Vietnam Airlines

Having been in the travel industry for awhile I find it interesting/frustrating/amusing to see how this industry works. I will start at the beginning, and attempt to write our fun with Vietnam Airlines.

Due to the typhoon we were approximately 10 minutes from flying into Denang when the flight attendant announces that we will be returning to Hanoi, due to severe weather. Not sure why they wouldn't have known this before we left, but who are we to say. We arrive at Hanoi, and was told that we needed to wait in the departure area until Vietnam Airlines had more information. There was a chance they may fly out later that day. We waited, and waited, until the announcement came that flight had been cancelled. We needed to pick up our luggage and check alternate arrangements. We get our luggage only to find a huge line that would have taken hours, so we decided to leave. We call our travel agent and he has someone pick us up at the hotel, and then he advised he will meet us there to make alternate plans. Our agent books a train from Hanoi to Denang, cancels the tour and hotel in Hue. That was all confirmed and now the fun part.

We went to the first Vietnam Airlines office to get a refund for the 1st leg of the journey. They couldn't help us, and advised to go to the main Vietnam Airlines office about 1 km away. We get there, wait, and explain the situation, and she tells us that they cannot refund the ticket, it has to go to the agency of where we purchased the flights. It's a full fare economy ticket with no restrictions, and totally refundable. Generally, you can get a refund from the airline or the issuing agency, however in this case apparently only the issuing agency can do it. I request that she documents the record to avoid any confusion, though we do not have the flight coupons, we do have our boarding passes, and the rest of the ticket. She asks why we don't have them, and explain that your airline has them, when we boarded they take the coupons. Apparently, with this airline when there is a cancellation, you have to wait in the long line at the airport and pick up your coupon. She documents the record.

Later, as we were leaving to go to the train station, I receive a call from Vietnam Airlines asking me to call another number, because the coupon that they took for our flight has to be sent Denang to get a refund. You're kidding? Nope, they have to have the coupon or they won't refund our tickets.They have to literally fly the coupons to Denang in order for us to obtain our refund. We get to Denang airport at the end of our stay in Hoi An, and with the help of our guide explain what happened. We just need to either get authorization to refund the ticket or they can refund the ticket. Yes we understand that we do not have the coupons, but you have them in Hanoi at the airport. There should be something in our record, please take a look and see if nothing else. Nope, nothing in the record. You do understand that there was a typhoon two days ago, right and flights were cancelled? He tells us that he will call Hanoi once they are open to see if they will put something in the record, then send it to Saigon, so that they can refund our ticket but he needs to get information regarding the flight. Exactly what information are you waiting for, I ask. He says information. I ask about what? This goes on for about 30 seconds before he tells me that he needs to verify that the flight was cancelled. Okay, this explains, my first question? Clearly he doesn't recall a typhoon just hit central Vietnam. He keeps giving us the same answer regardless of the questions we ask and was hoping we would leave him alone. He got his wish. in Hanoi.

We arrive in Saigon, and head to the Vietnam Airlines office to see if we can get this resolved. I'm sure you can figure this out, but there was no message left nor anything documented in our record. What a shock! We explain to the gal what happened yet again, and she talks to someone on her team. While we were waiting, we saw three gals over by the computer playing computer games as people were waiting to have their questions answered. Gives you an idea, of what we've bee dealing with. Okay, so the lady comes back and says that she cannot give us a refund because she has to call Hanoi and get some additional information. What information were they waiting on? Apparently the same information the guy in Denang was looking for, to see if a typhoon actually went through Vietnam. We waited for about 10 minutes and told them they we cannot wait any longer as we have our ride waiting for us. This is now going on to about 20 minutes already and our poor driver has been waiting for us to come back. Another gal, comes in and we explain again, but with more feeling, (we were getting a wee bit frustrated by this point) what transpired and we need to get authorization to get a refund for the plane ticket. She does some more digging into our file and comes back to say that she will refund our ticket. It's highly unusual but she will do it, though she tells us that she will only refund USD 100 because the fares are cheaper in Vietnam, and will refund the amount of the market price. Mmm, wrong answer. We were to get USD 230 for both tickets. I'm sure you know what happens next...

I tell her that this is unacceptable and she then tells me that the rates are cheaper in Vietnam. That's lovely, I tell her except, however Vietnam Airlines cannot refund less than what I paid for a fully refundable ticket. I explained to her how the process is done, having been in the travel industry when it comes to a fully refundable y class fares. She looks at me, and then says she has to get an approval from her manager. She stomps off, and I figure we won't see her again, but after 10 minutes she shows up. She tells us that she has been authorized to give us our refund, but tells us that this is highly unusual. We get the amount back, and it's more than we expected. Okay, that covers the time we spent dealing with this airline. We thank her and leave but not before getting a lecture on how we need to wait for our flight coupons the next time there was a cancellation. Can you say electronic tickets?

