Taxi in Vung Tau, Viet Nam

Taking the express boat from Sai Gon, you would arrive at the Vung Tau terminal in about 1 and a half hour near the front beach (bai truoc). There are plenty of Taxis waiting to take you to your destination. Most of them are "Petro Taxis". Do a favor for the taxis outside the terminal a favor, take them. Pick either Mai Linh or Vinasun. Don't take anything else.

One important advice is do not listen to the tax driver no matter how convincing they sound, they might be giving false information.

The last time we took one of the Petro Taxis (Dec. 2011), the driver was acting like he was sure the cable car was closed and wouldn't open until 5pm when we told him we wanted to go there. We were a little disappointed for our son since our trip was to take the cable car to go up the mountain where they have a small amusement park for him to play. The driver suggested that we go to the back beach (bai sau) to have lunch and relax at the beach. Upon arriving at a restaurant named "Nhu Y", I realized that we had been tricked. The restaurant's name sounded very familiar to the one that the city has warned to have ripped people off. I then told them we were not hungry and would like to relax at the beach first. The driver was a little disappointed by the way he looked. At the beach, we asked around and found out the cable car was operating. We then had to take another taxi back to the cable car station. The taxi driver had just wasted us more than 200,000dong for both ways.

So, lesson learned. Don't trust the taxi driver in Vung Tau. Always know where you want to go before taking the taxi and stick to it.

Here are the other restaurants in the black list and should be avoided:

Phượng Vĩ (Tùng Ngọc Thủy cũ, số 113 Hoàng Hoa Thám)

Du Thuyền (Thủy Ngọc Thủy cũ, số 73 Hoàng Hoa Thám)

Hải Nam (Ốc Biển cũ, số 127 Hoàng Hoa Thám)

Hiệp Ký I (số 195 đường Hoàng Hoa Thám)

Như Ý (số 306 đường Phan Chu Trinh)

Hoa Ban Ðỏ (Song Thịnh cũ số 97 Võ Thị Sáu)

Tây Hồ Thủy Tạ (số 159 đường Võ Thị Sáu).