The day started cold and raining. We drank coffee and packed the final items into our backpacks, relieved to had rid ourselves of the souvenirs, and a few items of summer clothing, we had been carrying. The packs were, however, heavier than they had been due to the extra items we had purchased in preparation for the cold weather in China. We met Nam in the lobby at 7:50 AM. Last night we went through the same discussion we had had before our Ha Long Bay trip:
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G- What time will the bus pick us up?
Nam - Be here for breakfast at 7:00 AM.
G- What time will the bus come?
Nam - Breakfast at 7:00 AM.
G- Nam! We don't want to eat breakfast!! What time will the bus come?
Nam - I have taxi pick you up at 8:00 AM.
G- Ok. We will be here, waiting for the taxi, before 8:00 AM.
Nam - Ok.
The taxi was not yet outside the door.
P- Good morning, Nam.
Nam - Good morning. You ready for taxi?
G- We're ready. We must leave today because our visas expire today.
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Nam - I call taxi.
We stood, wearing our packs, watching the rain fall. At 8:00 AM Nam called again and went outside, pacing in front of the hotel.
P- Why wasn't this arranged ahead of time? He should've called last night and arranged for the taxi to be here this morning.
G- I don't know. Maybe that's not allowed.
P- Why wouldn't it be?
G- I don't know. Could be some crazy rule.
P- What if we miss our bus?
G- We won't miss our bus.
P- (sticking her head out of the door) Nam, how far is the bus station?
Nam - It not far.
P- We can't miss our bus. We have to leave Vietnam today.
G- Gladys! Come in here and sit down! Stop stressing the poor boy.
P- He's stressing me. We can't miss our bus.
G - Gladys, we won't miss the bus. I'm sure Nam will get us on the bus even if he has to have the taxi chase the bus down on the freeway and make it stop so we can get on, he will make sure we get on the bus. Calm down.
P- This chaos stresses me out!! You know I don't even like being on buses. Weren't we told we have to go through mountains to get to China? It's raining and what if there is a mudslide?
G- They're little mountains. We going on a main highway. There won't be a mudslide. Look, the taxi is here.
Nam - (poking his head inside) Come! Taxi here.
We crammed one backpack into the tiny trunk and put the other one between us on the back seat. Nam jumped into the passenger seat and gave the driver instructions in Vietnamese. Soon we were driving, in what seemed like circles, through the streets of the Old Quarter, until we emerged onto a larger street and stopped. It became clear that Nam did not know exactly where to find the bus. He got out and talked to someone standing in front of a building. It was 8:25 AM. The rain poured down. Gladys continued to mumble about the dangers of being on the bus in this bad weather and about missing the bus entirely. I'm not sure which was her greatest concern.
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Nam got back into the car and pointed behind us, across the street. The taxi driver made a u-turn, across 4 lanes, and drove against traffic before pulling into a parking space next to the bus. I closed my eyes. Gladys gripped my thigh in an apparent attempt to locate my femur, and mumbled a string of curses. I was just thankful that the bus was still there. Our backpacks secured in the luggage compartment, we climbed on board and selected seats in front of a European looking couple. People continued to arrive and get on board. I assumed that they were waiting for all of the passengers before they would leave. Ultimately, we left at 8:50 AM.
We sat bundled in our coats and scarves because the bus was freezing. I caught the eye of the shivering Vietnamese man sitting across from us and made some body and hand gestures to him.
P- What are you doing?
G- I'm gesturing to that guy asking him to ask the bus driver to turn on the heat.
P- You look like you're doing a hand puppet without the puppet.
G- That's my talk to them gesture.
P- And what was the first thing?
G- That was my 'I'm freezing' gesture.
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He nodded and yelled something to the front of the bus. The bus matron yelled something back and he looked at me and shrugged.
P- It doesn't look like we're going to get heat.
G- Apparently not.
