Where were we? A Bus Ride.

A bus ride to Hanoi. We'd thought we were in for a fairly efficient journey: arriving ourselves (plus my bicycle) in Hanoi, for $23, leaving at 7pm and arriving at 5am the next morning. My first sleeper bus experience!

[contemplates keyboard to give the following horrendous, erm I mean fascinating, experience it's true weight in writing]

They stuffed my bicycle into the compartment below the bus and I clambered aboard. The driver handed me a plastic shopping bag for my sandals, which I were to remove before stepping into the bus, which was all set up with foamy mats and two layers of reclined seats. The whole thing seemed rather festive at this point, thanks to the rows of blue and red tube lights lining the windows. Assigned seating: and Lady Elise and I were ferried to the way back, to the way bottom, a claustrophobic little space behind the rear wheels where we definitely couldn't stand upright and where the bounding and swaying of the bus buttocks was the most fierce. Thank the lord of wheels that I don't become car-sick too readily.

The bus was still on-time because it was only half an hour late. This tall huge red creature of night bus had picked us up outside our hotel, and then preceded to honk about the Dong Hoi city picking up the rest of the passengers (all of which were Vietnamese people save for 3 European boys) at various residences. Lady Elise and I settled in under our meager blankets, stealing some from the (thankfully) empty neighboring seats.

The bus men (a number of them, not just the driver, seemed to be manning this operation) lowered the televisions from the roof and the whole bus cabin resounded in a painfully loud, egregiously grunty and violent, weepy and emotional Vietnamese movie. When that was done it was a profane and canned-laughter comedy show. And after that some brightly colored people bickering about the news. Earplugs plus a palm over the ear did little to filter out this noise. At least it drowned out the sound of the woman barfing into a bag the seat in front of me.

Finally, after 10pm, I wove up to the bus drivers and made the international sign for Sleeping and also the international sign for I'm Trying To Plug My Ears Here, People. They turned off the TVs then. Thank you.

At 9pm the bus stopped for a pee break at some large dark building off the dark highway; a bin of identical blue plastic sandals was set outside the door as borrowed shoes so we could walk out to the rest room.

The "rest room" was a long cement slab under a corrugated roof, the floor separated by waist-high dividers, like a number of horse stalls. In each division was a pair of bricks. I didn't want to inhale in there, the stench was so bad. You squatted on the bricks, bearing your bum to the other women in line, and peed straight onto the concrete. Flushing? Toilet paper? Soap? No such dream. Absolutely squalid.

"This is the worst I have ever seen" said Lady Elise appreciatively. And she's traveled all over Africa and lived in Cameroon for 2 years. So it must be bad. But with traveling, I'm learning, one gains a certain adaptability and resourcefulness, which accumulates slowly over a period. Had this been day 1 of my trip I would have wriggled and writhed. But now? No problem. (carry your own soap and TP and don't think too much)

Back on the bus. It crawled, jerkily, painfully slow through what I could only imagine was construction or some major flooding caused by all the rain we've been having. I lay there, grateful that I was aloof enough about the experience to not care whether I fell asleep or not. It is the over-eager grasping at sleep, in a quiet panic "oh I must get rest!", that chases it away. I realized I had slept only when I awoke again.

At the deeply disquieting hour of 4am. The bus had stopped. The world was still. No bumping, no engine noise. Silence. "Oh we must be at a necessary pee-stop" I thought groggily and climbed towards the front of the bus and outside.

I was in a waste land. A waste land of silent, waiting--stretched as far as I could see--trucks and buses. This was eerie, especially at 4am without one's contacts, especially since it was so quiet. Not an engine was running. Why was everyone stopped? Was this a huge traffic jam? A flood? Where were we?

I climbed back aboard and tried not to think about it and slept again until the bus moved at 6am. An hour later the noise pollution of the TVs came back on. But at least we were moving. Although the bus men must have had bladders of steal (or were peeing out the windows, who knows) because they didn't stop to let all of us relieve ourselves until 9am (more cement). That's 12 hours without a break. I was very thirsty but didn't want to drink because I was also very bladdery, and didn't want to risk building a reservoir.

At 11:30am, hours after our planned arrival time (and consuming an entire bag of banana chips), we finally arrived in Hanoi. Which, incidentally, wasn't the center of the city at all, but 20 kilometers outside the main city. (whaaaaa? we weren't told anything about that!) Amazingly, though, in our stranded lost searching about, we encountered a lovely Mr. Englishman, who was sitting out having a coffee. He looked at us, telling us later he had thought, "two fair-haired girls! I shall say hello to them!" He'd been teaching English here and hadn't spoken with an English-speaker for 2 weeks and was eager for proper conversation. We shared hot drinks then, and--blessedly!--he needed a taxi into town as well, so we all split one. We spent the rest of the evening talking about accents, books, and food, and eating salads and sharing wine.

What a day.