Is the friendliness of a country reflected in its cab drivers?
N 22°20'11.0'' E 103°50'32.4''
Date:
07.07.2016
Day: 376
Country:
Vietnam
Location:
Sapa
Latitude N:
22°20’11.0”
Longitude E:
103°50’32.4”
Total kilometers:
17,382 km
Total altitude meters:
43.793 m
Sunrise:
05:25
Sunset:
6:52 pm
Temperature day max:
24°C
Temperature day min:
19°C
(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).
“Wow, look at that. The Fansipan is cloud-free for the first time in five weeks. Let’s get up and take the chance,” I wake Tanja up at 6:00 in the morning. 1 ½ hours later, we are on our way to the valley station of Vietnam’s highest mountain at 3,143 meters. As the cab driver has no change, he suggests we pay him when we return to Sa Pa. “Well, he has confidence,” I wonder. “Call me when you’re in the gondola. Then I’ll come from the city and pick you up,” he says in good English. Stunned by so much credulity, we say goodbye to the friendly man and buy two expensive tickets for 600,000 dong (€50) to be carried up to the summit on the world’s longest three-cable cable car, which has been making conquering the peak child’s play for a few months now. We actually wanted to climb the mountain in a two-day tour, but because it has been pouring down rain for hours every day for weeks, the ascent would be a risky slide. “What the heck, sometimes it’s nice to be able to use man’s technical achievements,” says Tanja, looking at the lush green rice terraces spreading out below us. “I hope the summit doesn’t close before we get to the top,” I say, pointing to the approaching wall of clouds. “Oh no. We’ll manage,” says Tanja with her usual confidence. Just 10 minutes later, the large-capacity gondola plunges into a dense, gray-white, billowing mass of fog. There is nothing left of the fabulous view and beautiful nature at the moment, which is why I fear that our excursion will fall through. After our cabin has floated over a length of 6,292 meters, mostly through wet clouds, to the summit, we get out. Numerous modern souvenir stores, where tourists can buy everything that is available in the valley at inflated prices, are lined up next to each other. An ugly open-plan restaurant with a panoramic view of the opaque wall of clouds offers hungry gondola passengers plenty of fast food. We hurry out through the grayish concrete building, visit the newly built Buddhist mountain temple and climb the many steps to the actual summit with numerous Vietnamese tourists. Once at the top of the mountain, crowds of them climb over a piece of rock surrounded by a small terrace made of planks. As the conqueror of the highest mountain in the country, every Fansipanbe rider wants to have a photo or selfie of themselves. There is so much jostling that the climbers have to be careful not to be knocked off the piece of rock. They proudly wave the national flag of Vietnam in the gray soup of fog. Even if the view is only a few meters, visitors to the mountain are happy. For us, on the other hand, it’s a cable car ride into the clouds and back.
On the way down, Tanja calls our cab driver as promised. “I’ll be waiting for you at the valley station,” he promises. Once down below, the tropical monsoon rains drown the land. “There he is!” I shout as I see our cab driver waving excitedly. We hurry through the wet and throw ourselves into the back seat. “Do you still want to go to the waterfall?” he asks in broken English. “Strange, he spoke quite good English a few hours ago,” I wonder. “He has a new car,” says Tanja. “Oh, nonsense. Why would he suddenly have a different car?” “Well, there was a little whisky bottle on the dashboard on the way here and now it’s a globe.” “Hm, the things you notice.” “Is that even our driver?” asks Tanja. As if stung by a tarantula, I get out of my seat and take a closer look at the man’s face in the rear-view mirror. “I don’t believe it! That’s another cab driver. Gosh, the Vietnamese look quite similar too,” I say. To be on the safe side, Tanja calls the number we got from our driver. “Where are you?” asks the voice on the other side of the line. “We’re in the wrong cab,” Tanja explains apologetically several times. “It’s not so bad. I’ll just wait for other guests,” he replies. “And how can we give you the money we still owe you?” “It’s not that much money. Don’t worry about it,” his statement amazes us again. “As long-term travelers, we have found that the general friendliness of a country’s population is also reflected in its cab drivers. Maybe it’s just our imagination, but over the last 25 years we have had exceptionally good experiences with cab drivers in Iran, China and now also in Vietnam. In the days that followed, Tanja called the driver several times, arranged a meeting with him, paid him the missing money and a small compensation because he was unable to drive any more guests that day. No wonder, with this dreadful weather…
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