Wheels of steel

Wednesday, 31/10/2012 – 139 A.D.

I awoke in the night screaming!!!!!! It is Halloween after all...

Nah, not really. I actually drifted off to sleep quite easily after making my way to clean my teeth at the end of the carriage. Standing over the squat toilet while the train is careering around corners is like surfing on a very scary sea. And speaking of being scared, goodness knows what young Vietnamese girl thought of weird lanky English bloke lying across from her on the top bunk watching Apocalypse Now on his laptop. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that she could have been thinking all kinds of worried thoughts…well, actually that’s debatable, given that she was sleeping peacefully as could be. And as for granny down below, she was sleeping more peacefully than anyone else, snoring away as Tim looked up at me with disgust before gesturing to our elderly companion and shaking his head. Guess he was going to need his headphones in to help him get off to sleep. And fortunately I did not have to listen to the wisdom of Karl Pilkington for long before I was ready to lower the eyelids and head for Slumberland.

I was awoken by the PA system blaring some ghastly music, followed by a speech that went on for ages in Vietnamese, then one that went on for a lot less time in English. Daylight was coming through the curtains, but I was too lost in my snooze to take in anything that was being said. Suddenly I was shaken into full awareness by granny, muttering at me in foreign and pointing above my head. Oh yeah, her big bag was still stashed above me and I guess it was her stop. But last night she’d said she was going to Hanoi…or rather, I’d looked at her and said, “Hanoi?” and she’d nodded. ‘Yes, young man,’ she must have thought, ‘Hanoi is the capital city in Vietnam, which is where this train goes, but I am not going there’. And so she left, and I never even caught her name. Upon glancing at my watch I saw it was 06:00 – back to sleep for me!

Although sleeping on the train was a bummer, I did at least have the opportunity to get plenty of hours of shuteye. I think it was approaching 10:00 when I finally came down from my top bunk and munched my way through the “chocolate bun” I’d bought from the mini-mart the day before – it wasn’t actually that bad, might get another one in for the next journey. And while I was down there eating it, young `un was still up above, sleeping away. Given that she first went up about 07:30, she was close to clocking up a good 14 hours! Wot no book to read?!

The train arrived a Da Nang on time – wayhay! No platform for us to alight to, that’s okay, we’ll just walk across the tracks with our big heavy luggage to the station building and hope an express doesn’t whoosh through. There are taxi drivers a-plenty bugging me, but Tim knows where he is going and he’s already halfway across the courtyard outside the front of the building. You see, Tim has suddenly discovered that his phone can do satnav even when it’s not connected to the internet. So, essentially that means that we can pinpoint ourselves on any map in any country at any time and work out where we are and where we need to go! All those bloody cities where we were wandering around like a couple of lost souls without a clue where we were heading! Thing is, it seems to be one of those sat navs which isn’t reliable 100% of the time. In fact, we’re lucky if we get 50% right now…

We made it to the bus stop, or rather we made it to the street which the bus goes along. Who needs an official structure for a bus to stop at when you can just put out your hand and direct it towards you? This would be the 30 – 45 minute journey from Da Nang to the nearby coastal town of Hoi An…no, not Hanoi, Hoi An. And currently we’re in Da Nang, but I’m sure somewhere in Vietnam there is a place called Nang Da. But leaving that aside, we had been told to be wary of scams on this bus. The price was supposedly 15,000 dong, but tourists have regularly been charged 50,000 for the trip. Okay, so we just insist on 15,000 before we get on, right? Apparently the price is written on the side of the bus.

It wasn’t written on the side of the bus. When it turned down the street we held out our hands and it duly stopped. Two doors were open on the vehicle, one at the front, one at the back, and each was guarded by a loud, young conductor. We went to the door at the back and were practically yanked on board, the bus having zoomed off again before we’d even unstrapped the rucksacks from our backs. So much for paying before we got on! Conductor #1 took our bags and put them to one side and we sat down on the back row, the cheap seats. There weren’t that many seats on the bus altogether, most of the space at the back was for luggage, or for people who got on late and didn’t get a seat and had to squat. Like when they go to the toilet.