The rain did not relent, but the countryside steadily became more mountainous, and rice fields were tucked in little valleys. After driving for a few hours, we stopped at a very clean restaurant/rest stop. The bus matron made an announcement, in Vietnamese; presumably about how long we'd stay at this location.
P- You hungry yet?
G- Not really. I wonder if we'll be here long enough to eat.
P- Let's go to the bathroom and see what the other people do.
G- Wow! Really nice bathroom! Well, it appears that they're all eating noodle soup.
I'm not eating noodle soup at 10:30 AM.
P- Neither am I, but I would like to buy this little bag of biscuits for later.
Back on the bus we drove for several more hours before stopping at a building where we picked up a few more passengers. A woman got off the bus.
G- I wonder where she's going.
P- Maybe to the bathroom.
G- Do you have to go?
P- Not really. Do you?
G- Not enough to go in there.
P- That concrete building without a roof! That's the bathroom.
G- That appears to be the case. She getting rained on whi...... Oh my gawd!!
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P- What?
The lady in front of us looked out of the window and began laughing. She said something, in Vietnamese, to the woman in front of her and they both laughed. I grabbed my camera.
G- Damn rain! I can't get a good picture through this water streaked window.
P- I cannot believe that woman did not face the other way.
G- How can she not know that her ass is hanging out of the doorway?
P- Maybe she just doesn't care.
G- How can she be over the hole?
P- Who in the hell knows. Maybe she's not.
She yanked up her pants and ran back to the bus as we all tried to stop laughing. A few minutes later we were on the road again.
G- Geez! Does this music have to be so loud?!? I'm trying to write and I can't even hear myself think.
P- It wasn't so bad, but that last song must have been the bus driver's favorite because the minute it came on, he turned it up so loud. At least he hasn't been honking as much as other bus drivers.
G- Do you have the ear plugs?
P- I think you put them in your backpack. Lift it off the floor and I'll get them out.
G- Well, they don't completely block out the noise, but it's better.
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P- What?
G- Nevermind.
Around 1:30 the bus pulled into a large parking lot and stopped.
G- I hope we're stopping for lunch.
P- Me too. I'm hungry now.
G- Now I'm thinking it's not lunch. Maybe we're at the border.
P- The border with China?
G- Yes, I think so. Look at the little golf cart type things. I guess they're going to drive us up the hill. They're pulling the luggage out and stacking them on the carts.
P- Should we take all of our stuff off the bus?
G- We should definitely take our daypacks. I'm not leaving anything.
P- You think the bus is going to drive around and meet us on the other side? That's what happened when we crossed from Singapore to Malaysia.
G- I don't know. Why does it matter?
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P- Because I think I'm going to leave the biscuits, my water, and my book in the seat pocket. You think that would be ok?
G- I don't know. I guess so. Do whatever you want.
The rain continued to fall as we were driven up to the Vietnamese border building where we turned over our passports to be inspected. Even though there were 3 windows, each with a guard, no lines were formed; instead they charged the windows in a pack and handed their passports over one another as though there was a limited supply of exit stamps. The guards took our exit papers and stamped our visas with the exit stamps. We then exited that building and walked down the path and up the stairs in the no-man's-land between Vietnam and China. Once inside the Chinese border building we completed our entry papers and stood in line to have our passports inspected and stamped.
P- I've never been nervous before, but for some reason I'm nervous about this border crossing.
G- I am too, but I doubt we need to be. It's probably just all of the anti China propaganda we've heard our whole lives.
P- I hope they don't take our Lonely Planet guide.
G- I read that sometime they do, but I hope not.
A cute, young guard (Chinese Opie Taylor) inspected our passports. As his supervisor looked on, he maintained a very professional, serious, and quasi-threatening look on his lil baby face, and although I tried to return his seriousness, I couldn't help myself and I smiled at him. With a curt 'thank you' he returned my passport and I went to find Phyllis.
G- What do we do now?
