Vietnam. August 2024. First time in the country, camera slung, sweat already crawling down my spine like it had a grudge. You step off the plane, and the air doesn’t just hit you; it climbs inside your lungs and starts renting space. Motorbikes buzzing like a thousand wasps, neon bleeding into puddles, street food smoke curling like ghosts trying to lure you into their kitchens.
I mutter, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” and it comes out like a bad punchline in a bar you shouldn’t have walked into. But it’s true. You feel it in your chest. The city is alive in a way that doesn’t give a damn if you make it out whole.
Being solo is jazz. No setlist, just riffs, corners, half-formed plans. You keep your eyes open, keep moving, trust your gut until it betrays you. That’s the deal. And somewhere between the humidity, the hustlers, and the high-wire act of staying invisible with a camera, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
The first week was all about finding rhythm. Vietnam doesn’t ease you in, it shoves you headfirst. The humidity isn’t weather; it’s a second skin that clings and refuses to let go. The air tastes like charred pork, spilled beer, and exhaust fumes. Power lines sag across streets like tangled spiderwebs, motorbikes swarm like hornets, honking becomes its own language.
Walking through District 1 with my Leica felt like trying to catch lightning in a jar. Every corner offered a frame: kids chasing each other barefoot, a man kicked back on his motorbike, half-asleep but ready for the next customer, a street vendor balancing more noodles than gravity should allow. But the second they spot the lens, the spell breaks. Smiles snap on like light switches, and suddenly I’m no longer stealing moments, I’m commissioning portraits. So, you learn to lurk. To hide the lens until you can snag the truth. To walk the fine line between voyeur and ghost.
And then came the night that cracked everything open.
I was out with a couple of tourists from my hotel, wandering through one of the clubs in the party district. Loud, sweaty, neon chaos. That’s when Vicki made her move. She brushed my arm, leaned in with a smile, and called me Jason Momoa. Sometimes Johnny Depp. I laughed, rolled with it, and before long we were locked in conversation. Compliments are the oldest con in the book, but they work because we want to believe them.
Enter Altou. Big grin, quick jokes, smooth as a practiced act. He slid in like he’d been part of the crew all along. Soon we were talking about Australia. That’s when he dropped the first bait. “My sister is moving there. She’s going to be a nurse.” I’d worked with nurses often back home, so it felt like a real coincidence, the kind you lean into.
The night rolled on. Drinks, dancing, banter. They packed me with compliments, disarmed me with warmth. Aussies have a rep here, locals love saying they love Aussies, so you take it
on face value. By the end came the hook. “Come around for lunch tomorrow. You can meet my sister. We’ll talk more about Australia.”
Me being me, I went yeah why not, these guys seem fun. What’s the worst that could happen?
The night ended with me peeling off from the others, weaving through the late-night neon back toward my hotel. On the walk, the replay started. Every smile, every line, every well-placed coincidence. Somewhere under it all, a thought tugged: I reckon I’m a mark. You brush that aside, call it professional curiosity, call it stupidity. At the end of the day, it’s one and the same, isn’t it?
The next day we met. Taxi ride, lunch at their place, laughter thick enough to feel safe. They knew exactly how to play it, the food, the stories, the comfort of being “welcomed.” Then Altou brought out a deck of cards. Said he used to deal in Sydney’s casino, worked cruise ships. The tricks were slick, polished, captivating enough to reel me closer. I didn’t know then that gambling was illegal in Vietnam. That little fact would arrive later, a cruel punchline.
Soon we were climbing to a small upstairs room. A table sat waiting. The walls bare, the air heavy. I was placed in the corner, not by chance but by design, boxed in, no clean exit. Every move was about control.
Altou rehearsed the signals like we were co-stars in some twisted play. Tap your finger here, scratch your neck there. It was part magic show, part trapdoor. My pulse thudded so loud I was sure they could hear it, but I kept my face slack, like a tourist dazzled by sleight of hand.
Then the woman arrived. She was supposed to be the debtor, but in hindsight she was an actor. The first few rounds lulled me in. Small bets, friendly laughter, the illusion of low stakes. Then the numbers grew. The laughter thinned. Suddenly we were playing with thousands. Tens of thousands. The room shrank around me. Every exit sealed by choreography I hadn’t rehearsed.