To be honest, this was probably the worst bus I’ve been on so far during our whole trip, the only saving grace being that it had recently rained in Da Nang, so the temperature was quite cool. But apart from that it was as rough `n` ready as it comes, but at least we weren’t going far. A young, studious girl boarded the bus and sat next to me, so I took my chance and asked if she spoke English – pretty well, as it happened. Then I asked her what the fair to Hoi An was supposed to be. She was very honest saying that the official price was 18,000 dong, but she has heard of tourists being charged anything up to 50,000. But the official price IS 18,000, so if I gave 20,000 then that would probably be fine. I was most grateful for her for the advice, happy that I wouldn’t be scammed by this travelling menagerie that called itself a bus service. However, a few minutes later, Conductor #2 appeared and spoke to my new friend in Vietnamese, gesturing towards Tim and I as he did so. I could see what he was saying – “What have you been telling those idiot foreigners? Have you been saying they can get a cheaper price?” I felt sorry for the poor girl, especially as I was the one who caused all the fuss, but I wasn’t really sure how I could intervene and put things right. This wasn’t hip, urban Saigon anymore, I was up in the midland region of the country, where possibly foreigners weren’t as accepted as they were in the park by the ever-friendly students. My assessment was pretty accurate. After a period of uncomfortable silence, the girl turned back to me and said she’d misunderstood and that the price for foreigners was double that for Vietnamese. She was very apologetic, but I told her that it wasn’t her fault and not to worry. I’d done my research on Vietnam and I knew that in recent memory it was perfectly normal for tourists to be charged up to 400% more for things than locals, so this was kind of expected, even though it was the first time I’d experienced it.

So what to do? I had Conductor #2 hassling me for payment – 40,000 each for Tim and I – but Conductor #1 had already said I could pay on arrival at Hoi An, and not before, which I expressly stated to Conductor #2. It gave me some time to think of a way I could possibly get away without paying the extra. Yeah, yeah, it’s only 20,000 dong, which is under one pound, but it’s the principle of having to pay more because you’re not from around these parts. Like we don’t contribute enough to the local economy just by being here! (and by "we" I mean tourists in general, not just the Grayboys). When Conductor #2 hassled me again for the money some 5 kilometres before arriving at Hoi An, I stalled and claimed that my dad was Vietnamese, making me half-Vietnamese and therefore only having to pay 30,000 dong. It fell on deaf ears, or ears that did not understand. In the end, Conductor #1 sat down next to me and we had a bit of a friendly chat before pulling into Hoi An bus station and I was happy to give him the 40,000…just so long as evil Conductor #2 didn’t get it! At the end of the day, there’s only so much protesting you can do, especially if you’ve spent the night on a sleeper train with someone else’s grandma snoring below you.

[Downtown traffic, Hoi An-style.]

We left the bus station and walked it to our new residence – The Sunshine Hotel. Shame it was overcast, gloomy and soon to rain. How bizarre that the day before I had been sweating through my shirt and today I felt quite chilly…just like being back in England again! But without the hot bit, no? Anyway, the room is fantastic and, get this, the bathroom is THE best we have experienced at any time on our travels! Take that, Angkor Pearl in Cambodia! There’s something about marble in a bathroom that does things to weary travellers.

After chucking our stuff all about the pristine room and making a mess, we waited for the passing shower to go, then headed into town. Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but you’ll hear all about that tomorrow. Tonight we simply went to have a quick meal, finding a decent little restaurant as the rain came down again. We must then have said no to a whole legion of hawkers selling plastic ponchos and umbrellas before we realised that we might actually need a couple ourselves…but were they anywhere to be seen after said realisation? Nope, they’d all hopped it. Why can you never ever find a dodgy hawker selling naff goods when you need one?

[The big, spooky candle was about as Halloween as it got around Hoi An!]