Hopefully there won't be a next time.

Christmas in China

Yes, our belongings finally arrived today, now begins the fun of unpacking and finding a place for everything.

There was some confusion at first, seeing as none of the movers spoke any English and our Chinese is still quite limited. Being able to ask for the bill and ordering rice and vegetables doesn't help in these types of situations. I tried Tina's magic solution of dialing the English 110 number, but 4 calls in didn't connect me to anyone that could fully understand what we needed. Eventually a lot of pointing and head nodding and they managed to start moving boxes, however they were taking them the long way around but I finally gave up. Well, not gave up, came up to the apartment and got the number of our moving contact in Shanghai and had her talk to the movers. That helped, but by the time I finally got a hold of her most of the moving was already completed.

And yes, for those of you concerned, our wine did manage to arrive safely.

Ah, it was like seeing old friends. Welcome to our home, welcome to our wine fridge...

Hồ Chí Minh City (Sài Gòn)

Saturday morning and again we are up early to catch a flight on Vietnam Airlines, this time from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City. At least this time we know that the weather is clear, so we have no real worries. We get to the airport early so that we can clear up some issues with Vietnam Airlines over the cancelled tickets (I'll let Tina explain that whole ball of fun to you sometime) and then spend our time relaxing with a cup of coffee as we wait for the plane to board. This time the flight is uneventful and we arrive in Saigon and are whisked to the hotel.


Ho Chi Minh, Saigon? There still seems to be a lot of confusion as to what exactly the city name is, as apparently the south Vietnamese didn't really take to kindly to the north renaming the city after the war so they just still refer to if as Saigon in everything they do. Whatever you call it, it is a bustling, crowded, city teeming with people and filled with wonderful sights.


The old areas are filled with beautiful French architecture, such as the city hall and the post office. We only had one night here so we wandered mostly in this area of the city.


We stopped for lunch at a small cafe just past the city hall, and decided to treat ourselves to a nice French dinner at one of the places highly recommended in our guide book. We called and we are lucky that we can still get a reservation for 20:00 that evening.


From there we visited the post office and then took a tour of the War Museum. The museum is interesting, filled with propaganda and does paint the Americans in a bit of a negative light but still worth it to see. Even the small war museum in Hoi An had some albums left behind with the note "The poison of depraved and reactionary culture of US."


From there to the Rex Hotel, where the Americans used to give their daily war briefings. They have a great rooftop deck and we sat up there to have a drink, admire the view of the city, and watch the sun set.


From there we started to walk over to the Saigon river, but got caught up in all the little shops and soon had to head over to dinner. We ended up spending a lot of time looking at old watches, not the nice fakes that you get up in Hanoi, but old watches that they find and spend time putting back together and getting running. Some of them are real nice, but here for some reason they are really hard to talk down in price. Eventually we cave in and Tina and I buy some watches and head to dinner.

Ah, nice French food, steaks, wine, cheese plates, and a nice restaurant. Once we get the wine and order food I pull out a watch and set to set the time. We had looked at various watches and made sure that they all worked, but suddenly the one I bought won't let the minute hand sweep past the hour hand. Tina realizes that this is going to eat at me all night, and that the shop will most likely be closed when dinner is over, so she sends me back to get it replaced and tells the waiters that they will need to hold the meal for a bit. I head back to the watch shop, he looks at it and quickly replaces it with another one that we verify is working. I set it to the correct time and head back for dinner, getting there just as Tina is sending my steak back to keep warm. Another few minutes go by and I notice that this new watches minute hand hasn't moved, so I quickly eat and excuse myself to run back to the shop. I get there just as he's closing up, get another watch, wait a few minutes to ensure that everything works, and have him change the band on the watch to a better one. He was really friendly about all of it, and I'm glad that I was able to get that all straightened out. When I get back Tina is half way through our cheese plate dessert.

Yes, our nicest meal of the trip and I miss most of it running around Saigon. What fun.

After dinner we went to a nice jazz club, and it was really nice to listen to real jazz again. An perfect way to finish our last night in Vietnam, well other then the missing most of dinner part...

Hội An

- Update -
Ok, so I got home at 19:00 and since Tina was still out running errands I figured that I better quickly throw in a post. When I meet Tina for dinner later she informs me that she posted about Hoi An before she left. What surprises me in reading both now is the fact that it appears we actually listen to each other while we talk and wrote close to the same thing.

