Elise had headed off that morning, I meet up with Kat and Mike for breakfast and Kat had managed to find some ball bearings for her bike so we put it that back together and then I spent the rest of the morning packing and relaxing before we headed away. I must have slept wrong last night and had woken up with a sore back, we were thinking about going to the beach but that was out of the question now, I headed off to find a place where I could get my back massaged.
I managed to find somewhere and got them to work on my back, it was pretty good and my back was feeling a lot better afterwards it was still sore and I was not looking forward to a night on the bus. We had packed up our bags and had them waiting down stairs it was just a case of loading up and heading to meet the bus. We headed around and grabbed some food and then went to the travel agents where we thought we would be meeting the bus. The bus was supposed to be there at 5:30pm at 6pm we were taken around to a street a few blocks away and left there. This is where you have to start wondering what is going on and what sort of dodgy deal we had got ourselves into. We had been there about 10minutes wondering what was going when a couple more passengers were dropped off , about 10 minutes after that the bus finally turned up so we striped the bikes down and they were all loaded in. Hopefully they would make it and there would not be too much damage.
Once we were all loaded we piled on the bus and found our seats, the worst thing ever we were at the back of the bus, this was not good, memories from old returned of painful bus journeys when stuck at the back of the bus. The bus now was also over an hour late from when it should have left. The sleeper beds were not really that great and they were not like the ones I had seen.
The bus headed out of town with a few more stops, not sure what these were for as we were fully loaded up. But we hit the main road and had the first of hundred or so close calls, I am taking the train next time. After we hit the main road which would have been around 7pm we were soon racing through the traffic at break every bone in your body speeds, well it seemed like it with all the swerving and hard braking going on and the amount of horn blast screaming out.
The road was pretty rough and full of potholes that felt like we were losing half the bus down each time we hit one, my back was screaming at me already and we had hardly been going that long at all, what have I done. I chatted with Zach for a while to keep my mind off of how close we were coming to the oncoming traffic and also joined in the game some English were playing next door to me, any thing to help pass the time.
We were only going for a couple of hours when we had our first stop, and it just happened to be in the same town that Elise was staying in so Zach shot off to find her hotel and in a few minutes returned with Elise, she had hit a head wind for her first day out riding by herself. Bugger. It was good catching up again but this was the last time I will see Elise for a while. We all loaded back up on the bus, some like me reluctant to get back on and Zach held back as long as he could with Elise. Then we were off back on the open road and into the crazy traffic. Fear took hold again. My seat afforded me a view right down the centre of the bus and out the front window, why, why, sometimes it’s best not to be able to see.
Zach and I talked again for some time and then we tried to sleep, ha what a joke, besides the being thrown up in the air every time we went over or through a pot hole or thrown from one side of the bus to the other with all the swerving sleep was pretty elusive. I think between 9:30pm and 1:30am when the bus stopped again I had managed to get an hour of sleep at the most. I again I ask why a bus. The mind has a way of making thing seem not so bad years down the track. Will have learnt from that now. Trains only.
I think the drivers driving got even more erratic after the 1:30am stop, with in the first 15minutes of being back on the road I had counted 6 close calls and maybe 2 bloody close calls were I could see the whites of the other drivers eyes as they went passed the other way, I put my MP3 player on and closed my eyes I figured it was best not to see how close things were coming, tried meditation to block it out as well. Maybe I could be over exaggerating here, I was incredibly tired so things might not have been as bad as I am making, yea right.
I finally gave up with sleep about 5:30am it was just to elusive, I had maybe got 4 hours off and on, so I just sat there and watched the traffic swing passed and just hoped that we would make it to Hanoi with the whole bus. It would be nice to see the north in one piece. We were supposed to get to Hanoi at 6:30am ish yea right, it was 3 hours later that we hit the out skirts of Hanoi, then another hour before we finally made it to the bus stop.
After pulling the bikes out with only minimal damage, we put them back together, my back was feeling worse for wear and I was looking forward to being able to stretch out on a bed and maybe find somewhere to get a massage and some pain relief. I am a cripple once more. We managed to find a hotel with the help of one of the touts, sometimes they are useful, sometimes. Kat and Mike headed off to the Canadian embassy and me and Zach headed out in search of food. After this we headed back to the hotel, my body was yearning for sleep so I surcome to it’s desire and crashed out on my bed for a few hours. In was nice to have a bed again that did not brake hard and swerve all the time.
Later we all headed out for dinner and then it was a early night, some of us had a lot to do the next day, I was not one of them.
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