Covering Ground

Hey all. Sorry for the gap between blogs. We have covered much ground since Hanoi. We are now in Na Trang. The name conjures up images of shore leave from Vietnam war movies. It is obviously tamer now, but it is still is a bit of party town. There are two massive beaches that stretch about ten kilometres around a bay. There are some islands in the distance and hills surrounding the town. The beach is big enough that it never seems crowded. It is holiday season in Vietnam, so there are many vacationing families. It's fun because the beach is all children, parents, and grandparents. It is still hot, but managably so. It hovers between 33 and 27, which almost feels cool compared the heat before. (In Hue, my tuk tuk driver said to me, "You come today, very good. Yesterday very hot, 43. Today cool. Only 39.)There are many bars here and the scene gets a little messy at night, but Marina and I are early to bed and early to rise so we have avoided the uglier parts of Na Trang. We've had a little beach time and had our fancy seafood dinner and are planning to leave tomorrow for Saigon. Then onto Cambodia and Thailand.

Since it is Marina's turn to blog about our stay in Hoi An and Hue, I'll just tell the tale of our lousy busride from Hanoi to Hue.

We bought two tickets going from Hanoi to Hue to Hoi An to Na Trang to Saigon for $50 US each. The airlines were booked, so we changed all our plans on the fly. We would do the coastal route, but have to miss out on Dalat to get to Cambodia in time to meet Marina's mother. So we book ourselves on sleeper buses for the longer trips (overnighters) and regular buses for the 4 1/2 hour trips. All good.

The sleeper buses are buses lined with little bunk beds, so you can nap your way to your next stop. We were to be picked up at our hotel and driven to the bus. So we waited (and blogged) and waited. Pretty soon it was 1/2 hour late, then an hour, then 1 1/2 hours late. No one seemed to worry about it it so we tried not to. Everything runs late here. So we're picked up and whisked through downtown Hanoi at night. It is a blur of shops and traffic and construction.

After a 1/2 hour we arrive at a dark spot near an overpass with the sleeper bus sitting there. Marina runs to save us seats, while I manage our baggage. She boards and is shouted at to remove her shoes. She then finds every bed to be occupied. Then she is shouted at to get off the bus. We're both confused. The bus drivers don't know what to do and wave off my questions. Then as we're trying to figure things out, the bus pulls away. We're left running beside the bus, shouting. Then standing, dumbstuck.

I go into the nerby building to find someone. A woman finally comes out and tells us "so sorry" and that she can refund us the difference and we could take this bus, pointing to a regular bus without sleeper beds. It's dark. We don't know where in the city we are and Marina is furious. We have to make a quick decision, the bus is full and waiting. We decide, at my urging, to take it. It's only an overnight trip.

They load our bags underneath, but can't fit a box of gifts we've purchased. We take them on the bus with us. There are only four seats left. The front two and the two behind them. It's mostly Vietnamese on the bus with a handful of backpackers at the back. The woman apologizes and tells us we can have the front seats (with more leg room) and our box is thrown with another behind the driver. Then, before we begin moving, the bus driver yells at us to move to the seats behind us. We're pissed. We move without complaining but I let them know with a glare that we're not happy. He then complains about the box, but it has to stay.

We leave. Marina is mad, but silently brooding. About 20 minutes into the drive, on the freeway, we stop and the men driving begin tossing out our luggage onto the side of the road beside a truck. I go outside to see what's going on. They are loading cable into the luggage compartment, and then start loading our bags into the bus. I grab our bags and bring them on. The bus driver is really pissed that I'm outside watching them work, I think because other backpackers were coming to see what was going on. He shouts at me to "Get on!" and we have a tense moment before I board. Marina grabs her bag and puts it at her feet and I keep mine, but the busdriver grabs it and tosses it onto the pile in the seat in front of us.

We move on, but the scene is tense.

Eventually, people board and get off at various stops and the seats in front of us clear off. As is usual for these trips, the two front seats are reserved for the bus drivers helpers. All three of these men are chatting about Marina and I off and on. Then, when they take these seats, they make a big display about sprawling out in these seats and pushing their seats waaay back. The leg room is really small to begin with. The bus is made for the Vietnamese and they are all tiny. The seat in front of me is now in my lap. I have to sit with my legs sprawled to either side of it and there is no way to move from that spot. Marina has her bag at her feet so she must sit sideways with her knees up by her chin. There is no complaining about the lack of room. They ignore us and make a show of stretching out with their feet out over our bag and stretching their hands out over our faces.

At this point there is 11 hours to go before arriving in Hue.

At our next stop Marina decides to stay on the bus but is shouted at to get off because they lock the bus up.

We drift in and out semi-wakefulness. Our legs go numb and we awkwardly attempt to shift our weight any way possible. Marina throws her legs over my lap. I throw mine out into the aisle. I even sleep a bit draped over the back of the seat in front of me, with my hands dangling over the bus worker's head as he sleeps. The bus driver shoots me dirty looks, but I ignore him. At another point Marina catches the driver blasting his horn and watching to see if Marina's still awake. It sucks and after 6 or 7 hours Marina and I aren't even angry anymore. We're just feeling really tired and kind of sad for these men, who are enjoying trying to make us miserable. I'm sure we probably came off as entitled brats when we boarded their bus and they took the opportunity to show they're the bosses of the bus.

All night our manic and angry bus driver speeds, honking at oncoming traffic and making unsafe passes into oncoming traffic. I have an a perfect view of the road, sitting perfectly erect, looking over the sleeping forms of the bus workers in front of me. He drinks Red Bull and attacks the traffic in front of him like he has a grudge.

After 10 hours I see signs that we're 55 kilometres from Hue. Then 20 minutes later I see a sign that we're 50 kilometres away from Hue. We are zombified. Physically and emotionally drained. We are supposed to arrive at 8:00am and it's 8:15 and we're there's still 40 kilometres to go.

And then, as traffic lightens, we slow down. Inexplicably, we reduce our speed to about 40 kilometres an hour for the rest of the way. We don't even care. We arrive an 1 hour and 15 minutes late. Approximately 13 hours after we left.

Getting off that bus and into our waiting taxi was such a relief. I felt somewhat bad about my behaviour boarding the bus, but it was clear that they were being jerks about it too. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that this episode was in any way representaive of our treatment here. Everyone has been kind and helpful. But somehow we ended up in a perfect storm of misunderstandings that led us to one of worst bus rides of our lives.