I would recommend heartily doing every trip by yourself when in Vietnam. It takes a bit more planning and is obviously a bit more intimidating with the language barrier and all, but you’ll save about 50% on all travel costs. For example; we’re going to Can Tho today, and we organised a bus with our guesthouse, who quoted 160,000 dong each (about $8) We took a walk down Pham Ngu Lao street, and all of the operators were about the same. We booked with our guesthouse. Upon arrival at the bus station however, the going rate was 80,000 dong ($4). If we’d got a cab here instead of booking with the guesthouse, we’d have saved $8 between us. Sucks hey, but you learn from your mistakes.
In Cambodia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, the price quoted at the guesthouses were the same as they were at the bus stations. We assumed that Vietnam would be the same… Maybe it is the same outside of the larger cities - and I wouldn’t like to generalise - but we’ve at least learned a lesson and we’ll go straight to the source from now on. Yeah I sound like a tightwad; but when you’re surviving on $30 a day, you really need to economise.
At least we get free water on this bus.