No matter how hard we've tried, it's been extremely difficult to like Vietnam. We have been constantly having to deal with the locals trying to rip us off at every turn.
It happened again this evening. We are in the small island of Phu Quoc and after dinner (where again the owner tried to over charge us), we went for a drink at a little stall in the night market. We looked at the menu and I ordered a fruit shake (where the price was listed), and Gwen ordered a "che" drink (no price listed but we had an idea of what the price should be from experience).
After drinking up we paid for the drinks without asking the price hoping they'd be one of the few honest locals. They gave us change which indicated they weren't, although that had already become obvious when a discussion amongst themselves started after we given them our money (knowledge of Vietnamese is not needed as they were clearly discussing what they should charge us).
After we inquired to the costs of the drinks, they gave us a price for my fruit juice that was higher than the menu (looking back now, this was so that the ratio of the prices of the two drinks would remain the same with Gwen's che being cheaper).
I pointed them to the menu price and they proceeded to give us some additional change admitting their mistake however we knew that they were still overcharging us for Gwen's che and she decided she was not having any of it.
So she simply got up, 'accidentally' knocked the table causing her empty glass to fall and smash on the floor. We then walked off with the Vietnamese a little shocked. We knew we were correct in our assumptions as they didn't chase us down or attempt to make us pay for the glass. That felt good! Bit evil though :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment