Viet-f-ing-NAM

Feb. 1

Yesterday, I was fuious and Vietnam was the cause.

I should back up a bit.

I was given seat 33 on the bus from Vientiane to Savannaket. I asked if this was by the window--with flawless english the ticket booth attendant assured me it was. I got on the bus and seat 33, an aisle seat, was waiting for me. Because it was a 'VIP' bus...there was a blanket (or at least that was the only difference I could tell between non-VIP buses), but mine was soaking wet. I smelled it, not urine, so although confused I was fine with the situation. Then, as the bus jolted forward a steady stream of water poured out of the ceiling and onto my head. That explains it! Luckily it was all drained onto me within the first ten minutes and I could come out from my wet blanket tent for the rest of the trip.

Then, at one of the stops a little 20 year old guy with a glass eye said hello and stood next to my seat, waiting to see if I would participate in this conversation. I thought about using the normal line "Soy de Espana...no hablo ingles!" but I had sympathy for his eagerness to speak English..even if it was at 2am...so I answered his standard line of questioning and stared at the ground until he went away. It was only later that I realized that he was the one in the back of the bus enthusiastically singing thai pop songs at 4am...keeping me awake. I wanted to strangle him. (he would not be the first)

We pulled into the Savannaket bus station just after 4. So I made like a hobo and found a bench to sleep on until my 6:30 bus. Unfortunately, glass eyed pop singer was hanging around the bus station and belting out 'Killing Me Softly' for me, his English speaking audience. The shirt over my face and prone position did nothing to convince him that I was in fact not at all interested in his rendition of the song nor to dissuade him from sitting right next to me while singing it. Him, combined with the water truck spraying down the dust in the station kept me pretty alert for the next two hours.

Savannaket is, maybe, one notch above ghost town. So at 6am I was surprised to see (and join) 10 men in an otherwise empty bus station fighting to get access to the ticket window. I was confused, as were the other Westerners there except one, an Australian named Julie who is living in Laos and is familiar with the routine. She broke to the front of the line and bought us all tickets. Then I realized...our steed was really a fedex/budweiser/livestock truck that once was a bus. The center section of seats had been removed so that that part of the bus and the roof could hold crates of beer (which I would eventually help to deliver), the aisle was stacked half way to the ceiling with burlap sacks of who knows what and the floor in front of the seats was stuffed with boxes. Not much roof left for people. So it was like this that we started our journey, basically one on top of the other towards to border (and of course stopping intermittently for deliveries).

Entering Vietnam you find it at such a contrast to Laos that it feels like you are entering some sort of netherworld. Hell would be too aggressive, because I think that at one time it actually was like entering hell for thousands of Americans who came here. So hyperbole, maybe, but it is such a striking difference that you can really feel it. Maybe purgatory is more appropriate. Somewhere in Dante's grand scheme, it fits anyway. On top of it all was Tet, or Chinese New Year, which I had heard effectively shuts down the country. Fantastic.

Sunny skies give way to ominous clouds, and smiling faces are replaces by 'surly and unkind.' The Slovenian couple (on the same bus) and Julie made it past the scrutinizing eyes of the border idiots, but they didn't understand my passport with it's non-matching pages and long-haired photo that I guess looks very little like me. But Slovenia! They should have been hassled!

Eventually I was allowed to enter, but was still unprepared to be back in Vietnam. I was caught off guard immediately by their scheming pushiness---13 days in Laos and I had willingly and completely forgotten about Vietnam. The 4 of us with a Japanese guy were hustled into a van to be taken to Hue. Unfortunately I knew how much it should cost, so when the bargaining came down from $18/person to $7 for the 4 hour journey I was still unsatisfied. It should be no more than $5! (see Katherine, I am going crazy--somewhere along the way I forgot the price of sanity) So just like that I left my new travel companions that I was quite fond of, and hoofed it over to the bus station. This is when the real fight began! Delirious from a lack of sleep, I was suddenly invigorated for a fight--and there were plenty to be had.