P- Well, when I walked up those three guys just kept looking at their computer screen so I went up to them and made hand motions indicating 'what now' and they pointed to my backpack and then to that scanning machine.
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G- Oh, so I should put my stuff through the scanning machine?
P- Yeah, I guess so. That's what I did but I'm not sure why because no one even looked at the screen as my bags were scanned.
G- I'm not sure why we were worried about this border crossing.
Our golf cart thing was waiting outside the building and we loaded our luggage on and jumped aboard. We rode up the hill, stopping at the guard's shack to have our passports inspected again, to a parking lot where a NEW bus awaited us.
P- Shit! It's a different bus.
G- Ugh! Yes it is. Damn! I guess we should have known that this would happen.
P- Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! I left my book with my special bookmark from my PeePaw's funeral in it. The cookies too.
G- I'm sorry muffin. I should have told you not to leave anything but I thought we'd get back onto the same bus.
P- It's not your fault. I should have known better. Dammit! I'm very upset about my PeePaw bookmark, and I was only half way through my book.
G- I know it's not my fault, but I'm usually the one who thinks of, and prepares for, all the things that could possibly happen. I shouldn't have let you leave your stuff on that bus.
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P- Argh!!!!!
Phyl beat herself up for a while and was clearly upset. By this time we were getting hungry, so we ate most of the small bag of pretzels that we had with us and shared a bottle of water. The weather was horrible and it was difficult to see out of the fogged up windows, but we could tell that the landscape was beautiful.
G- This reminds me of Ha Long Bay, but on land and surrounded by farm fields.
P- It's very pretty. I wish the weather was better.
G- Every little town we pass looks fairly new, at least the building construction looks new.
P- They're painted in pretty colors.
G- I know. I'm surprised by that. I guess if you live in that town and don't like that color you're up shit creek since every building and home in the town is painted the same color, but at least they are a color and not just gray concrete like the apartment complexes in Russia.
After riding for about 30 minutes we stopped at another military check point. Instead of dress uniforms, these lil boy soldiers were wearing blue fatigues and carrying very large, black guns. One spoke to the bus driver outside of the bus while the other one walked down the aisle checking everyone passport. He paid little attention to us, but targeted 2 Chinese people and went through their bags.
P- (whispering to G) I wonder why he's inspecting their bags.
G- Shhhhhhh! I don't know. Maybe just to make sure their not bringing back contraband.
P- What would be considered contraband other than the obvious?
G- How in the hell would I know, Gladys?
P- You'd think he'd be more interested in searching our bags.
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G- I guess we just look like tourists. I am surprised that they all seem totally unconcerned with us. I had thought that as Americans we'd be inspected more closely.
P- Me too, but I'm glad we're not.
The soldiers disembarked and we drove for another hour before stopping at a rest stop. We used the bathroom, then went into the attached store. It was about 3:30 pm.
P- I am starving!!! What smells good?
G- I think you're smelling those red wieners turning on that rotisserie machine. That seems to be the only thing to eat.
P- I never thought I'd want a wiener as badly as I do now. Do we have money?
G - We don't have any Yuan, but we still have a lot of Dong.
P- We're close to the boarder, don't you think they'll take the Dong? Go ask.
G- Why do I have to ask? How am I going to ask? When I came in I asked her if wieners were the only cooked food they had and she looked at me like I was crazy. I don't believe she speaks English.
P- Well do some charades to get her to understand. You're good at that.
G- Sigh.
I pulled out my wallet and some Dongs and pointed at them, then pointed to the wieners. The salesgirl shook her head NO.
P- No wiener for you!
G- We can't buy anything because we don't have any money.
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P- In every other country the border towns would take the other country's money.
G- Well, China doesn't do that. Whah! I'm hungry! I want a wiener!
P- I never thought I'd hear you say that, but I want a wiener too. Whah!
G- Oh well, let's get back on the bus. I think I have 3 oreos and a few pretzels left.
