Vietnam - Day 9

27th May 2017

Today our alarm clock rang at 7am because we wanted to do something before the midday heat. After breakfast, we started our scooter tour - once again - to Phan Thiet 🏍, since we saw on a city map that there is indeed a market there. Last time, we simply turned around too early.

On the way to Phan Thiet, fate was not very kind to us. After driving a few kilometers, we came across a police checkpoint 👮🏽 - and of course, as tourists, we were waved down (in Vietnam, neither the German nor the international driver's license is valid) 👎🏼 Son, the hotel manager at our hotel, said that if something like this happens to us, we should simply speak English, as the police officers don't understand that, and then continue driving. The police officer pointed to his driver's license and wanted to see ours, I followed Son's instructions and just shrugged my shoulders, but Mirko showed understanding and spoke to the police officer. He told him that his driver's license is in the hotel room. The police officer then took out a notepad and wrote a sum of 500,000 dong and said that's how much it costs to drive without a license. That's about 20 euros. But as is usual in Vietnam, you negotiate everything. So we ended up with a fine of 200,000 dong (about 8 euros).

When we arrived in Phan Thiet (of course, Mirko had to continue complaining about that stupid police officer for the remaining distance), we went straight to the market. Wow! This market was really even crazier than all the ones we had seen before in Vietnam. There was a shoe and clothes hall, a fruit and flower hall, and a fish hall. But where was the meat? (Here it's appropriate to say - you always have to follow the smell). Because outside on the street, it was lying there again, not refrigerated and only protected by umbrellas. But this time there were also live ducks that could be bought.

People squeezed through narrow alleyways again, either on foot or on scooters (it's really remarkable that in the hustle and bustle, no one bumps into each other, everyone watches out for each other).