Flapping his arms exasperatedly and pointing, a crazy man on the street is alerting us to the fact that we are not where we are supposed to be to catch our bus which is leaving in less than 5 minutes. The lady at the so-called info booth had nodded and gestured we were in the correct location. The freakin' business card they gave us with the address for where to pick up our bus for Hue is a bit inconclusive. We did our second loop of the block searching for the Open Bus that is supposed to take us to Hue, Vietnam. Breaking a sweat and starting to panic, we asked the tourist girl to call the number on the card. After speaking in Vietnamese, she directs us to go further down the street about "9 minutes." We were supposed to report to our bus at 6 pm and its not 6:08 or so. Unsure of what else we could do, we headed in a brisk pace further down the street. I'm sweating and worried we've missed the bus as a bright green bus finally comes into view. It has OPEN BUS written on the front bumper in large letters and reassures us as we draw closer.
Oh the fun of the Open Bus ticket. It means that we've purchased a ticket that will allow us to hop on and off at different intervals of time bus eventually get us to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City for $24USD. Not a bad deal considering how much time we'll get to "enjoy" upon the bus ride. The bus to Hue is supposed to be 14 1/2 hours overnight. Lucky for us, the bus is no where near full and we can each take a row and layout and attempt to sleep. The bus does stop at random places for random intervals of time. It also plays some fantastic Vietnamese music and TV shows. NOT. They are so loud and annoying, I used the remains of my iPod battery to drown out the noise they made. My iPod is now officially dead until I am able to get another docking cord which I'll be able to use with Mike's charger or I find someone else willing to loan me one. Dark days ahead without my lil nano to keep me company. I digress....
At about 7 am, less than an hour from Hue, the bus stops. For no apparent reason we are in a long line with other large buses and the only traffic coming the other direction is bikes and walkers. Joy. At about 10 am, we slowly started to move again. There was some sort of accident on the only bridge crossing for a small river area. So we had nothing to do but sit and wait. It was such a blast since my pod was already dead, the bus was off so the AC was no longer on, and I was too bored to read my book. Oh where are the barrel of monkeys when you need them??
So after 17 hours on a bus, we arrived in Hue. Yippie Skippy. It's pouring rain since we are, after all, traveling during the rainy season here in Southeast Asia. Mike kindly volunteered to search for a place to stay for the night while I did the hard job of watching all of our gear at the bus ticket office inside from the rain. At $3/night, we found a little "hotel" which is really more like a hostel. After getting all of stuff over there in the monsoon, I changed clothes and unpacked all of my dirty laundry. It cost me about $1 to do a kilo & 1/2 or about 3 lbs of clothes. Not too bad of a deal and I get it back folded and dry.
The monsoon continued and Mike and I went to see the flag pole, yippie, the forbidden city (which was actually forbidden to us since it was a Sunday and was closed), and wondered around aimlessly. We managed to find two pagodas to check out and they were extremely peaceful and serene. Ancient and quiet, out of the way, just the two of standing there. It was a moment to just be in and soak up the wondrous scene. Then it started raining again and we gave up. We had some yummy Indian Curry and naan bread for dinner with a beer. The beer was $1 and the equivalent to a 40 in size. Breaking the bank over here with all of our spending ....
Hue is notorious for no night life, so we stayed in and watched Bewitched. Exciting times on the road. :-p
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