Banking 101

Day 12 - March 28th

• We're set to go on our semi-private tour of the north. We have to be out at the airport at 10am tomorrow morning to catch a flight and then meet our first tour guide in Da Nang. I doubt I will be able to update this site during the tour. You'll have to wait till we get back to Nha Trang.
• The tour is 6 days/5 nights for a total cost of approximately $450 CDN each. It covers transporation, accomodations, food and events. One of the events we're attending is an opera in the Imperial Palace in Hue and snorkeling trip in Halong. Should be fun! :-) We were told that if we wanted to - certain parts of the palace will allow you to dress up in the old royal costumes and take pictures (I'm sure we'll be given a "good deal" for this - NOT!).
• This morning KA and I wanted to embark on a bank to exchange our CDN money for some Dongs. So far we've been changing our cash with a local jewelery store. KA had brought travellers cheques. Our cousin called up a taxi for us and told him to take us to the ACB Bank (which stands for Ao Chau Bank - which translates to the Hong Kong bank).
• The cabbie looked at us strangely and said that the bank was in walking distance and asked if we just wanted to walk. Our cousin insisted that we use the taxi as he was concerned we wouldn't be able to find the bank. So the taxi drove us 2 blocks and dropped us off. As we got out he told me that the cab ride cost $15,000 Dongs. I flipped out - as that's the same price to travel across town to my aunts house! But I paid him anyways as we forgot to negotiate a price before getting into taxi and he was barking back that it was only like a $1 CDN to us. That's not the point - it's the ethics behind it. We want to reduce the number of times people screw us over. We expect it but this was highway robbery!
• When we went inside the bank - which was nicely air conditioned - they told KA that they don't accept travellers cheques and gave her the address to another bank. We decided to walk instead of getting another taxi.
• The second bank was an international bank - with english words on it's doors! Yah! The tellers and system over here is very strange. No one stands in a line. People budge in wherever they can and a teller can service multiple people at one counter. I learned this as I patiently waited behind this lady - I gave up and went to see what KA was doing. KA as talking to a teller and filling out some paperwork for her travellers cheque when a lady walked up beside her and did some transactions. The other lady got her stuff finish faster than KA.
• KA is still not familiar with counting the currency over here - too many zeros so she gets confused. She asked for a calculator so that she can double check the money that the teller gave her. She doesn't trust anyone. Even with the calculator she counted incorrectly. I had finished changing my money and recounted it quickly. I counted her money for her as the teller was getting irritated with her using the calculator for so long. I don't think numbers are KA strongest academic area. Though she would probably yell at me if I told her that! ;-) Plus I was trying to horde the counter space as I wasn't too keen with the whole idea of the teller counting out my money then couting out someone else's money right beside me - the piles are too close to each other and can get mixed up. This is where being "super-tall" and not skinny comes in handy! Lol - no one approached our counter when both of us stood side by side infront of it.
• We took a picture of the stacks of money we carried home. We've never had so many stacks of $500,000 Dongs. Lol - we were more than billionaires! Realistically it was just a couple of thousand in Canadian money. KA even got a $200 Dong coin today. I'm not sure what you can buy with that.
• On our walk back, KA wanted coffee (she was going through withdrawl again). So we found a coffee shop that had a fan and some beach chairs. It was indoors and no beggars bugged us to buy postcards, peanuts or lottery tickets. That was the greatest part. We might go back to that store again just for the peace and quiet. When we ordered our ice coffees we joked about how they would probably charge us double the price because the coffee shop was desserted and near the beach strip. The coffees turned out to be regular price - $4,000 Dongs for each cup (about $0.35) which we were happy with.
• KA bought socks and full length gloves on the way back home. She's really getting into the whole "stay white" mentality that's over here. As many of you who have been to other parts of Asia can attest - the beauty supplies, creams, etc contain some kind of bleaching or "whitening" agent. Guess it has something to do with social class.
• I wear my face/neck/hair masks (have 2 of them now) just to stop people from asking me why I'm not sheilding my face. The other day I reminded KA about how she had first saw people wearing the face masks and made fun of them - saying that the face masks were just germ traps and nothing more. Now she's the one that insists on getting many of these masks.
• So the weather is 32 degrees again. KA is sporting full length pants, socks, tank top, jacket, full-length gloves, hat and her smaller face mask (reminds me of and N-95 mask). I don't think she even wears that much clothing in the winter time in Vancouver! I can see she's melting as she walks. I'm just wearing my usual skirt, tank top, jacket, beach hat and face/neck/hair mask (as I don't like the look of KA's masks). On top of that we've got on our usual layer of SPF 50 and bug spray. :-)
• The face masks here come in 4 styles (face only, face/neck, face/neck/hair and full coverage - which is like a ski mask with only and opening for your eyes). I think by the end of this trip we will have a couple of fabric patterns in each style. They are sufficating but at the same time they absort the sweat that's coming off of our faces! The good thing is that they make them with light cottons and many different patterns - some cute and some trendy. Hmmm...this would be a great time to find/buy one of those visors that we see Vancouver-girls wear in Richmond. The ones that look like welding visors! :-) Might actually be better than the "genie" look that we're sporting. I think I'll use my covers on my next vacation - lol - won't that be something for people to stare at?!?
• Tonight we went down to grandmas house for dinner. They BBQ'd catfish and squid over coal stoves for us. I was wearily eyeing the catfish as it was "fresh" and just thrown onto the grill as is. My uncle gave me one on a plate and as I stared at it's face I wondered how I was going to eat this "politely". It's very rude to not eat what is offered to you here. So as I looked at my catfish my uncle demonstrated how to rip it's head off and pull the skin off. KA was no where to be found. I was wondering why she wasn't sharing in the delicacies. I forced a smile and proceeded to poke my fingers into the catfishes eyeballs and ripped it's head off. I ate one fish when KA returned from "getting the camera". She was forced to eat one fish too. My other uncle was already putting a new fish into my plate as I gave KA a "look". KA was spared from having to try the "good" parts of the fish (parts that I thought were usually thrown away in Canada but eaten in Vietnam). KA was lucky she sat on the outskirts of the group - next time we have "fresh" seafood I've got to find a spot on the floor that is away from my uncles.
• We both had to swallow some pepto bismal when we got back to our rooms.