Broken Door

As I mentioned the other day, immediately after checking in to our guesthouse on the first day in Quan Lan, we had to go to the Army office to be extorted. Huyen and I basically threw our stuff down in our room and headed out. After being extorted, we headed out to explore the island and didn't return to our guest house until the early evening.

When we got to the guest house we went straight upstairs to our room. I placed the key in the door, turned the key and quickly realized that something was wrong -- the door wouldn't open. I tried the door a couple more times but it wouldn't budge. Huyen went downstairs and got the landlady who also gave the door an unsuccessful try. She then hollered towards her husband to come fix the door. He gave it his best shot but alas, it wouldn't move an inch.

At this point I realized it was going to be a pain in the ass to open the door. It was by far one of the heavier, sturdier doors I have ever felt. I asked the landlady if we could go in the opposite room to wait. She agreed and let us in. After a few more moments I started to think how this situation could make for an entertaining blog so I whipped out my camera. After another twenty minutes or so it just became annoying. Finally a locksmith of sorts came and nailed the door handle with basically a sledge hammer and a screwdriver. The door finally opened but I could tell the problem wasn't really solved. I quickly grabbed our bags from the room and told the landlady we would switch to the room across the hall.

Well, I'm glad we switched rooms. The guest house ended up being full and later that night Huyen and I were woken up around 11Pm to loud bangs. Turns out the people who took that room got locked out. The locksmith had to be woken and basically broke the door.

My favorite part of this whole experience though was when Huyen overheard the male owner of the house (the man smiling at me at the end of the video) say in Vietnamese: "I told my wife not to let foreigners stay here." Somehow the lock breaking was my fault because foreigners apparently don't know how to open doors.