Gettng too old for this?

Arrgh! Dammit! Got scammed by a taxi rip off merchant at Saigon airport. I should know better than this! Don't take the offer of a ride from the first guy who picks up your bags (we did). Don't get into an unmetered taxi (we did). Don't pay a second guy up front after the bags were placed in the boot (we did). And work out exactly what you are giving him (I didn't). As it was I was having trouble working out decimal points in my head: 33,000 Dong to the GBP or 20,000 Dong to the USD. You have to use all three over here. My first attempt at getting money out from the ATM netted me a single bill worth 3 quid. The second attempt to change some US Dollars at the Bureau wasn't much better. I'm too embarrassed to say exactly how much I gave the guy (but it was a lot of beer tokens) but he did take us to the hotel we told him to I suppose it could have been worse. Left me angry with myself all night, though.

Linda tried to calm me down by taking me to the Le Pub in Chua An Lac, one of our favourite drinking n' eating alleyways in South East Asia. A few cold draught Tigers and Long Island Iced Teas later and my annoyance was muted to a dull roar. We had another at the Allez Boo, a sort of bamboo furniture street corner bar that plays ancient 70s pop rock, where a tiny thing who was all teeth, and smiles, and hope for the future got our drinks wrong in a delightful way. She wanted to know: "Where you from?"
"England." Wondering quickly whether we'd upset Vietnam recently along with the other Middle East countries.
"What you do?" She showed no sign of serving anyone else. As it turned out, she'd only been doing the job for for nights. Don't think she was enjoying it much. She was, apparently, learning to be an accountant.
"Nothing." Which was completely true. She looked at me sideways, as they do over here.
"You are lying." Still beaming away but with a sort of frown. Everyone has to work, don't they?
"You must be very rich." She concluded. Not as much as I was before we got in the dammed taxi, I muttered to myself. Thanks for bringing it up.
Taking the hint, we paid up, gaving her an ernormous tip amounting to around £1.50.

So now I was feeling guilt as well as anger. To top it all, we both had a crappy night's sleep as the hotel, one we stayed in last time we were here, put us on the top floor right under the breakfast cum evening meal dining room and next to the stairs everyone used noisily to get there. To be honest, the adventure wasn't getting off to a brilliant start.

We successfuly changed rooms the next day and, after an interesting breakfast (deep fried tofu in plum sauce, anyone?) set off in the lunchtime humidity to see if the upmarket Dong Khoi area had changed much in two years, walking carefully (i.e. nervously) between the swarms of motorbikes and scooters as being run over would have improved our moods much. It hadn't -- changed much, that is -- apart from one of the roadside wine bars turning into another Armani outlet and the building of another couple of corporate skyscrapers. Tonight, I think it's back to An Lac in the De Tham area which is much more downmarket and suited to our tastes. Tomorrow, we're flying to Da Nang. 'Ware Taxis!!!