But money never had its hooks in me. I leaned back, played it casual. “Wow, that’s a lot. The only thing I’ve got on me is my camera. If you want real money, it’s back at my hotel. I’ll grab it and come back.”
Their eyes lit up, hungry. Altou leaned forward, voice urgent. “Yes, yes, do that. And bring your passport too.”
That’s when the alarm screamed in my head. Danger. Danger, Will Robinson.
I stayed calm, walked to the door while he rattled off more things to bring back. Once I turned the corner, I bolted. Grabbed a Grab bike, heart hammering, muttered “hotel” like it was a prayer. The city blurred past in streaks of neon and exhaust. Every mirror I checked, I expected to see them chasing.
Back in the hotel, door locked, I poured a drink, lit a smoke, and opened my laptop. My hands were still shaking. I typed: “Vietnam scam Filipino cards.” And the screen filled up with ghosts of my own story.
First came the seventy-year-old man from Western Australia. He lost nearly three hundred thousand dollars in Manila over fifteen months. It started in a mall, with polite strangers and warm smiles. An invitation to meet a niece. At first, he won. They always let you win. Then came the staged bag of cash, dollars stacked on top, pesos stuffed underneath. He kept playing, chasing, until there was nothing left.
TripAdvisor was a graveyard of confessions. Tourists in Saigon lured into apartments, fed like family, treated like royalty. Then the cards came out. One claimed he was drugged, woke up $3,000 poorer. Another bailed with the same excuse I’d used, moneys in my hotel, and never went back. Their words read like my night replayed in someone else’s skin.
Even embassy bulletins surfaced. The Philippine Embassy in Laos had warned of the Filipino Blackjack Gang, running the same scam across borders. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Manila. Whenever heat came down, they drifted like smoke to another city. Same playbook, new audience.
What I couldn’t find was history. No clean origin story. No investigative deep dives. Just fragments, blog posts, embassy warnings, scattered headlines when someone lost too much to stay quiet. Like most hustles, they thrive in the shadows. And shame is their oxygen.
That became clear when my inbox lit up. Dozens of messages from other travellers after I posted my own story. A backpacker in Cambodia lost his month’s budget in one night, slept on credit for the rest of the trip. A couple in Saigon were invited to dinner by a “lovely family,” only to watch a card game spiral into thousands; they escaped when the husband faked being sick. One woman admitted she’d told no one, not even her family, until she wrote to me.
The pattern was eerie. The approach. The flattery. The food. The staged kindness. Then the trap. And always, the silence.
Because in Vietnam, silence comes easy. Gambling is strictly illegal. Report the scam and you risk implicating yourself. That fear is the hustlers’ shield; the reason their game keeps rolling.
The online response was its own sting. My post was met with mockery. Keyboard warriors sneering, “nice story, needs more dragons next time.” But the private messages told the truth. Embarrassed whispers, confessions typed in the dark. A collective shame that keeps the gang alive.
Even days later, wandering through Saigon with my camera, the scam clung to me like smoke. I’d stop for street food, watch kids play soccer in an alley, photograph a woman hunched over her cart, and still hear Altou’s voice. Bring your passport. Bring your money.
Anger simmered. Anger at myself for nearly falling in, at the mockery online, at how many stories stayed buried. But beneath that was awe at the machinery of it all. The precision. The choreography. The way they could pull you in with nothing more than a smile and a story about a sister moving to Australia.
That’s when it clicked. My close call wasn’t a fluke. It was a cog in a larger machine, one that drifts through Southeast Asia feeding on curiosity, greed, and shame. It survives because its victims either laugh it off or bury it.
So here it is, laid bare. My brush with the Filipino Blackjack Gang. My sweat, my fear, my shame, stitched to the stories of those who lost more than I did. A flare in the dark, not to play the hero, but to remind you.
If you’re wandering Saigon or anywhere in Southeast Asia, take the photos, drink the beers, make the friends. But remember, Toto, you are not in Kansas anymore. Some smiles hide stacked decks. Some lunches are traps dressed as kindness. And if anyone ever tells you to bring your passport, that’s not a request. That’s your cue to run.
