hundreds of cranky boats swarming, aimed at the
tourists. And a rickety, double-deck, 45-seat boat was ours,”
he wrote.
In another article on BBC, Ledger related
the desperation of another western visitor, Anna Skodvedt-Sundling,
who wished for a quick end to her trans-Vietnam tour.
This Swedish girl, 26, was among the
increasing number of independent tourists traveling to Vietnam on a
trans-Southeast Asia tour. The girl said she was disappointed.
Everything becomes uninspiring and she only wanted to go to Laos
quickly because each day she was forced to argue so often with
merchants over being cheated out of money. She thinks Thailand is
more hospitable and convenient.
Ben Harper, from the UK, said: “When
I had my pocket picked in Saigon, police told me to report the
theft to tourism police. But tourism policemen couldn’t speak
English so I had to return to the local police station. When I got
there, they told me it was too late and threw me out. They thought
it was funny.”
The above complaints are specifically
aimed at tourist managers and Vietnamese locals.
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