Selling kites in Hue
Travelers coming through Vietnam either love or hate the place. While I was in Cambodia I’d met several people who’d just crossed the border and couldn’t have been more thrilled—“escaped Vietnam” was the term they used. After several weeks here I’ve become completely infatuated with this country—the people, the food, the natural beauty. I’d had too many great experiences in my short time here that it seemed unnatural. Streaks of luck never last long, and at some point I was expecting the other shoe to drop. It happened in the town of Dong Ha, on the route between Hue and Hanoi.
I’d just completed a tour of the DMZ, organized through the Café on Thu Wheels in Hue, and had arranged for my overnight sleeper bus to pick me up in the stopover town of Dong Ha. In the advertisements, these sleeper buses seem to offer luxurious comforts: thick, cushy, flat-laying mattress pads, blankets, even plush Vietnam Airlines pillows. Despite my original inclination to take the overnight train from Hue to Hanoi, I opted for the bus. From what I’d seen and heard, it all seemed quite civilized.
One of the war memorials in the Demilitarized Zone, Vietnam
9 pm: My bus arrives (two hours behind schedule). I load my bags on board with confidence and show the driver my ticket. He smiles initially, before his face changes to one of rage, yells something incomprehensible and throws my bags off the bus. “What the hell is going on!” I shout, but the only word the Trekking Travel driving staff knew was “No.”
9:15 pm: The restaurant proprietor (bless him, whoever he was) comes to my rescue and phones the bus booking office, who had sold my seat to someone else. “I’m getting on the damn bus,” I assert. This was possible, the agent says, but I’d have to ride in the aisle. 12 hours on the hard aisle of a bus. I contemplate this. I really have no options–getting back to Hue is impossible and there are no hotels here. I shoot the driver and his staff the dirtiest look imaginable and say I’d do it.
By this point my plight has gotten the attention of the other English-speaking passengers on board. An Aussie man buys me a couple bottles of the local brew, which I use to wash down some sleeping pills. If I am going to be sleeping in the aisle of a bus, I am damn well going to be unconscious for the experience.
10:30pm: The effects of the Vietnamese Valium I’d taken have kicked in and I’m as high as a hippy. My delirium just about drowns out the terrible TV music that for some inexplicable reason is still playing. I’ve scrounged a few extra Vietnamese Airlines pillows that were lying around the bus and have constructed a makeshift cocoon. Laying flat on my back, my shoulders exceed the width of the aisle (see picture below). It feels like I’m laying in a coffin. I’m determined to rough this one out till morning. Besides, the driving crew keeps looking back at me and laughing, getting a kick out of the white chick squirming in the aisle. I smile back, not giving them the pleasure of letting them know I hate their guts. Besides, I’m too high to care.
2:30am: I’m abruptly awoken by someone stepping on my face. “What the fuck man!” I thrash instinctively and kick the perpetrator a few times in the process. He disembarks and I maneuver into his vacant sleeper bed. I’m surprised at the lack of leg room—at 5’7” I’m by no means a giant (by American standards anyway), but I don’t fit into this either. I sleep the rest of the night with my legs curled up and over the leg compartment. I can’t imagine what this would be like for someone taller than me—and if you are, don’t take the damn sleeper bus. Ironically, I was more comfortable in the aisle with my legs fully stretched than in the cramped bed I was supposed to have paid for.
9:30am: I awake from a marvelous, lucid dream. We’re in Hanoi, and half of the bus is empty. I look toward the front of the bus to see one of the driver’s mates sleeping in the aisle–my aisle–on a thick foam mat. Bastard. Some English girls nearby inform me we’re approaching our stop but no one has told any of us where that will be. I scan the street names and determine we’re in the Old Quarter, where we’d all planned on staying. I charge up front and tell the driver that we wish to get off now. For the first time in 12 hours, I get my way. I think my roughing it had earned their respect.
Rather enjoying my bus aisle bed!
All told, the journey was a character building experience. It was one of those moments where I thought about all the people who’d told me I wasn’t tough enough to survive a month backpacking through Vietnam on my own. The picture of me high and smiling on the floor of a bus sums it all up. The lesson also was, when Vietnam gives you lemons, as it undoubtedly will, drink a beer and chill out. That’ll do you more good than any amount of yelling will, and you’ll earn more respect in the process.
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That first photograph is just STUNNING. I love it.
Also, I really think this is true of almost all of life (just replace Vietnam with whatever applies)! “when Vietnam gives you lemons, as it undoubtedly will, drink a beer and chill out. That’ll do you more good than any amount of yelling will, and you’ll earn more respect in the process.” <– So good.
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I also met many travellers who hated Vietnam and it really saddened me. Although it can be frustrating at times it’s still a great place to visit. I love your advice about when Vietnam gives you lemons. We coined a phrase to be expressed in a matter-of-fact tone with a shrug when things became frustrating and difficult: “This is Vietnam” shortened to TIV. We used it a lot but I’d still go back there to live again