Back in Taipei.

It was a disasterous end to a great trip.

Checking out of our hotel took 15 minutes because we had to sort out some mis-charges (they thought we drank from the room minibar) and our complicated room bookings made things more difficult. BK, NK, and I left our hotel at 10:50am for our 12:45pm flight. The taxi driver took a slower route to the airport and it cost us 104,000 VND (USD$1 = 16,000 Vietnamese Dong) - in the past, we'd only paid about 64,000 VND. Our check-in took a long time too, because the Eva Air lady couldn't find our flight bookings in the system. Then we had to pay a $14USD/person airport tax, which should be paid, but a lot of people get away without paying it -- but we didn't.

After overpaying for the taxi ride, between 3 people, we only had 6,000 VND left (about $0.37 USD). So, I decided to try to spend it at the airport stores leading up to the boarding gate. I got to a shop that sold a bunch of little things. I asked a lady at a store what I could buy for 6,000 dong, and she asked a guy behind her. The guy, perhaps her manager, pointed her to something and said something in Vietnamese. She walked over and picked up a pack of candy. Then, she walked to the cashier while ripping off the price tag. Of course, seeing this, I make a bee line to the candy rack and check it myself. $0.25 US. I walk back to her, she gives me the candy pack, and says "This is 6,000 dong." I asked her "Isn't this 25 cents?" she says yes. Since I only had a 5,000VND bill and a 1,000 coin, I gave her 5,000VND and walked away. Damn people trying to dishonestly make money off foreigners.

Boarding the plane was delayed about 15 minutes, but we got to Taoyuan International Airport on time at 5pm. During the flight, I had the pleasure of having a child sit behind me. I need not explain more than to give 3 words: banging, kicking, and crying. I hate kids on planes.

At the Taiwan customs, it took the 3 of us more than 30 mins to get through amidst a packed room of arriving travellers.

Finally, after getting out of the departure gate, NK and I bought our bus tickets to get back to Hsinchu (a ride with a switch midway at ChongLi bus hub). After 45 minutes on our bus, it seemed as if we should have made our change at the bus hub 15 minutes earlier -- then I saw the Hsinchu highway exit pass. So I talked to the bus driver to discover we boarded the wrong bus and were heading to Taichung, another hour away (which meant we'd have to take another hour to get back). But the driver was kind enough to let us off at the next highway exit in Toufen. From there, we took another bus to the Hsinchu train station. And then another taxi ride to my office where we left our scooters.

All in all, it took us more than double the time to get home, and probably close to double the price.

But up until to the day of returning, Vietnam was a great trip. We saw a lot, learned a lot, and enjoyed the different sights and sounds. I'll slowly start putting my impressions and experiences from the trip over the next few days.