Walking down the aisle of the bus, we spotted several people with the wieners on a stick.
Red dye and pig pieces parts had never before appealed to us as they did just then. The whole bus smelled of them and our stomachs growled. Phyl again bemoaned leaving her book, PeePaw bookmark, and now most importantly, a bag of biscuits, on the old bus. The rain continued to beat against the windows, but we were delighted to find that the Chinese do not speed along honking their horns every 2 minutes. This might have been our hungriest bus ride, but it was our quietest.
Nam - Be here for breakfast at 7:00 AM.
G- What time will the bus come?
Nam - Breakfast at 7:00 AM.
G- Nam! We don't want to eat breakfast!! What time will the bus come?
Nam - I have taxi pick you up at 8:00 AM.
G- Ok. We will be here, waiting for the taxi, before 8:00 AM.
Nam - Ok.
The taxi was not yet outside the door.
P- Good morning, Nam.
Nam - Good morning. You ready for taxi?
G- We're ready. We must leave today because our visas expire today.
We stood, wearing our packs, watching the rain fall. At 8:00 AM Nam called again and went outside, pacing in front of the hotel.
P- Why wasn't this arranged ahead of time? He should've called last night and arranged for the taxi to be here this morning.
G- I don't know. Maybe that's not allowed.
P- Why wouldn't it be?
G- I don't know. Could be some crazy rule.
P- What if we miss our bus?
G- We won't miss our bus.
P- (sticking her head out of the door) Nam, how far is the bus station?
Nam - It not far.
P- We can't miss our bus. We have to leave Vietnam today.
G- Gladys! Come in here and sit down! Stop stressing the poor boy.
P- He's stressing me. We can't miss our bus.
G - Gladys, we won't miss the bus. I'm sure Nam will get us on the bus even if he has to have the taxi chase the bus down on the freeway and make it stop so we can get on, he will make sure we get on the bus. Calm down.
P- This chaos stresses me out!! You know I don't even like being on buses. Weren't we told we have to go through mountains to get to China? It's raining and what if there is a mudslide?
G- They're little mountains. We going on a main highway. There won't be a mudslide. Look, the taxi is here.
Nam - (poking his head inside) Come! Taxi here.
We crammed one backpack into the tiny trunk and put the other one between us on the back seat. Nam jumped into the passenger seat and gave the driver instructions in Vietnamese. Soon we were driving, in what seemed like circles, through the streets of the Old Quarter, until we emerged onto a larger street and stopped. It became clear that Nam did not know exactly where to find the bus. He got out and talked to someone standing in front of a building. It was 8:25 AM. The rain poured down. Gladys continued to mumble about the dangers of being on the bus in this bad weather and about missing the bus entirely. I'm not sure which was her greatest concern.
Nam got back into the car and pointed behind us, across the street. The taxi driver made a u-turn, across 4 lanes, and drove against traffic before pulling into a parking space next to the bus. I closed my eyes. Gladys gripped my thigh in an apparent attempt to locate my femur, and mumbled a string of curses. I was just thankful that the bus was still there. Our backpacks secured in the luggage compartment, we climbed on board and selected seats in front of a European looking couple. People continued to arrive and get on board. I assumed that they were waiting for all of the passengers before they would leave. Ultimately, we left at 8:50 AM.
We sat bundled in our coats and scarves because the bus was freezing. I caught the eye of the shivering Vietnamese man sitting across from us and made some body and hand gestures to him.
P- What are you doing?
G- I'm gesturing to that guy asking him to ask the bus driver to turn on the heat.
P- You look like you're doing a hand puppet without the puppet.
G- That's my talk to them gesture.
P- And what was the first thing?
G- That was my 'I'm freezing' gesture.
P- It doesn't look like we're going to get heat.
G- Apparently not.
