Travel Day: Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh
Today we relocated from a beachside hotel at Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh via Vietnam Airlines. Getting from our hotel to the airport in Da Nang was simple, leveraging what has become our favourite go-to app in Asia: Grab.
The flight was uneventful, but in researching the domestic arrivals terminal in Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh, we discovered that a lot of tourists get taken for a ride by the local cabbies there. We read all kinds of horror stories about tourists facing demands for millions of VND and even when they insisted cabbies use their meters, cabbies demanding 10x the displayed fare — so instead of 180,000 they try to charge you 1,800,000. A typical strategy is they will hold your luggage hostage until you pay. Our research also revealed that the pick up location for Grab cars seemed a little hard to get to. So we were somewhat stressed about how we were going to manage our airport transfer prior to our arrival.
Our general perspective on local taxis is that we try to avoid them, especially where they are known to be scammy. This perspective goes back about a decade to a cab ride from the airport in Savannah, Georgia, where a cabbie tried to rip us off, which was followed a few days later by an Uber ride back to the airport, which was just delightful. The difference between the service we received from the local cabbie and that of our Uber driver were night and day, and that was the moment we knew traditional cabs were on their way down and no longer for us.
After our arrival at Tan Son Nhat Airport, we went on a mission to find the Grab pick up spot for the domestic arrivals terminal (which is different from the one in the international arrivals terminal).
Fortunately, Grab has signs everywhere to try to help you find their pick up area, which is located at lane D1 of a nearby parking garage. (There are, however, other pillars marked as “D1” on the way — don’t be fooled. D1 is a lane of traffic in a covered garage type building). It’s honestly nowhere near as conveniently located as the conventional taxis that are trying to sell you as you exit the terminal, but we did it fairly easily with a mountain of luggage on a cart and two young kids.
If you have any difficulty finding D1, take a look at the pick up location you select in the app — there are also photos that give directions to the pick up spot and people in the airport trying to direct you to the right place. Also, note that the pick ups don’t actually happen right from lane D1 — you actually have to go a little further into the parking garage toward lanes G/H. It’s highly confusing, but luckily the staff there understand this and will come direct you to the right spot if they see you waiting at D1.
Our perspective is that while overall the Grab experience was a bit chaotic — the Grab area was hard to find, the pick up zone was bedlam, we had to wait 10 minutes for our Grab to arrive, and then we had to navigate across the parking garage and over some barriers to reach our car — once we were in that car we were all set, and it was smooth sailing from there. Even with the hassle, we think it was worth it to use Grab instead of haggling with the local taxi scammers and possibly getting taken for a ride (both literally and figuratively!).
Cost of Transfer: We paid 201,000 VND (about 8 USD) plus tip to get to our hotel in District 4 in a 7 seater SUV during rush hour. The ride took about 45 minutes due to heavy traffic.