"The most HORRIBLE car rental experience I've ever had !"
First thing first, Economy car rental is merely a distribution agent and it offered me the car provider namely "Routes"(or acting for both??) in my trip to Vancouver.
I arrived the shop at around 7pm and was given a Kia Forte instead of my choice Nissan Altima (is it similar for the substitution? I really doubt it) in a dusty and dirty condition inside out. I requested to have it cleaned but the staff told me it was cleaned ridiculously. I had to wipe the car with my finger to show him. I insisted on washing it and finally they just water spayed it for a few minutes without having dried it for my inspection of the body and I had to dry it myself to inspect the body.......I didn't have the strength to argue but finally accepted and drove away becoz it was getting dark and I was exhausted from a 12-hours flight.
3 days later, I woke up at 8 am in the morning and found out the car was hit-and-run with a dent on the left rear door panel where it was parked at the back of a secluded house with a long private driveway with no public access surprisingly. Called police but they wouldn’t come to investigate becoz there was no suspect !
Long story short, I brought the car back and they told me I would be responsible for a Canadian $2000 deductible becoz that was the insurance package I picked. I went to report ICBC (the only provincial govt insurance entity in B.C.) and I was told the max deductible for a hit-and-run was $750 and a garage gave me an estimate of about Canadian$700 to repair. However, I found out that Routes didn't even report to ICBC. I kept asking Economy Car Rental and Routes to provide me the car repair estimate but I was kept beating the bushes from the date of the incident on 4th Nov and I still haven't seen any paper as of today.....( Update: The final repair charges from a body shop called Regal Collision finally arrived at $2036.33 on 28th Nov. days after I left the country and just dollars over $2000 ironically. The parts repaired showed LT Front door blending, Front door Belt MLDG R&I, LT Outer Mirror R&I, LT Front door R&I, LT Fuel door blending….I was completely confused where the damages were 2 dents on the left rear door panel only ! And I couldn’t get a satisfactory answer from anyone of them…..)
The hit-and-run in fact was a very suspicious incident becoz of the place where I parked. Someone had to drive to the back of the house to make that happen. I didn't know if the car was equipped with GPS or followed by anyone to locate my location. I never had any proof of what was in my head but I would urge you guys to be 100%+ careful to avoid any possible scam.

I thought I could save a few bucks as everybody wanted but I actually lost a bundle ! My total rental charge was about Canadian $406 but now it became Canadian $2882 ( 7 times+ more !).
My advice is that we all should go for reputable companies with proven satisfactory records.

I will never ever use these 2 companies in the future, period !

Phil Lai
Hong Kong
11-25-2019

I thought I would add this here as a sort of (failed) trip report/feedback for anyone who happens to come across this in the future. I should of known when I went to look for their website and it was down, that should serve as a warning ( http://sudanembassyvienna.at/ ). Instead, I searched the internet for an email address to write to request a visa application, they sent me one with not instructions. I tried calling but was never able to reach anyone.

So again, I searched the internet for what I needed to send them. I concluded this would be the following:
- visa
- yellow fever cert
- letter of sponsorship
- 70 Euros
- application with fingerprints
- return envelope with postage

I sent all of this to them on December 10th. I was planned to depart January 4th. I found on other backpacker sites that it was 3-5 days processing.

On December 17th, I received an email saying they needed proof of my EU residency to process the visa. I sent this immediately, they confirmed it was ok.

Fast forward to December 23rd. I called as I had not received anything yet, no answer.
Fast forward to December 31st. I got an email asking to call the embassy. No answer.
Fast forward to January 2nd, I am super nervous now, I called the embassy- no answer. I emailed them at every email address I could find with my contact information detailing that I had not heard from anyone.

January 3rd I receive a call finally from a women at the embassy who tells me they have not been able to process my visa 'for weeks' because I do not have a valid hotel reservation (the hotel, Acropole had written me a sponsorship letter detailing my reservation and them confirming everything, including my planned itinerary).

She said it was essentially my fault and proceeded to attack me over the phone for not contacting them in mid-December to confirm it was approved. All emails I sent them were ignored with the exception of the visa application which was a blank email and the pdf.

It is now January 6th. They still have my passport, vax book and I officially not missed my flight last Saturday as a result of this all.

The hotel informed me this has never been an issue in the past and next time I can apply in KRT directly at the airport for a mere $300 fee (?) Is this correct?

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I have traveled extensively and never encountered anything like this. I am mad mostly at myself for the $1700+ in travel cost I will never get back (yah for no travel insurance covering Sudan) and the $800 I spent to get my vax'es up to date.
I am going to try again in a few months once I have saved up the money and will probably just attempt to get the visa once I land in KRT but still sort of shocked at this entire experience with the embassy and wanted to share it as a warning for anyone going to Vienna to either make the drive (in my case, 5 hours each way) or plan to apply months in advance.

We would like to visit Yen Tu in november, but I can't find much information about to get there.
Is it possible to go there by bus in the morning from Hai Phong or Ha Long and then go to Hanoi the same day in the evening ?
Is there a place where we can safely leave our luggage during the day ?

Many thanks !