financial rape and restitution

As I rode through the serene and gorgeous mountainous Sapa to Lao Cai on a bumby bus clinging to the curvy road while a young Vietnamese boy puked through the open window, I thought life was pretty good. At least I was safely on my way to my next destination. When I arrived in Lao Cai I was excorted to a table to wait for directions where I would exchange my receipt for a proper train ticket from my travel agency's representative, and was pointed in the direction towards a large blue hotel with a long complicated name. There I sat and waited for the rep. for over an hour. When she finally arrived she looked at my receipt, flipped through her stack of tickets, and shook her head before she walked away. "What's going on?" I asked. Nothing, because she didn't speak English. I felt uncomfortable, and saw a Vietnamese guy sitting with two foreigners. I asked him if he spoke Vietnamese and English. He said yes, so I asked him to please help me. After some back and forth conversation he informed me that there was no ticket waiting for me, and that my recipt wouldn't get me on the train. Ok..."What should I do?" He then told me another person who spoke English with the company would arrive shortly to help me. "Thank you soooo much!"
She did arrive and took me to the train station and introduced me to a man. He took my receipt and shoved it down his pants, and then handed me a ticket from his pocket. I demanded my receipt back and told him it had my bus info on it. He relunctantly handed it over, but insisted on keeping the envelope with all the agancies info on it, and then he immediately left. I was confused, especially when I walked up to the counter to douple check with the train station clerk that everything was in order. A security guard looked at my ticket and started laughing, and then the lady informed me that the train was full, and that I wasn't getting on. "Why?" She told me it was because this was a photocopied ticket. "WHAT?!?!?!?!?" My pulse began to race. I then overheard the same situation with a Chinese couple who looked distressed. I imediately went over to speak to them, and they said they had just spent even more $ to buy another 2 tickets. Well, I couldn't because there were none left even if I wanted to, but I didn't, since I just spent $320,000 Dong at the agency to ensure my safe travels! [transportation in Vietnam is crazy expensive, and there's no way around it, believe me I've tried!]
I asked around, and it looked like I was majorly screwed, so I walked outside and was harassed by con-artist scalpers. Even more perturbed I approached a taxi: "How much will it cost to take me to Sapa now? There are some people who have an appointment for a beatdown!!!!" '$300,000 Dong!' "No Way!!!!" That went on with 5 taxi's until I felt even more emotional and frustrated. Time was running out! I had to fix this by 9 p.m. when the train departed. I walked over to the blue hotel. The young man who I breiftly spoke to prior asked me what was wrong. I started crying. He told me to hold on 5 mins while he cleaned up. Then this lovely young man escorted me through the station, negotiated me through the guards, and got me on the train! It was a hard bench seat amongst crying babies, stinky hacking smokers, in an over-crowded atmosphere with an annoying guy who kept trying to ask me dumb questions about America, but beggers can't be choosers! After I sat down I couldn't hold back the tears again, mostly out of feeling betrayed and hurt. Oh yeah, and I was PMSing!
[my family knows what a joy I am during my time of the month] hahaha!
Then I felt a tap on my arm. I removed my head away from my tear-soaked handkerchief, and looked over to see a cop sitting near me, and the couple across from me looked concerned. The girl asked me what happened? I told them the story and she translated it to her husband and the cop. Language barriers can be so aggravating, but when there's someone to help it makes you so grateful and humbled. The cop looked over my info, wrote something down, and drew me a map how to find the Hanoi office, so I could get this straightened out for my bus fare from Hanoi to Nihn Bihn.
Last night on the train was hell, and my back still hurts, but it's ok. At least I know yoga to work out the kinks. A Blessing! When we arrived in Hanoi the sweet girl walked me to the travel office and wished me luck before leaving. I waited from 5 a.m. until 6:30 a.m. when the office opened. The man who finally allowed me to enter spoke no English(even though everything was written in English), but he could tell I was in no mood to be shoved aside, so he called an English speaking Vietnamese girl who arrived 30 mins later.
She basically told me it sucks to be me in a very smug manner.
I lost it, and in the end she had someone take me to the bus station and she paid for my bus fare to Nihn Bihn before telling me to just 'go.' I went, and once I was on the bus to the destination with some amount of restitution I finally took a deep sigh of relief. My Finnish friend Elina is in Sapa(I bumped into her the day before on the street and we bunked up before I departed), so I emailed her to ask her to please try and get me a partial refund, but I'm not expecting a miricle.
When I arrived in Nihn Bihn I found a cheap guesthouse, took a long overdue shower, had breakfast, rented a bike, and rode out to Tam Coc.
Tam Coc is where many moves are filmed because of it's dramatic Jurassic Park sculpted mountainous views. I made a friend named Win who escorted me by boat through the riverbeds and grottos. She invited me to her home to show me landscape and then took me back to shore.

What an eventful 24 hrs!
Just 30 mins ago when I checked my email I found out I was approved for a 1 yr. working holiday Australian Visa! Wow! That took no time at all. :D You see, USA citizens were only recently allowed to participate in this type of visa late 2007, and many Americans still don't know it exists, so there are several visas available for us. On Sept. 1st I must be in Australia, so this accelerates my S.E. Asia plans somewhat. I will have to skip Malaysia, Borneo, and Indo for now. Boo hoo, right! :) I'm just trying to wrap my head around everything. It hasn't sunken in yet that I'll be living in Australia. YAY! Ok...one thing at a time.