The Vietnamese are not backward in coming forward, especially when it comes to asking for donations and their pièce de resistance is the sob story.

Probably the day after travellers first started trickling into the Prince Hotel just after Doi Moi, the local hustlers worked out that these young naive things would fall for anything involving "Communists" or "re-education camp".

Possibly back then there were a couple of ex-lawyers driving cyclos. Back in 1990 that would have made them ... how old? Let's see, 30 years old in 1975 ... so that would be 45. Plausible.

Seventeen years later ... they'd have to be 62 - at the absolute youngest. When your interlocutor is giving you his "doctor" story then weigh up ... is he at least 62? If he is then you'd be advised to take a taxi! (Well you'd be *always* advised to take a taxi, but that's a subject for another tip.)

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Vietnamese drivers gleefully ignore traffic signals, so crossing the road can be a coronary-inducing experience. If you walk calmly and slowly across the road, you should be OK. Better still, wait for a Vietnamese person to cross and follow them, using them as a shield between you and the traffic!

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