The rain did not relent, but the countryside steadily became more mountainous, and rice fields were tucked in little valleys. After driving for a few hours, we stopped at a very clean restaurant/rest stop. The bus matron made an announcement, in Vietnamese; presumably about how long we'd stay at this location.
P- You hungry yet?
G- Not really. I wonder if we'll be here long enough to eat.
P- Let's go to the bathroom and see what the other people do.
G- Wow! Really nice bathroom! Well, it appears that they're all eating noodle soup.
I'm not eating noodle soup at 10:30 AM.
P- Neither am I, but I would like to buy this little bag of biscuits for later.
Back on the bus we drove for several more hours before stopping at a building where we picked up a few more passengers. A woman got off the bus.
G- I wonder where she's going.
P- Maybe to the bathroom.
G- Do you have to go?
P- Not really. Do you?
G- Not enough to go in there.
P- That concrete building without a roof! That's the bathroom.
G- That appears to be the case. She getting rained on whi...... Oh my gawd!!
The lady in front of us looked out of the window and began laughing. She said something, in Vietnamese, to the woman in front of her and they both laughed. I grabbed my camera.
G- Damn rain! I can't get a good picture through this water streaked window.
P- I cannot believe that woman did not face the other way.
G- How can she not know that her ass is hanging out of the doorway?
P- Maybe she just doesn't care.
G- How can she be over the hole?
P- Who in the hell knows. Maybe she's not.
She yanked up her pants and ran back to the bus as we all tried to stop laughing. A few minutes later we were on the road again.
G- Geez! Does this music have to be so loud?!? I'm trying to write and I can't even hear myself think.
P- It wasn't so bad, but that last song must have been the bus driver's favorite because the minute it came on, he turned it up so loud. At least he hasn't been honking as much as other bus drivers.
G- Do you have the ear plugs?
P- I think you put them in your backpack. Lift it off the floor and I'll get them out.
G- Well, they don't completely block out the noise, but it's better.
G- Nevermind.
Around 1:30 the bus pulled into a large parking lot and stopped.
G- I hope we're stopping for lunch.
P- Me too. I'm hungry now.
G- Now I'm thinking it's not lunch. Maybe we're at the border.
P- The border with China?
G- Yes, I think so. Look at the little golf cart type things. I guess they're going to drive us up the hill. They're pulling the luggage out and stacking them on the carts.
P- Should we take all of our stuff off the bus?
G- We should definitely take our daypacks. I'm not leaving anything.
P- You think the bus is going to drive around and meet us on the other side? That's what happened when we crossed from Singapore to Malaysia.
G- I don't know. Why does it matter?
G- I don't know. I guess so. Do whatever you want.
The rain continued to fall as we were driven up to the Vietnamese border building where we turned over our passports to be inspected. Even though there were 3 windows, each with a guard, no lines were formed; instead they charged the windows in a pack and handed their passports over one another as though there was a limited supply of exit stamps. The guards took our exit papers and stamped our visas with the exit stamps. We then exited that building and walked down the path and up the stairs in the no-man's-land between Vietnam and China. Once inside the Chinese border building we completed our entry papers and stood in line to have our passports inspected and stamped.
P- I've never been nervous before, but for some reason I'm nervous about this border crossing.
G- I am too, but I doubt we need to be. It's probably just all of the anti China propaganda we've heard our whole lives.
P- I hope they don't take our Lonely Planet guide.
G- I read that sometime they do, but I hope not.
A cute, young guard (Chinese Opie Taylor) inspected our passports. As his supervisor looked on, he maintained a very professional, serious, and quasi-threatening look on his lil baby face, and although I tried to return his seriousness, I couldn't help myself and I smiled at him. With a curt 'thank you' he returned my passport and I went to find Phyllis.
G- What do we do now?
P- Well, when I walked up those three guys just kept looking at their computer screen so I went up to them and made hand motions indicating 'what now' and they pointed to my backpack and then to that scanning machine.
P- Yeah, I guess so. That's what I did but I'm not sure why because no one even looked at the screen as my bags were scanned.
