SojuAppreciationSociety: the travel blog that answers the real questions you have

Sri Lanka is cool. Beautiful beaches, surfing, yoga and great food. This is alongside the general chaos that can come up generally.

Anyway, Ella in the central highlands has some absolutely stunning scenery, and Ella rock is the (second) most famous viewpoint there.

To get there I would strongly advise going along the train tracks. Seems unorthodox, but you will get used to it and is very much the done thing by locals. Plus the scenery is stunning, see images.

I walked along the tracks doing my best Slumdog Millionaire recreation by walking on the rails and got to the turning to Ella rock according to maps.

I go, and get a tiny bit lost. A local woman sees me and starts giving me directions and walking with me. But I soon realise that she isn’t leaving me, instead she is doing the start of a whole tour of the rock. Which I realised would definitely not be from the goodness of her heart.

We arrive at the rock, and I tell her I am good from here. I give her about 5000 rupees as a thank you and to go my own way.

But, she is not happy with this She really wants 10,000 which she says is standard. I the end I cave and give her 8k.

Lesson is that good deeds are often not free.

Hidden costs for Vietnamese shoe cleaning scam

We were chilling eating pho in the metropolis of Hanoi old town. Chaotic energy. The deliciousness of the food is inversely correlated with the safety of crossing the street. See my excellent illustration below.

Shoe cleaning is a very common service in Hanoi. So are shoe cleaning scams. But I thought I had worked out how to get shiny shiny shoes without getting fleeced. Just ask the price ahead of time and stick to it, around 50k Dong.

So sure enough I had filthy shoes from months of living out of a backpack. And as we sat down to have our pho I engaged one of the entrepreneurs to clean them. Midway through he comes back with some material and makes some sort of motion. I just nod and give a thumbs up.

At the end he has put a new undersole on my shoe. And unsurprisingly now wants 6x the amount we originally agreed, 300k Dong. Pretty pissed that I got shafted I gave him 200k Dong.

Turns out you can lose even if you are aware of scam potential.

Hanoi to Ha Long Bay toll fee scam

Hanoi to Ha Long Bay is about two hours drive if you go via the toll road, or four hours if you take the bus – beware there are no bathroom breaks.

Now the real scam is don’t stay in Ha Long Bay town. No disrespect to the people there but it feels eery. A real empty place. My professional non-professional opinion is to only take the ferry via a Hanoi transfer. Staying in the town is not needed.

Anyway, for boring reasons I had to go from Hanoi to Ha Long to get some of my items and back again in a day. I was aware there are toll roads and looked up in advance the costs to negotiate into the fare – around 200k Dong.

I call a Grab and get in, but before the ride starts my driver starts asking via Google Translate for roughly 800k to cover the toll. I show him the page with the toll cost info, but he still insists on 800k. Thankfully, the ride hadn’t started so I was able to cancel and get out of the car easily.

Side note: this Reddit thread says there is an option to add toll charges to credit card. But I didn’t see this option.

Vietnam – tour detours through ‘charity’ gift shop

Now we go back to Vietnam, glorious Ho Chi Minh City (FKA Saigon) to be exact. We had booked the tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels outside the city. The tunnels themselves have some interesting stuff, but would controversially say the curation isn’t that great and are not a must see.

Anyway, I digress. On the way to the tunnels our tour bus took a long diversion. In Vietnam they will often go for the hard sell, and this was no exception. Unannounced we go to a rest stop where we go on a tour of a factory making ceramics with several workers painting.

The factory tour lady starts by telling us all very loud and clear that this is a charity for Agent Orange victims. Now Agent Orange is a real horror, and not all disabilities are visible. But none of these workers had any visible disability whatsoever. Which was puzzling.

The tour kept explaining the art process and instructed us not to take any photos to protect the IP. Which all seemed like overkill.

Anyway, the diversion added nearly two hours to the journey time. The way back without this diversion got us back to HCMC in no time.

Is there a moral here? No, going for the hard sell is a fact of life in Vietnam; but the Pho is worth it.

To conclude, where do we go from here?

Another round of entrepreneurial chaos from Southeast Asia’s finest. From unsolicited shoe upgrades to scenic detours through questionable ceramic warehouses, the hustle never sleeps. And while I’d love to say I’ve learned my lesson, the truth is I’ll probably nod again at the wrong moment or follow someone “just helping” me up a mountain. But that’s travel, isn’t it? A bit of beauty, a bit of bullshit, and a lot of stories to tell. Stay sharp, stay curious, and be wary of looking like a walking wallet