A Chance to See the Countryside

Trip Start Jul 07, 2011
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Trip End Jul 31, 2012


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Where I stayed

Flag of Vietnam  ,
Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The place we are staying at is called Botanic Garden Homestay. We had read some really good reviews on Trip Advisor, and since the price was really good we booked it. The reviews talk about these private bungalows, but we booked the room that is within the house. Seemed like it would be a good experience. Unfortunately, we've at a little bad luck here and our experience wasn’t quite what it was for other people that have stayed here. When we arrived yesterday, we asked if they had a laundry service. They were charging the equivalent of $2.50/kg, which is crazy expensive for here, considering we’ve paid 50cents a kilo in other places. Since we had asked, we felt bad telling them we didn’t want to pay that. We thought we were getting our laundry back today, but were all excited when we got back from dinner last night and they told us it was ready. I can’t even begin to tell you how annoyed we were when we went to unpack our neatly folded laundry, only to discover that half of it was still pretty wet
Rice paddies
Rice paddies
. Honestly, the nerve that they charged that much, and then returned it still went. We ended up having to hang up the stuff all over the room in hopes that it would dry. Then this morning at breakfast, they do a made to order off a menu kind of thing. Chris had ordered a baguette and I was having banana pancakes. My pancakes came out, and they put some toast in front of Chris and walked away. We waited about 10 minutes to see if they would bring his baguette out. When nothing happened, he finally asked for his breakfast and the woman told him, they had run out so the toast was for him. I couldn’t believe they didn’t even tell him! So weird! Then, to top it all off, on our way out as we were paying for our laundry, they tried to charge us for bottles of water we didn’t have. Not good!

We switched to a new place for tonight, since they had jacked the price at the homestay. That’s ok, we were happy to leave. I am proud to say I did the 4km walk all by myself, with my huge 20kg bag on my back…no taxi necessary!!

Anyway, it didn’t matter what happened this morning because of the rest of the day was amazing. We booked ourselves for this motorbike sightseeing tour, which was ranked really high on Trip Advisor (we use TA for a lot out here!!!) Once again, we managed to secure a private tour, which was awesome
Beep????
Beep????
. It was just the two of us, our guide, and a mechanic to come with us. Chris and I were on a motorbike together and basically we had 3 hours to ride around and see the countryside outside of the city. We hit the backgrounds and drove through villages. We were warned ahead of time to be cautious as we driving since the villages were a little busier than usual because of Tet, and that there would be a lot of people out driving, and probably drunk while doing so. The roads were a little hectic at first, but once we got off the main roads, it was pretty incredible to be driving out past mountains and rice paddies. Occasionally, there were people out working in the field with their buffaloes. We drove past people celebrating, people getting drunk, people getting into fights (our guide was about 2 seconds away from getting smoked by a brick that someone threw), and tons of gambling. It was such a great way to see real life here, away from the tourists and the busy city.
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