Welcome to my personal hell

Of course I believe there is a Heaven and a Hell…and I know for a fact that Hell is going to be something akin to taking an Asian sleeper bus.

Plan A: train from Hanoi to Danang. Twice as expensive as the bus and several hours longer. Scratch plan A.

Plan B, two options: Option 1 – sleeper bus. I hate sleeper buses. Asians love them because they can sleep anywhere, anytime, and on command. I have a phobia of falling off the top bunk, getting head lice from the beading, and having my stuff get stolen – and then there’s the incident that I haven’t personally experienced but my friend did where the bus stopped to pick up a hooker who climbed into bed to ‘service’ anyone that wanted. Again, I hate sleeper buses. I’ll add – not all my sleeper bus experiences have been that bad. There was that one time coming back from Guangzhou where we had the bus to ourselves almost but on a whole…did I tell you how much I hate sleeper buses?

So option 2 – take a sit-up bus. Fine. I won’t say perfect cause we are traveling Southeast Asia on a shoestring (a very thin one at that – like, I’m hoping it won’t snap along the way) but seats are better than laying down in my book (if you like sleeper buses, good for you – I suppose we can still be friends). And it’s cheaper. Brilliant.

Fast forward to the next day and let me paint this scene in your mind: a cavity so dark you can’t see who or how many people are in there. The cavity is about 2 metres wide by 1 ½ metres deep by maybe less than a metre high…maybe… Trying to put your bag away, you get yelled at cause you hit someone – yes there was a person back there…oh wait…3 other people back there…and the person in charge is trying to fit another 2 people down there. And you’re lying down…because it’s a (insert the worst adjective you can think of here) sleeper bus! And not only that, it’s the worse one I’ve ever seen and they’re trying to shove me in that tiny black hole up the back above the engine…I did what any self respectable female would have done in this situation. I cried. I don’t do that a lot but this just warranted no other reaction.

I sucked it up, promised myself I’d try, realized I was stopping short of having a panic attack and started praying like a mad woman that God would get me out of this…without loosing money. Hey, just thinking of the bottom line.

And then the transmission blew. We hadn’t left yet, thank goodness, so we can leave the pushing of vehicles till Cambodia, but sure enough, everyone started trickling off the bus and just kind of plonked themselves on the foot path while the driver (and every Tom, Dick and Harry who thought their two cents might be of worth) tried to fix the engine. At 9pm at night. With no lights…tools…expertise…

Fortunately, we weren’t the only foreigners sucked into this mess. So between Jason (my personal hero) and the four Frenchies, he made some phone calls and played a fabulous game of charades. (Its our new party trick – we’ll play when we come to your house and don’t mess with us…we’re good…polar bear in a blizzard in Siberia? Got it.) And got told a million different things but eventually they promised us a new and better bus.

When I saw the new bus coming – well you never saw me run so fast to get on a sleeper and away from that hell hole they were calling a sleeper bus – the new sleeper bus, would probably be considered maybe the first circle if compared to Dante’s nine levels of hell and that other thing we were on was definitely the last circle. But I made a beeline to get a better position on this bus (survival of the fittest man – I don’t go to the gym and lift the 7 kg hand weights for nothing! I’ll be releasing a copy of my ‘how to survive on an Asian bus’ workout video featuring Michael Jackson’s music soon – actually I’m really digging the French 80’s/techno-ish music they’re playing on the bus right now…maybe I’ll use that). So I’m happier…not exactly stoked but I’m doing considerably better now…hey I’m not having an emotional breakdown anymore…just complaining…

At least Hanoi was kind to us. Hoi An better be as good as they say…