The thing about backpacking in Asia that irks me the most has been the dishonesty we come across in our daily traveling life. In India it was bad in the sense that we knew the first price people quoted us were typically too high, and had room for bargaining. So we went with that and just got used to the routine of shamelessly haggling over a few rupees.
In Southeast Asia, it has been a completely different ball game. First of all, these nations don’t have a history with England, so everyone’s English is so-so at best, or they’re just really good at faking poor English.
Second of all, this is an area where tours are much more commonplace for day trips or overnight trips, and the booking agencies can be really dishonest. Namely, the one we gave our visas to. It turns out that we paid double the price for our Vietnam visas to be processed by them (as opposed to walking into the Embassy ourselves).
The worst example so far was the bus trip we booked with the same agency to cross into Cambodia. It turned into a bit of a drama…
Before leaving, I asked and “confirmed” many times with the travel agent that it is the same bus that goes all the way to Siem Reap, and that we stop at the border and walk across. No extra fees.
Not so much. After a few hours on the road, the minibus pulled into a random shack of a building on the side of the road and all of a sudden a few men appeared and started handing out customs forms and visa application forms to us. Seemingly innocent enough, we began filling out these forms. Oh, wait, the guys informed us, they were going to get us to fill out the forms, and then take them into the office for the visas, and that’ll be 1,200 Thai bahts ($40) each, thanks.
Knowing that’s so not what was supposed to happen, Alex and I piped up and asked about walking across ourselves and getting our own visas. The guys said that was impossible, and to get our own visas was going to take a detour out of the way, very far from where we were. Not knowing how far we were from the border or even if we were near the border, Alex took a peek at the road but couldn’t make out anything in the distance. Reluctantly we filled out our forms and forked over the cash, all the while telling the guy that it’s not right, we should be able to get our own visas.
The audacity of these guys was unbelievable. One guy started giving us instructions as we got back into the minibus, and then accused us of being “unfriendly Canadians” for not nodding along with the fake instructions he was giving out. (Alex muttered under his breath that we didn’t like cheating Cambodians. I was nervous for my life.) Then we drove for 500m and got off – yes, that was the Thai exit border already!! Alex piped up again, and what do you know, the guys quickly decided to separate me and Alex out from the rest of the group so we couldn’t get the whole group riled up. Sneaky bastards.
Our friends from the same journey, the Americans, later told us that after we left, they also called out these people on their scheme, and these guys threatened to take them to the tourist police!
So we made it across the border, finally, and got ferried into a bus terminal to wait for a large bus to take us into Siem Reap. This was also not the deal – we were supposed to pile back into our minibus and be on our way. At this point, there was an option to take a cab into Siem Reap for $12 per person (again, a hoax because the cabs should’ve been available on the road for much cheaper, but we were holed up in a tourist trap bus station). The guys told us that the large bus into Siem Reap wasn’t going to leave for another 1.5 hours at least, and that they could give us a discount for our taxi ride if we wanted to pay for a taxi. We found the American couple and were ready to get into a discounted cab when we realized that these guys who took us there were already gone – back to Bangkok!! So no discounts, and one more lie to add to their list of lies.
Regardless, at that point, we were just so angry with these scammers that we got into a cab and drove far away from the infuriating scene, arriving at Siem Reap 2.5 hours later – much faster than the bus, and at last leaving the whole incident behind.
Then in Vietnam, we arrived at the ferry terminal to get onto Cat Ba Island, and were told by two separate (but working together) old ladies that the tickets were 200,000VND each. They got mad at us when we questioned them on this price, and then changed their mind and tried to charge us 300,000VND each! At one point when we were still questioning them on why they kept on changing the price, one of the ladies got mad and told us to go away! In the end, because it was super hot and we really wanted to get out of there, we had to pay 200,000VND for our ticket. Once on the ferry, I saw that the rest of the Vietnamese population held tickets for 130,000VND. Effing a-holes.
That concludes my self-righteous moment of ranting. I am fully aware that I probably have a stick up my butt about being honest and responsible and moral – but hey, you’re still reading this, so whatever. I miss Taiwan, where everyone was super friendly, helpful, and honest, including the customs official who stamped me out of the country, joked with me about my Canadian passport, and told me to “come back anytime!”. I miss Canada, where official ticket windows exist where you need them, and tourism offices would be embarrassed to hear of scams like the ones we’ve seen.
It does comfort me that at least in Asia, most people’s religions generally believe in bad karma. So here’s to all the scammers, I hope karma bites you all real bad, real soon.
