PAUL WILLIS ventures into Vietnam and is caught up in a cigarette smuggling scam

FOR much of the past month I've been saying how easy travel is in South East Asia, and that, after the complications and craziness of India (much of which I admit to having hated at the time) this trouble-free life feels a tad dull.

Thailand is a tourist paradise and even Laos, despite the shocking roads, was relaxed and uncomplicated. However, all things come to those who wait. And so cometh the hour, cometh Vietnam!

Before I'd even crossed the border, I'd been ripped off: conned into a money exchange with an innocent-looking woman selling Vietnamese dong at an inflated rate to block-headed tourists like yours truly. I approached her about it after a border official had tipped me off about the correct rate. Her innocence suddenly vanished and she started screaming at me and calling me "a bad man". Maybe she had a point - I worked out afterwards I'd been haranguing her over 40 pence.

Once over the border, I spent well over an hour at the bus station arguing over prices - they literally pluck figures out of the air when deciding what to charge you - only to find the bus I was on was involved in a racket smuggling cigarettes over from Thailand.

A succession of sweet old ladies got on wearing conical hats and traditional dress, but bloated to about three times their normal size by packs of cigarettes they were carrying in pouches stitched into their underclothes. Judging by the size of them, each must have been carrying at least 5,000 smuggled cigarettes. And waddling up the aisle of the bus, they looked like Vietnamese Tellytubbies.

A few miles into the journey the bus stopped suddenly at a service station where a posse of slick young men whisked the old ladies away on waiting motorbikes.

Our bus was then stopped at a customs checkpoint where a severe-looking customs official in military uniform got on board. We held our breath. By now I felt part of the game, after being given a cap by our ringleader, and told to keep a low profile as the only foreigner on board. The customs man walked up and down the bus, not noticing the bin bags stuffed with contraband in the luggage racks, or the voluminous pants of our ringleader. He got off, and, a few miles later, the old ladies waddled back on. Everyone celebrated with a cigarette.

The bus dropped me off in Hue, in central Vietnam and, from there, I'm heading north to the capital city of Hanoi, hopefully in time for Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. Oh happy days are here again!