So today you get two for the price of one, enjoy.
--

Hoi An is a small little town located in Central Vietnam just about 40 minutes south of Da Nang. This is very much a tourist town, and what it is apparently known for is its tailors. We only stopped there because it is the closest town to My Son, its old town section is an UNSECO site with really unique architecture, and there are a lot of quaint cafés to eat and drink at along the river and throughout the town. I seemed to have missed the whole section on custom tailored clothing and shoes when first scanning through the guide book. We had a few people tell us in Hanoi and in Halong Bay how great the deals on clothes are and that we should really look into having something made while we were there.

The first thing that you notice when you get into town is the local people and the sheer amount of shops within a 4 block downtown area. The people here are much more aggressive than the people in Hanoi in trying to get a sale. They usually all sit at the entrance to their stores and the minute they see you look in the store they jump up with “Buy something, please look, many colors, many sizes. We make for you.” It gets overwhelming, especially if you just want to look in quickly and see what kinds of clothing they might have.

The housing architecture is amazing, but the buildings are old and in rough shape. A lot of the walls are crumbling and moldy, and apparently the city floods quite often during this rainy season. Our first night at dinner another couple told us that the stores all at the river were flooded with a meter of water the day before. There is a lot of Chinese influence, as many refugees from the collapse of the Ming Dynasty moved here, along with the influence of the Japanese and the French. One does spend some time amazed at the condition of these buildings, as what we are used to most all of these buildings would have been condemned.

Once you get used to the pushiness of the local merchants it is fun to do some shopping, you need to view the items in each store by looking in when they are still a few stores in advance or across the street, but once you go in you can barter with them and have them make items for you fairly quickly. We didn’t get a lot of clothes, but some linen shirts that we had made were completed in just under 4 hours at a cost of around $12 each.

The hard part is really in checking out all of the materials, we saw a lot of nice t-shirts that said they were 100% cotton but felt very much like a polyester blend. When you call them on it they just say "It is same. Yes, cotton. Same, same." And they say this a lot, the third or fourth time she said "Same, same" we just kind of looked at each other and said "Ah, so that explains the t-shirts..." There are a lot of t-shirts that you see for sale in Hanoi and here in Hoi An that say "Same Same" on the front and "...but Different" on the back. We never understood what that meant until then.

Hoi An

We arrived in Hoi An in the evening and headed for the downtown area immediately. We were trying to make up for lost time. After a couple of hours of walking, came to realize we saw most of it, granted it was in the evening but gave us an idea that we are fine with our timing while we are in Hoi An. We opted for dinner at a nice little restaurant by the water and a couple of appetizers and wine. We received the bill, and saw the look on Mark's face. The one that says, I can't believe it costs this much for 2 appetizers and wine. The bill still came out to $34. 00, which is quite a lot considering where we were, and the prices in Hanoi were less expensive. It caught us off guard.

Here the streets are lined with shops, more shops and even more shops. This is a shoppers paradise, shoes, suits, and artwork. Pretty much anything you may want. Hoi An, is known for their tailors dating back centuries, so if anyone wants anything made, they will certainly do it for you quickly and fairly inexpensively, depending on your bartering skills. In fact, we met a gal from Europe who had just finished bartering for her drugs at the pharmacy. You can pay in either Dong or USD. The first price that they will quote will be in USD. Mark had to keep asking the price everytime in Dong.

The shop keepers stand or sit outside waiting for the tourists, where they will ask you to coma and visit their shop. "Suits made in a day. "Com and buy something." "Good deals for you". Some may see you stealing a glance across the street, and they will shout for you to come and see their store. They will come over while you are eating, drinking trying to sell you something and in some cases send their young children over, watching them, hoping someone will buy something. They are quite aggressive, considering Vietnam only opened the doors to tourists since 1995. We were told by our guide that there will be approx 25 new resorts coming in the next 10 -15 years, starting from De Nang to Hoi An. I made a comment to Mark, that I can't even imagine what this place would be like in the next 5 years, let alone in 15 years.

The next day, after our tour of My Son, we had lunch and our guide took us on a walking tour of Hoi An, showing us the Japanese Covered Bridge, which is one of the main sites to see here, along with a Vietnamese tube house, a Chinese temple, and then to a craft market, where they wanted to sell more merchandise to you. The city itself is beautiful and quaint, with a nice harbour, so it is definitely worth it. You just have to smile and say no thanks.

We did notice that the buildings were covered in mold since they are in the central part of Vietnam, they tend to get hit with typhoons on a regular basis. It appears that no one worries about that here in Vietnam. Back in 1995, apparently the flood was so bad, it went up to the first floor of one of the restaurants. In the States, the building would be condemned, here it's a UNESCO site.


We had the rest of the day to wander and dinner was prearranged for us at 8pm. We had 5 hours to walk around. The city itself during the day, is extremely quaint and lovely, with bars and restaurants hugging the harbour. We took some time, to sit and have a beer, and watch the boats go by before dinner. It was quite lovely.