In Vietnam, atomic clocks are not used to start public transportation.
Every trip is an exciting adventure.
And sometimes it gives you familiar, but long-heard sounds.
How much is that?
I left the city of Huế on Sunday evening. In the morning, I still had no idea when. I was already sure that I would take a bus. I wrote about this in the post “How do I decide before a 1,800-kilometer trip?”.
After breakfast, I packed up and asked the receptionist if I could leave my big backpack at the hotel. The imperial city was waiting for me, obviously I didn’t want to carry it.
When asked where I would be staying for the night, I could honestly answer. I don’t know. I told her that I would first look for a bus and then deal with the transportation.
Just a few minutes before, during breakfast, I checked on an app how much and when buses would leave.
She recommended a cheaper minibus. The second huge advantage is that the bus she recommended picks me up at the hotel and drops me off in front of the hotel I chose in the next city. The bus will leave at 9:00 PM or 9:30 PM.
We agreed that I would write her the name of the accommodation, if available.
An hour later I knew where I was staying that day, so I wrote her the address and the name of the hostel.
I didn’t get a response.
So a couple of hours later I asked her if he had booked the bus.
She didn’t answer that either.
I’m not an impatient person. After a quiet day in the imperial city, I asked her a second time if my bus was okay.
So, she had already answered the second question. With a voice message. I understood that the reason for not answering could be that she probably speaks and understands English, but can’t write.
She booked my bus, that’s the point.
I planned my day so that I would be back at the hostel by 8:50 PM.
Around 7:30 PM, I got a message to be at the hotel between 8:20 PM and 8:30 PM. I just smile at these. Here in Asia, you really have to be careful sleeping next to the bus, because a seven-hour delay is just as likely as a 2-hour early departure.
I aimed to arrive at the hostel at 8:20 PM. Unlike buses, I like to be punctual.
The lady called me at 8:15 PM. I was 3 minutes away from her anyway. Where am I going, because the bus will be here soon.
I asked if I could use the bathroom on the ground floor, because I didn’t want to go up to the 4th floor. Maybe I’d miss the bus. Grandma was taking a shower in the downstairs bathroom, so – to avoid a mutual shock – I skipped the ground floor.
I said I would quickly go up to the bathroom on the first floor. Sure, go ahead, was the answer. What was left out of the calculation and approval was that there was no bathroom on the first floor.
But by the time I discovered this on that floor, the bus had arrived.
I had to take a risk. If the bus didn’t stop during the 3-hour journey, I would be in trouble.
So I went up to the second floor. To discover that there was no water block there either. From there it was only a turn to realize that there was none on the third floor. Finally, I found myself on the 4th floor.
The musical accompaniment of urination was the bus’s horn. This is an important lesson. It doesn’t matter whether the bus arrives earlier or later, it doesn’t like to wait very much. If I had a zipper on my pants, I would have run down the stairs and pulled it up. If I had a parachute, I would have jumped from the fourth floor. I wouldn’t have cared if the schedule was disrupted by my physical needs.
On the bus
I already missed riding the bus. Although this sentence made me wonder which emoji best expresses sarcasm.
Actually, I have to talk about two buses, because for some reason that is completely incomprehensible to me, it takes two buses to travel 80 km.
So, I had to transfer to another bus, but that is more of a spice than a problem. More faces, a different side of the road, different smells. It is not negligible that the second driver was silent. The first one was on the phone almost the entire time. This activity turns from a private matter to a public one around 11 pm when he screams into the phone through a megaphone built into his throat.
This is not a problem for me either. If I sleep, I sleep. But for someone who is more sensitive to noise, it is worth preparing for such cases with ear protection.
The other bus was quiet.
And then I noticed the noise.
At first I didn’t even hear it.
Then it reached my consciousness, but I didn’t recognize it.
It took me a while to realize what I was hearing.
The familiar sound fading into the darkness of the past was the bus’s turn signal.
I’ve grown out of that sound.
I don’t think I even noticed it that much.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
Buy a coffee for Steve
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