misadventures on the night bus

After our trek up Mt Fansipan in Sapa, Vietnam, we took the night bus back to Hanoi. On the way down to Sapa from Hanoi we'd gotten crappy seats in the way-back of the bus (the seats wouldn't go fully back since they were up against the back, making sleeping more difficult). We had the same seats on the way back, but luckily the bus wasn't full, so we were able to switch seats - awesome!

It was definitely looking like it would be a much more relaxing trip this time around. But then, everything changed when this old guy got on the bus and sat behind us. At first I didn't notice anything because I was playing a game on my iPhone, but he started poking me, speaking in Vietnamese, and making bizarre attempts at pantomime. At first I thought he was trying to get me to tell Sanne and Mie (who were talking about glitter and ponies and stickers, or whatever girls talk about, and gigglinng loudly) to be quiet. This seemed strange in itself, since this guy was blaring music from his cell phone.

But no, that wasn't it. Turns out that he just wanted to talk with me. As you probably know, I don't speak Vietnamese. But that certainly wasn't about to stop this guy! He prattled on for over half an hour while I nodded, said "mmm hmmm", and constantly repeated "I'm sorry, I don't speak Vietnamese."

After about 5 minutes we had realized that this guy was nuts, and were trying our best to disengage from this guy. It wasn't very easy, though, since he didn't exactly respect normal social cues, like when I put on my headphones and went back to my iPhone. He just poked me to get my attention and kept on going. Mie was seated the furthest away from him, so she was just able to go to sleep. Lucky her! (although karma got her back later when the old guy kept on poking her with his feet while he slept). The old guy was mostly talking to me (lucky me), so Sanne had a chance to avoid him as well. At least, she would have if he wasn't sitting in the aisle and fully leaning his elbow and arm in her seat so he could get closer to me. Good times.

The final straw was when he grabbed my hand and put it on his chest, then put his hand on my chest, all while repeating "Ho Chi Minh." I got desperate and tried to pantomime that it was very late (it was 8:30 PM - sooooooo late!) and I was extremely tired, then shut my eyes and tried to ignore him. Even then he poked me at least 3 times while I was "sleeping" to show me stuff on his cell phone, etc.

Finally he got the hint and went to sleep himself. Hallelujah! The rest of the night passed without incident, except for the half dozen times he poked Mie with his feet while sleeping. I certainly wasn't expecting a simple bus ride to be so dramatic. I guess you never know what kind of adventures await you when you board a bus in Southeast Asia. Never a dull moment!

reenactment of the bus incident - a sleeping me (well, at least I was pretending to be asleep to get some peace and quiet) is poked by a cell phone wielding crazy dude. . .