From Bad to Worse

I was a little worried about going to Vietnam. Everything I had heard from other travelers suggested a somewhat aggressive and hectic scene. And my first few days in Vietnam have pretty much bore this out.

Crossing the border was pretty uneventful so at least we had a good start. We had heard a story the day before about a woman being turned away because her visa was a little smudged. As this border had only opened to westerners in the last 10 months I had the feeling anything was possible. The border crossing is pretty ominous. You get off the bus and walk down this long dirt road toward a very imposing looking structure in the absolute middle of nowhere. Everyone entering the country has their information processed by hand so for an entire busload of people this takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. This gave us time to change money with unsavory characters and check out the restroom situation.



Now this bathroom might not look so bad - toilet paper, seat, no little hose. But what you need to check out are the feet prints ON the seat. So even if you wanted to sit down you really can't because the seat is so caked with mud from people standing on it. It was quite a disappointment and a bad omen for the rest of the journey.



The next bad news was the realization that there were no stores or restaurants open because of the continuing New Year's/Tet holiday. Translation - no food for us for the 13.5 hour busride. Some students took pity on us and gave us half a loaf of stale white bread and some sticky rice. When they offered us pidgeon on a stick I pretended I was a vegetarian - it was really gross looking.

Speaking of gross I did see something that registered really high on the gross meter during this trip. The woman sitting across from us got sick at one point. Granted she was pregnant and the ride is very bouncy. And I'll give her credit for having a plastic bag (which had probably contained her lunch.....both times). After wretching (very loudly) into the bag she casually tossed it out the window - not tied up or anything - into a pretty busy street. Ugh - totally gross. For a brief moment I was thankful to not have any food.

Immediately upon crossing into Vietnam you could tell you were in a different place. For almost the first time since I left Thailand I saw paved roads, electicity, irrigation systems - essentially infrastructure. While parts of Vietnam are surely poor they are nothing compared to Laos.

We arrived exhausted in Vinh at about 9 pm. This was our changing point for a bus to Hanoi that left in the am. Vihn is nothing to write home about and I'll leave it at that.

After the cramped experience of the bus the day before we decided to take a nicer bus for the 5-8 hour (depending on who you believe) trip to Hanoi. Unfortunately all did not work out as planned and we ended up on a regular, cramped, local bus headed north. It was particularly bad timing as the Tet holiday was ending and many folks were returning to Hanoi after a week of vacation.

In theory our minibus should seat 23 people. This is 23 without any aisle mind you. 5 rows of 4, a driver and a few left over here and there. At our most full we had 32 people. There is nothing delicate about this experience. You are shoved and pushed into a seat, your luggage becomes part of the floor, and your knees are by your ears. The horn is contantly on and the conductor spends him time leaning out the open door pulling people off the street onto the bus. Everytime you think no one else can get on....someone else gets on.



I know understand why the Vietnamese are so tiny. It's not a matter of diet, attractiveness or anything like that. It's all about survival and portability. You cannot travel anywhere if you weight over 140 lbs. Michael and I are simply enormous by comparison. While cramped on this crappy ride I was quite jealous of the three young students sitting to my left with their legs dangling off the seat with about 6 inches of legroom while Michael and I were negotiating about whose legs could go where.

Getting off the bus is an adventure in itself. When your "stop" (there are no real stops) is approaching you crawl over the people and seats in front of you while the bus is continuing along at normal speed. Remember, there is no aisle here. When you get to your stop the door opens, the bus slows down, and you jump out. This is not for the meek.