My welcome back to Vietnam began with an 'interesting' taxi ride from the airport.
To start with, I'd better explain that he wasn't a legitimate taxi driver, but just a guy with a car who intercepts naive/tired foreigners coming out of the airport heading for the official taxi rank. Wanting to avoid the line up at the taxi rank it seemed a good idea to me at the time.
He had no idea where the Saigon Pearl Apartments were, but I had a vague idea of the general direction, so as he started driving, he handed me his iPhone and asked me to look it up for him. He didn't understand from the address on the website, so I looked it up on Google Maps. That helped, except he spent more time looking at the phone than the road. Fortunately it was quieter than normal on the roads, but quieter than normal in Saigon is busier than mid-Sydney traffic at peak hour! He had also decided we needed to get there super-quick so was overtaking everything. After a while I started to recognise the scenery, so knew we were heading in the right direction. Fortunately, Saigon Pearl's 6-tower complex is about the tallest thing on the skyline, so it wasn't long before I spotted it.
I arrived shaken AND stirred, but in one piece! To top it off, I think it cost me double the usual rate. There's a lesson there somewhere :-)
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