Not A Single Tourist But Me!

Phan Rang was a very unique visit to say the least. After arriving in a town called Thap Cham 7km out I was immediately approached by numerous Moto taxi's quoting me unfair and overpriced fares to the city of Phan Rang-my final destination. This I found is the norm in Vietnam looking at Westerners as nothing but money signs. I walked as two cyclo drivers keep trying to get me on their moto bikes. The price started to finally go down to a fair and reasonable price when yet another cyclo driver swooped in and started spouting prices at me. The other two cyclo drivers didn't take a liking to this and thus started a huge shouting/yelling match between three moto drivers. After it got to the point of fists being nearly thrown I told the first cyclo driver that approached me that I would get on his bike for a fee of 30,000 Dong as I was in no mood to see three cyclo drivers get in a brawl over a small taxi fare. Paranoia set in on the trip into town as I thought the other violent moto driver would come back and cause harm to both me and the driver.

The next day I ventured out into the small town to find that I was the only tourist present. I quickly realized this town sees hardly any tourists as I got stared at non-stop. Many smiles along with curiosity. I found a super friendly family run Restaurant that serves a mean bowl of Pho. The mother was all smiles and immediately saw my Vietnamese/English translation book. We had fun trying to communicate with our limited skills in each others langauge. Then the family started to get involved and soon I had the whole family surrounding me laughing and trying to have a broken language conversation. The typical questions where, "where are you from?," "are you married?," "do you have kids?," and "how old are you?"