sleeper bus not for sleeping

17 + 18 November 2009
Sometimes I can get very uncomfortable when things aren't clean and hygienic, I guess most people do of course. I do like getting dirty though: going camping, driving through the desert, rolling in the mud while paintballing, rolling paint on my pants and hands while I'm painting because I like the feeling, but that's all my own dirt. It's other people's dirt where the problem lies, especially public places like buses make me icky, you just never know for sure what happened to the seat before, the only clues are stuck to the seat.

Back in Hanoi from our relaxing trip to Halong Bay we decide to leave that same evening by Sleeperbus to Ninh Binh, where Tam Coc is (it's like Halong bay but on a river). The Sleeperbus is not just an overnight bus that you sit and sleep on, no, you lie and sleep on it: 42 bunkbeds, 3 rows, made for small Vietnamese people. Ankie and I are the last ones to get on the bus, so the worst seats were left: top bunks, middle row. The beds have just 2 tiny panels on the side to stop you from falling out, the feet of the person behind you are under your head, and you lie on a dirty, leather matrass and a synthetic, furry (used) blanket (see what I mean by icky?) Ankie, of course, was too tall for her bed, and I had the one under the yellow tv-screen playing a Steven Segal movie and impossible to climb into. We hade almost 10 hours of this to go!

I woke up quite a few times from a bumpy, sticky sleep, holding onto my panels so I wouldn't fall out, seeing my pillow lying on someones feet in the bunkbed below, and looking out the window seeing that there was no real road, just a lot of holes and mud, and trucks and other buses passing us in the night. Bu we made it and what an experience it was. I'm glad we did it, but NEVER again (at least not by choice)!

We got to Hue in the morning where we have a few hours until the next bus takes us to Ninh Binh. We walk through Hue a bit but it's raining like crazy, so we're glad we're not staying there that night. Our bus arrives an hour too late and, of course, it's a Sleeperbus! For 4 hours we had to lie down looking at the afternoon pass by in Vietnam. It was a beautiful ride though through the mountains and past lakes, so much luscious green! But like we said before, a Sleeperbus, NEVER again!!