When I ask why this is, I usually get one of two excuses. 1 – anyone who can pay $200 per night for a room can also pay $15 for WiFi, but research into the luxury travel market indicates that this is bullshit and that free WiFi is as important to high-end travellers as to the rest of us; and 2 – many hotels are locked into long-term ISP contracts that they signed before any of us knew how important WiFi would be, and thus they simply cannot afford to provide the service for free.

Personally WiFi is one of the things I check when I book a hotel, & if it isn’t free, I don’t stay there.

http://english.vov.vn/Home/I-am-a-real-backpacker/20122/135003.vov

Can you imagine the thought process? Let’s find a backpacker who loves Vietnam. Ah well, easier just to make it up ourselves. We’ll pretend to interview a backpacker and tell everyone how much he likes all the things that we want to sell him. We’ll show people we know our market – young people who want to buy silk goods and visit craft villages and learn about Uncle Ho.

So to try and dissuade people that Vietnam is full of people who will cheat you they, well, cheat. Brilliant. Of course you and countless others wrote good responses as to why Vietnam has so much going for it but the cheating way came more naturally to them.

So so so many ways that VN can boost its tourism but fails. If you sorted out the taxis then things would improve substantially just on a first impressions basis. How hard can that be?

The thing about tourism is that it doesn’t take big budgets to turn things around. Invite journalists and everyone from airlines through hotels to restaurants will flock to provide their services and facilities for free.

Elsewhere tourism bosses were talking about utilising Facebook to promote tourism while FB remains blocked. How about not blocking Facebook – there would be a way of allowing people to post pics of their travels to friends while in Vietnam. More WIFI here than anywhere I’ve ever been so why not make something out of that and let people share those great images.

Wonderful country and I almost found the above link strangely endearing in a so-crap-you-can’t-hate-them kind of way, but with a bit of joined up thinking VN sells itself.

Must blog on this myself when I can find the time.

Daniel

just don’t hang out at the tourist areas, you’ll be fine.

Vietnam owes no one, especially this spoiled and coddled American, an apology. I feel that foreigners, especially Americans, have lost the right to complain too much about things of this nature. Do I whine and moan about being overcharged? Yes, but I shut up after a short period, accept it and move on. NEVER would I blog about it, other than in a whimsical or sarcastic manner; or as a gentle warning/reminder.

Travel blog? He’s obviously never been to New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. They’d slice his throat and all sorts of other nasty things there.

I imagine his whirlwind tour didn’t swing through any of the “Peace Villages”, where the dioxin victims live.

Maybe Americans could be allowed a small amount of whining after Uncle Sam gets over here and cleans up the mess he left behind. Until then, guys like that need to shut their pie-holes.

Why in the world would the rag that published this story decide to do so now, 5 years on? I thought Fox News was bad…

I overheard a couple of women talking about Vung Tau, and the hydrofoil that goes there, last night. I interjected a warning that a person may want to buy both tickets here in HCMC, because I have a friend who got to Vung Tau, then was told there were no tickets when he tried to pay the fare for the return. One of the ladies acted as if I had insulted her mother! “I’ve never heard of anything like that in all of my years in Vietnam; you must be mistaken!” I walked away, thinking “I hope somebody scores big on you lady!” Then I read an article about a restaurant in VT overcharging significant amounts. They don’t discriminate either, as both foreigners and Vietnamese have fell prey to them!

“A word to the wise would be sufficient.”, as my junior high school principal used to say. “Welcome to the world outside the gates of the kingdom.” is what I say!

I guess plenty of backpackers, presumably, take many of Kepnes’ gripes in their stride and have more laughs than grumbles up and down Vietnam, but that low return rate suggests than even the more patient of travellers sees Vietnam as a one-off destination. Wonder if high-end travellers are more likely to return than budget travellers… and if so, can we surmise that Vietnam is becoming — or has become… — a crap destination for backpackers, but is improving as a destination for high-end travellers?

But man his article (relating four year old experiences it seems) was so bad… using a dubious theory by some anonymous English teacher in Nha Trang and recounting a story where the backpacker pal snottily gets one up on the local (If that’s your sister’s bike, “then she can pay for your food.” — Backpacker 1 Local Chancer 0, YAY US!), and his general air of self-righteous Westerner who deserved more respect: “It wasn’t the money that I was upset about but the disrespect and contempt she had for me…”

Tourists get ripped off all the time all across America — and everywhere else. Why doesn’t The Huffington Post send a writer to Fisherman’s Wharf, where once I sat in a bar listening to a souvenir sales guy bragging about how much he ripped off the dunderhead tourists all day long and was buying a round for all his friends to celebrate.