Yolanda Saayman Photography

Hanoi, Vietnam
27 April 2010

The Hanoi Taxi Mafia is real and if you speak to travelers, 1 out of every 3 will admit to have fallen victim to these con artists. Guide books even warn you against them and advise to: take a deep breath and back away slowly…

Dannie and I arrived from Sapa off the overnight train. The train gets into Hanoi station at 05h00. We did not have a far distance to travel, but with two back-packs and hand luggage, we needed to get a taxi.

One thing that I have learned through my travels though, is to always know where you are going to and to have an idea of what it should cost you. I try to be invisible. This is easy when you are vigilant and looking after yourself, but when you have travel companions, the responsibility is not only yours anymore.

Dannie failed to follow a very clear instruction: “do not flag the book once we are on the platform.” Not being much of a morning person, I neglected to remind Dannie of his one responsibility and was handed the book on the station platform…

It was too late. We might as well have had a big sign on our foreheads stating: Here we are, take us for a ride! We were spotted like German tourists on safari in Africa – dressed in khaki safari suits and wearing iconic safari hats.

I tried to negotiate a fare – a metered taxi was promised…

I felt uneasy, but followed this man like a sheep ready to be slaughtered. When we passed the line of green and white Mai Linh taxis, I wanted to stop and get into one. The alarms were going off in my head, but I was not listening. I was awake, but my mind was not. I continued to follow this man I instinctively mistrusted. Once we got to the other side of the station, he hailed us a driver. I should have seen the sign here too – why are we getting a different taxi driver? 2 guys got into the taxi. This was not right. Why do they need 2 guys to drive us? I should have refused the ride there and then, but I didn’t. Why not? When the meter was blocked by the driver’s hand, I knew that we were going to be ripped off. I knew why there were two men in the car – extra man power was needed in case we resisted.

The meter suddenly jumped from 45,000 dong to 310,000 dong. For this time of the morning, this ride should not have cost us more than 80,000 dong. The driver then said that the road we wanted to be dropped off in, was a one-way and we had to get out in another road. There were not going to be witnesses.

He then insisted we give him the money. As if it was not enough that we paid him the hefty fee, the driver accused us of under paying him. He said that we gave him 10’s and not 100’s and insisted we give him the right amount.

I immediately assumed that Dannie had made a mistake. He was not sure either, so handed the driver a 500,000-dong note which ironically also resembles the 20,000-dong note. Of course he tried his luck again, but backed off when Dannie approached him.

At this point I was writing down the car registration number, the driver’s license number, the company name and the company telephone number.

I remember seeing a tourist getting physical with a cab driver in Bac Ha and thought, back away slowly. I also remember reading about a woman who was conned after she got a taxi ride getting off the Sapa overnight train. When she argued with the taxi driver, he beat her up. Thorntree readers/writers accused her of lying and said that she had to do something serious to provoke the driver, but I had witnessed it now for myself and even worse, experienced it for myself.

After further investigation, it would appear that there are many of these “black cabs” operating in Hanoi. Apparently it is so cheap to buy a car and have it spray-painted into a replica of any of the well-known taxi company colors, that there are plenty of them around. A car registration number has no significance in Hanoi and the driver could not be traced. Which explains why he was not phased when I wrote down all the details. The company who our driver apparently worked for, existed, but they were unable to track the driver without the unique taxi number as they have more than 100 drivers. I say unique as nothing is really unique about this number. Nothing prevents these under-handed opportunists to reproduce such a number.

What really gets to me is that everyone is aware of the problem and yet the Vietnamese government does nothing to put an end to it.

Golden lesson - NEVER drop your guard, especially not in the early morning hours when crooks know you are weary.

This only happened to us once. Thereafter, we contracted moto’s at a fixed fare and in certain cases, we used private transfers and paid a bit extra for a safe, reliable ride.

Nobody likes to be ripped off, but even the most vigilant traveler is left exposed in Hanoi.

Watch your back when you arrive off the overnight train from Sapa.

Yolanda Saayman

Angkor Wat – Siem Reap, Cambodia
03 May 2010

Arriving from Hanoi, it took 15 airport officials to approve one visa to enter the Kingdom of Cambodia. Although you save U$5 by applying for an electronic visa, those queues are long and takes forever as all the details have to be checked on-line, which meant that I had a speedy custom clearance in Siem Reap.

My first impression of Siem Reap was that of a hotel city, a Las Vegas without the casinos. One would never say on arrival, that it is the gateway to one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites, the largest religious monument in the world and the most important archaeological site in Southeast Asia – Angkor Wat.

With 80,000 tourists stomping through Angkor Wat the previous day (I was told), I should probably have been grateful that the masses had dispersed to a degree on my visit.

To my disappointment, the main temple was and still is under construction. All the images I had envisioned was not going to realise. My intention was not to emphasise the contrast between ancient architecture and scaffolding wrapped sporadically in green fishnet, but to capture this unique site to the best of my ability which I of course still intended doing…somehow.

OK, so I was faced with a few challenges: construction work, hordes of people and the heat! At 45 degrees Celsius +, I was not sure how the Canon 5D Mark II would perform in hell… At times I would, literally, have a split second before some tourist, usually Asian, would bounce in front of my lens. Other times I had to wait and wait and wait for that one second to get the shot, even not perfect to my liking and sometimes I would have the shot lined up, just to realise that the sweat poring down my brows has filled my eyes and impaired my vision, just to line it up again… Patience was a virtue and I needed a lot of it.

Although the masses gunned for Ta Prohm (also referred to as the Lara Croft Temple), my favourite temple is Angkor Thom and the Bayon. When one enters through the South Gate, despite all the activity and people, you really experience something special – you know you are entering into another world and a mystery is revealed…

The prospects of getting good shots proved better than at the main temple and the enigmatic smiling faces reminded me of the Easter Island statues. I spent some time at Angkor Thom. I wanted the moment to last – I had waited so long to see it for myself…

We negotiated with Bunny (pronounced “Booney”), our tuk-tuk driver, to take us to Banteay Srei - 25km northeast of the main group of temples. This temple was dedicated to the Hindu god, Shiva and known for the intricacy of it’s carvings, mainly out of red sandstone. We passed many rural villages within the Angkor Archaeological Park. The temple did not impress me as much as the guide books led me to believe it would. The only thing that impressed me was the fact that there were almost no tourists – calm. Having said that, the journey through the countryside gave me insight into everyday Cambodian life and that was worth it.

Yolanda Saayman