Journey to Bao Binh and Monday 25th July, bus station and bread
I can’t sleep. It’s 4.57am. It’s too hot to sleep. The problem with sharing a room with a fellow traveller is that you have to compromise. Seb doesn’t like noise. It keeps him awake so we opt for the quiet air conditioning to the loud whirring of the fan. Also, he doesn’t like air conditioning; so it being on is for my benefit. But the temperature it’s turned to, it might as well be not on, I don’t need a blanket and I still can’t sleep. So in my pyjamas and trainers, I’m tapping at this computer downstairs. One of the reception guys is next to me doing something on the other computer. I had hoped the sofa would be free so I can crash there but it’s occupied by whom I can’t tell as everything is still dark outside and in that area of the room. Every now and then I’m scratching my knees and my upper thigh at mosquitoe bites. It’s not attractive and the guy next to me can see but I don’t care, the bites are bloody itchy. Here’s the lowdown on the past couple of days.
Monday 25th July —
The night before my 3rd cousin (who I call 3rd sister) had called left a message for us that instead of coming at the proposed 7am, she was going to come at 8am. So we had an extra hour sleep. After a quick coffee and a bit of bread; I left Seb talking to 2 very pretty French girls, who choose not to speak English and choose to not see me at all quite blatantly that I do the same now, in search of as many ATMs as I could find. We had calculated that I needed 14,000,000 dongs still to collect for my relatives. I found 4 within the vicinity. Trying not to look dodgy; having to take my card out every time to get my next 2,000,000 dongs; I came back once to the hotel to see if my 3rd cousin was there yet – luckily she was running late and Seb was occupied by the ladies so I ran out again hoping to find another ATM; feeling if I go back to the same ATMs which are normally situated in stores, the owners would call the police; I finally got my 14,000,000 escaping police attention and dodging motorbike taxis or rental salesmen and the many who are selling their goods, constantly calling out to you like lawn alarms every time you walk near even though you’ve said ‘no’ to them how many times.
When I got back, 3rd cousin was there with Seb. We left taking a taxi to the bus station. The bus stationin Binh An is large, filled with buses sat in their own smoke and sharing plumes of pollution with us. There’s a line of brightly coloured umbrellas in the middle outlining food and other goods stalls.
I found another ATM at the bus station but, like the French in Vietnam with everyone other than their own (I’ve been told and have recently witnessed), chose to ignore my attempts of interaction and spat out my card. Great. I had an wad of untouchable 14,000,000 dongs in my bag and I needed some spending money.
After buying the tickets, we had to wait 30 minutes. We’d be sitting in the bus and people selling shirts, bread, chewing gum, lottery tickets etc came on, and attempted to woo the cash from your zipped pockets and purses. Seb bought a fan and a shirt; very thin and quality material; 3rd cousin saw it and told us it was second hand after looking at the almost washed out label; I told Seb who told me he knew; the material was thin and it was a good price. 3rd cousin bought a bag of bread. The bread is good here, soft yet crispy. I asked her if there was bread where we’re going imagining we’re going to some dark hole that never evolved. She said yes, but they’re just different over there. The journey took almost 3 and a half hours, non-stop, not good if you have a weak bladder. Luckily mine was behaving itself. In London, I’ve seldom had to calculate the sunny side of a bus; here, my 3rd cousin does. She tells me the seats I’ve chosen are on the sunny side, after I’ve put my bags away and got comfortable. She looks around and tells me that we can move later because it doesn’t look busy. She was right. After having the bearing sun on me for 10 mins, I moved to a seat on the other side of the bus; slept and then found the sun had followed me; I would sit back next to Seb again. There is no air conditioning so you have a choice; open the windows and have polluted air rush in or no window and breathing as though you have your head covered in a plastic bag. The window stayed open. City scenery slowly made way to more greenery including fields of corn that reminded me of ‘Children of the Corn’. We were not going to see another tourist or Western person for the next 2 days. I didn’t care; they tended to be French anyway; and Seb welcomed the idea of not doing the tourist thing.
A bus journey is something to experience. The driver constantly honked his horn; while ‘the conductor’ shouted at passing motorbikes and slow vehicles to get out of his way, also yelling out our destination to anyone who may be waiting by the side of the road and wanted a ride. One time, the bus slowed down and the conductor jumps off and with loud fast Vietnamese, grabbed the woman’s arm and hiked her up and off the bus roared again. Seb noted that the money goes into these guys’ pockets and not the bus company’s. Another time, we stopped outside the Vietnamese equivalent of a garden centre and a couple of men jumped off, heaved a dozen waiting bushes neatly sitting by the roadside on to the bus filling up the remaining space, jumped back on and off we went again. And if you’re lucky enough, like me, you’ll get to endure a journey where some woman’s foot is stuck through the gap between seats and windows; this one had a hole in her stocking giving me an eye full of her blackened toenails and a whiff of I-dare-not-conjure-up-in-mind-again smell. I nudged ‘it’ a couple of times but it didn’t make any difference. I had to endure the alien intruder for the whole journey. At one time, she hugged the back of my seat with me still sitting there. Personal space woman, ever heard of such a thing?! Everything is done at an amazing speed that you really have to prepare your things well ahead of jumping off or I’m sure you’d be pushed off and yelled at.
We finally arrived at a small village; a few houses and stalls – sometimes stalls look like houses and vice versa; you’d walk up to people eating thinking it’s a food stall and realise it’s a family eating their dinner in their open living room and vice versa – and it felt like we were far from civilisation. 3rd cousin told us we can wait at 7th cousin’s place nearby. We walk there in the dry burning afternoon heat. 3rd cousin had bought me a hat at the bus station when I told her I had lost mine. Lose anything in Vietnam and you’re unlikely to see it again. I realise why when I see how my relatives live.
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It’s 6am, 28th July. I’ve got to finishing packing. We had hoped to get our passports back and head off to Hue or Hoi An but we didn’t so we’re going to Muine Beach for a couple of nights before coming back here. I’m tired and I don’t know what I’ve written. Will finish later.
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Life isn’t a matter of milestones but of moments 
Tags: Bao Binh, Farm Life, Market, Travel
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