G- I'm not sure why we were worried about this border crossing.
Our golf cart thing was waiting outside the building and we loaded our luggage on and jumped aboard. We rode up the hill, stopping at the guard's shack to have our passports inspected again, to a parking lot where a NEW bus awaited us.
P- Shit! It's a different bus.
G- Ugh! Yes it is. Damn! I guess we should have known that this would happen.
P- Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! I left my book with my special bookmark from my PeePaw's funeral in it. The cookies too.
G- I'm sorry muffin. I should have told you not to leave anything but I thought we'd get back onto the same bus.
P- It's not your fault. I should have known better. Dammit! I'm very upset about my PeePaw bookmark, and I was only half way through my book.
G- I know it's not my fault, but I'm usually the one who thinks of, and prepares for, all the things that could possibly happen. I shouldn't have let you leave your stuff on that bus.
Phyl beat herself up for a while and was clearly upset. By this time we were getting hungry, so we ate most of the small bag of pretzels that we had with us and shared a bottle of water. The weather was horrible and it was difficult to see out of the fogged up windows, but we could tell that the landscape was beautiful.
G- This reminds me of Ha Long Bay, but on land and surrounded by farm fields.
P- It's very pretty. I wish the weather was better.
G- Every little town we pass looks fairly new, at least the building construction looks new.
P- They're painted in pretty colors.
G- I know. I'm surprised by that. I guess if you live in that town and don't like that color you're up shit creek since every building and home in the town is painted the same color, but at least they are a color and not just gray concrete like the apartment complexes in Russia.
After riding for about 30 minutes we stopped at another military check point. Instead of dress uniforms, these lil boy soldiers were wearing blue fatigues and carrying very large, black guns. One spoke to the bus driver outside of the bus while the other one walked down the aisle checking everyone passport. He paid little attention to us, but targeted 2 Chinese people and went through their bags.
P- (whispering to G) I wonder why he's inspecting their bags.
G- Shhhhhhh! I don't know. Maybe just to make sure their not bringing back contraband.
P- What would be considered contraband other than the obvious?
G- How in the hell would I know, Gladys?
P- You'd think he'd be more interested in searching our bags.
P- Me too, but I'm glad we're not.
The soldiers disembarked and we drove for another hour before stopping at a rest stop. We used the bathroom, then went into the attached store. It was about 3:30 pm.
P- I am starving!!! What smells good?
G- I think you're smelling those red wieners turning on that rotisserie machine. That seems to be the only thing to eat.
P- I never thought I'd want a wiener as badly as I do now. Do we have money?
G - We don't have any Yuan, but we still have a lot of Dong.
P- We're close to the boarder, don't you think they'll take the Dong? Go ask.
G- Why do I have to ask? How am I going to ask? When I came in I asked her if wieners were the only cooked food they had and she looked at me like I was crazy. I don't believe she speaks English.
P- Well do some charades to get her to understand. You're good at that.
G- Sigh.
I pulled out my wallet and some Dongs and pointed at them, then pointed to the wieners. The salesgirl shook her head NO.
P- No wiener for you!
G- We can't buy anything because we don't have any money.
G- Well, China doesn't do that. Whah! I'm hungry! I want a wiener!
P- I never thought I'd hear you say that, but I want a wiener too. Whah!
G- Oh well, let's get back on the bus. I think I have 3 oreos and a few pretzels left.
Walking down the aisle of the bus, we spotted several people with the wieners on a stick.
Red dye and pig pieces parts had never before appealed to us as they did just then. The whole bus smelled of them and our stomachs growled. Phyl again bemoaned leaving her book, PeePaw bookmark, and now most importantly, a bag of biscuits, on the old bus. The rain continued to beat against the windows, but we were delighted to find that the Chinese do not speed along honking their horns every 2 minutes. This might have been our hungriest bus ride, but it was our quietest.