'20,000 dong' I would yell, last offer! That's when the personification of anger, middle aged woman would come up to me and stare with a look that was pure hatred--only moments away from spitting in my face. And so I stared back, but I think with a little more of a 'I hate you too, but don't understand where your anger could possibly be coming from?' look. I went through less intense negotiations with a couple other vans, but they were empty so I knew it'd be a while before they left. Then, as they evil woman and her husband presumably (mercy be upon his soul) driving had filled up (I thought) and were about to leave I broke a rule of mine (never do business/trust someone with whom you've just minutes before been fighting) and hopped in the van.

My backpack was ripped off of my back and I was pushed into the back of the van. On the way in I felt a seemingly flirtatious pat on the butt and I thought--OK, so we're friends again and this is how it's gonna be. Rowdy. But I was wrong. This woman actually was evil, yelling at every person she packed involuntarily into the van. At one point I counted 21 people in the minivan and I doubt I could see everyone. Then, someone called her on the phone and she fought with them! Where was I!? At one point early on in the journey the woman's friend/sidekick/Dick Cheney type character told me that she would charge me as one person and my backpack as another. On top of all of the harassment and all of the butts in my face I was having seriously full bladder issues (AT what should I have done?) and I almost went for the Bangkok cab from the airport sans plastic bag option.

They dropped me off in Dong Ha, where I would very skeptically get in another van, that although charged too much, did not overcrowd as did the other and was a relatively peaceful experience. Strangely, one of the bus ladies (as I call them) was typically sour faced but then came to sit by me and fell asleep snuggled against my side. What a strange day.

The anger turned to bliss on that second bus ride because for the past month I had been perplexed as to what I should do with our itinerary once Brock comes. We had planned to hang out on the beach, play cards and relax. This isn't possible in Vietnam considering that it is rainy and cold this time of year. And my newfound desire to leave the country ASAP led me to the answer--we would return to Laos and skip the northern half of Vietnam. This would require buying another Laotian visa, but to return to a place like Vang Vieng...it was well worth it.

I arrived into Hue to a cold, overcast, but surprisingly rain-free early evening. I marched over the bridge and found the guest house that I had planned to stay in. At this stage my mood could be described as manic and I was happy to see that the women working at the guest house were similarly upbeat.

The next morning I decided that I would walk around Hue for a bit before catching the afternoon bus to Da Nang to collect Brock. As I was walking the bridge over the Perfume River at 8:30am a motorbike stopped next to me and a man and his wife said hello. I was still in a great mood from figuring out our plans and that I would soon be able to leave this place so I said hello back and kept walking. I thought that maybe their motorbike had stalled, but they soon pulled up again saying hello and asking me where I was from. I told them and they immediately asked me if I would like to come to their house. I said I didn't have much time, but they persisted, saying we could just have a drink. The wife was cute and what harm could there be in meeting a Vietnamese family? So I agreed, we left the wife at the market and headed back to the house--all the way I'm laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. We get back and I find that although his English is not very good, he is an English teacher and wanted a chance to practice and apparently to take in a stranger to celebrate Tet. The family immediately offered to have me stay at their house--we went for a ride around the citadel (Hue is a historically preserved moated city) and by 10am were back with the family in the local bar putting back rounds of beer. Buzzed, I was taken back to my guest house at 11:30 where I started writing this blog entry (almost 2 weeks ago). The bus came soon after and it was off to see Brock for the first time in 4 years!

By telling the bus driver that I had a plane to catch at 5 (not far from the truth) I was able to get us out of the regular restaurant stop and made it to the airport in time to catch Brock's flight. A quick hello and we jumped into a cab.

Meeting again after 4 years, we were coming from very different places. I was convinced to not be ripped off by any more Vietnamese people and Brock was just happy to be on vacation. It wasn't long before our taxi driver refused to drop us off at the place that we had requested (he had another hotel in mind) and I was fully engrossed in a fight with him--at one stage getting Brock and I out of the cab and walking away from him without paying. Welcome to Vietnam! I'm sure Brock was confused (where was the formerly docile American that I once knew?), and I didn't blame him. It would only take a couple of days for him to come around, taking a similar dislike to Vietnam and it would only be a couple more days after that that we would be blissfully headed to Laos.