Today was a very interesting day but it was a good one. We woke up about 9:30 AM and got ready to go eat breakfast with the family we are staying with. Then we exchanged $60 USD for 1,270,000.00 Vietnamese Dong. We walked along the streets for about 4 1/2 hours and documented the stores' address, the price of the items we were interested in, and the object(s) we were interested in buying. One interesting thing about the street shops is that each street sells the same item. Basically, you can go down one street and typically buy the same products such as clothes, toys, or electronics from 5 or 10 different shops. One discomforting thing about the salespersons is that they will come up to you and persistently ask you if you would like to buy something. The one thing that I admire about their selling techniques is their persistence. They will also come up to you and offer their services without your permission and then charge you for it. This happened to Joy, and then almost happened to me with the exception that I told the man "no." After meeting with someone that we knew previously and talking with her, we came back to our hotel where we are staying. We then slept for approximately 2 hours. Then we went and joined other tourists and the family for a Vietnamese supper. This was our first day in VietNam in about 14 sentences.
-James
1 comment:
James - I found it amusing that you are both discomforted by and also admire their street-selling persistence :)That's quite the combination! Thanks for sharing - it's fun reading your posts! ~A. Kendra
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