A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
It's been a while since I took a really long bus ride. Bus is hardly my preferred mode of travel, but flights are expensive, trains are packed with Tet travellers, and I've got plenty of time. This bus, a regular service organized by a travel company in Saigon rather than an insanely slow and packed Vietnamese bus, seemed like the best option under those circumstances.

After 24 hours of tailbone torture in an upright and locked position, I now remember clearly how much I loathe long bus journeys. The first 10 hours, Saigon to Nha Trang, wasn't so bad. We were in a big bus with lots of leg room, reclinable seats, and decent air conditioning. Admittedly the seats were vinyl and made for the comfort of Lilliputians, but by practicing my killing stare at the outset I was able to get two seats to myself for the night. This is pretty much the minimum number of seats I require to get a single minute of sleep on a night bus.

Unfortunately, for the 14 hour second leg of the trip the bus company pulled a bus switcheroo. Forty-five minutes into our journey (another in which I had managed to ward off all potential seatmates with my aloof and chilling manner), the driver pulled over and announced we were exchanging buses with a group heading to Saigon. So as we watched our beloved bus head off with its new undeserving passengers, we piled into a significantly smaller vehicle, with narrower seats (if that is even possible) and aisles, no reclining, seriously inferior suspension, and little if any insulation from noise. As there were no window seats by the time I boarded, I elected to sit next to what I judged to be the scrawniest passenger I saw, a 16 year old Vietnamese boy with whom I exchanged not a single word over the subsequent 13 hours.

Apart from being endless, uncomfortable, and endlessly uncomfortable, the drive did have its good points. The scenery was lovely as we meandered in and out of the lush hills along the coastline. Unlike the delta and flatlands areas to the south, the central Vietnamese coast features lovely beaches and dramatic vistas with the mountains coming right down to the edge of the South China Sea.

Villages and towns are literally few and far between, and I was intrigued by the tradition in one province of inscribing the construction date above the door of even the most modest of homes. And they're all modest. Most of the dates are attached to one-story boxlike houses made with cement over brick, colorfully painted in pastel aquas, pinks, yellows and greens, but only on the side facing the road. Painting the cement on the other three sides would just be a waste of scarce resources. I learned by looking out my bus window that 1974 and 1994 were surprisingly good years for residential cement pourers in Binh Dinh province.

The study of awful architecture can only take up so much time, of course. Besides the strange smell, poor suspension, road noise and the miniature unreclinable seats I really only had one complaint: that godawful supercharged horn, and the driver who wielded it like a weapon against any potentially drowsy highway users or passengers.

It is customary in Vietnam for drivers, particularly those in large vehicles, to lightly tap the horn to warn motorbikes of their approach from behind or to warn other buses and trucks of the intention to pass. During our drive we passed hundreds, maybe thousands of other vehicles. Our driver was, shall we say, conscientious about notifying others of our presence. When you add this enthusiasm to the aforementioned issues of shock absorption and insulation, passengers generally thanked their lucky stars that this was a day bus. There was absolutely no possibility of sleep, even though I experimented for the first time with earplugs.

At several points along the road, in an effort to pass the time, I attempted to calculate the longest period of time that our driver allowed to elapse without a blast or series of beeps from the horn. One minute six seconds. Yes, that's right, 66 measily seconds of relative peace. And the second longest time elapsed was 34 seconds -- mostly he hit it every 4-12 seconds. Just imagine that -- 13 hours in a bus with the horn going off an average of six times a minute. That's roughly 4700 periods of honking, sometimes in a sustained tinnitus inducing blast, sometimes in a series of brief beeps, and occasionally a short musical/rhythmic ditty for our listening pleasure.

The final annoyance occured when instead of dropping us off in the thick of town where the tour office company was located, the bus continued on to a hotel that had clearly paid them off, 25 minutes walk away from the main tourist action of Hoi An. By that time we were all so exhausted that most people just stayed there. With no taxis available and a 5 minute debate required with the tour operator, it was a real act of will and painful effort to find another hotel. I'm definitely getting rid of some of my stuff.

All's well that ends well, though, and I'm now firmly situated in the lovely historic town of Hoi An for several days of relaxation and exploration. My goal during that time is to block from my mind the appalling prospect of my return bus journey.

© 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 8:06 AM