Frolicking Regulations

I've lost my voice from screaming/haggling in Viet Nam.

I don't know if I was trying to test myself or I just wasn't paying attention, but I definitely took the wrong way to cross the border, or the right, non-tourist way, depending on how you look at it. Either way, it took me five days through the mountains of Laos in the back of a tuk-tuk to finally reach the most stringent border crossing I have ever faced. After losing one travel buddy at the border due to a small paperwork error, I continue on into Viet Nam with a crazy Canadian guy named Andrew who taught the border guards how to play the didgeridoo while I danced so they wouldn't take his camping knife away, although they did make him promise not to stab anyone, which is fair.

Andrew and I make a good team because we're both poor and really stubborn, which is a good quality when trying to get through Viet Nam without being charged six times the going rate. The one bus a day that left the border town headed towards Hanoi tried to charge us one million Vietnamese dong, which is about fifty American dollars and an absolute atrocity. After refusing their price, screaming in English, Spanish and Thai, we storm off in a huff up the highway with our backpacks, fully intending to hike the fifty kilometers to Hanoi rather than pay this ridiculous sum. The bus driver, determined to get our foreign money, circled around the town and came back to try and get us again:

"800,000 dong!"

"No! Screw you! 300,000!" And again we start walking.

"800,000!"

"You don't seem to understand haggling. NO! 400,000 or go away!"

The bus continues to follow us slowly, filled with people, I might add. The Vietnamese loved the show and were in no way perturbed by the hold up. The Norwegian couple on the bus who payed the money were not entertained in the least. Finally the driver and his helper give up,and the bus blows past us. My thumb pops out and I am satisfied to hitchhike, until we round the corner...

"600,000!"

Andrew and I look at each other and shrug. Take a chance, knowing that no car may pass us the whole day, or pay the blasphemous fee and have the whole thing done with. At 300,000 dong each, it's still a rip-off but a lesser evil. We take the deal and the driver bursts into laughter, takes our money and shakes our hands. His knowing nod and smiling eyes say, "I'm proud of you for taking a stand. You're just another crazy foreigner but a good negotiator, and damn do I respect that."

Excellent. And it only took an hour.

Viet Nam is a whirlwind of chaos and regulation at the same time, slightly different from the tranquil back roads of Laos. The constant honking or horns and motorcycles zipping by me in the busy streets of Hanoi has really stressed me out. In Thailand they drive on the left side of the road, in Laos the right, and here in Viet Nam they all tend to stick to the middle of the road and the sidewalks. When going to visit Ho Chi Minh's tomb we had to check our cameras, walk in pairs in somber silence, and got poked a lot by "Official" looking seventeen year-olds wielding pointy guns in military uniforms whilst walking past the nation's savior who has been dead and embalmed for nearly forty years and looks like a wax statue. So basically Viet Nam makes me feel like a slinky in a room full of ironing boards.

The perfect example of Viet Nam, I feel, is outside the old prison in Hanoi, where I believe John McCain spent some time during the war. There at the entrance is a sign listing all the do's and don'ts for visiting. In big, bold letters at the bottom it reads: NO FROLICKING.

I am outraged and intend on frolicking my ass off.