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27 June: Qua Nhon
What an interesting day, we really got a close up look at daily Vietnamese life and how they act. We had arranged for the only tickets we could find for Qua Non, there was no local bus going there so we needed to take one of their mini taxi's, looks exactly the same as RSA's newer taxi's. We arrived just before 10h30 and sat on the sidewalk waiting to go. One of the men came to collect our bags, but handled it with no respect literally throwing it into the van, squeezing it into the smallest space and trying to shut the door three times, evidencing how snuggly they were packed.
We waited until 11h00, the reason being they wanted to fill the mini van. The total seating was 16, however we varied between 20 and 23 at all times in the van for the total 6 hours duration. Some were unfortunate to sit on small pink plastic chairs about 20 cm from the ground while others sat on others laps. The drivers assistant would continually shout for people who wanted a lift, in one town we drove up and down the road 4 times before having enough people to continue. At the next town the driver suddenly jumped on the breaks, got out and sat down in some make shift food stall ordering a late lunch, while the other 20 of us sat in the taxi for 30 minutes waiting for him, the heat rising by the second.
The most disturbing thing about the whole day was the driving, never have I seen someone drive so recklessly, not thinking twice to pass 18 wheeler trucks on blind turns or hills, driving at 160km, slamming on the breaks regularly. In the end we just closed our eyes and prayed, I think we prayed most of the 6 hours, but we got there.
The events of the day that stood out the most were as follows:
Firstly, Vietnamese people throw everything and anything on the floor, whether its plastic, the remains of fruit, paper and the pealed egg shells.
Secondly, its as if there's an imaginary spitting contest in progress, they are constantly spitting away. So it was with the woman sitting in front of Leanne, she would regularly spit out the window while we were in transit, on one occasion it went out her window and in through Leanne's hitting her on the arm and side of her face. It doesn't matter what you say they just look at you as though there's something wrong with you.
Thirdly, one of the men we picked up threw up just as he was about to climb into the van, rather than think we don't want to drive a sick person around throwing up everywhere, they waited 10 minutes while he continued before we left and he hung halfway out the door, what's the saying, o yes, "its all about the money".
Fourthly, there are no restrictions, if you want to smoke you may. The taxi can fill with smoke, everyone choking and a haze of smoke engulfing the inside, but its okay.
Fifthly, they have no concept of personal space, the woman sitting next to me with her child, constantly leaned against me and the child would at times lie against my shoulder to try and sleep.
Lastly, the child would cough, not holding his hand in front of his mouth or looking down or turning away, no he would look me in the eye and cough, this happened a few times.
Arriving at the bus station the admin didn't stop, first you are swarmed by hungry motorbike taxi's who want to take you into town. Wanting first to find out whether we can get a local bus to Hoi An we walked to the ticket office with our entourage. They were really not very helpful and at first ignored us before telling us that there were no local busses and we would need to take a mini van again.
By this stage my temper had reached its end point. The drivers would literally stand behind you and with their hand on your shoulder pull it down in order to see what you were reading to take you to the specific guest house. While walking away looking on the busses parked everywhere to see where they were going, they tried it again. I grabbed his hand and twisted it hard enough for him to get the picture, but not hurting him. After that at least they kept a more respectful distance. One of the busses I saw standing outside had Hoi An written on it, so we just got a motorbike taxi to take us into town and left things at that.
We were staying at Barbra's guest house, a Kiwi who ran a non profit organization in Vietnam as well as a guest house for everyone who came to help out. The idea was that we would get some good advice staying at her guest house. The problem was that more people thought like that and consequently the price in the book was in fact half of what she asked. A room was $12, a bit much for us, we decided to stay in the dorm room seeing as we were the only ones, it was also very clean, so we didn't mind.
We had only one thing on our mind, we had eaten last at 08h00 the morning and it was already 17h00, we chose a direction and headed there stopping at the second restaurant for dinner. Stomaches full we headed into the market, we stopped along the way for a type of carrot cake although it was a bit dry. On the way back we had an avocado shake, sitting on the side of the road with a friendly family. Their daughter a bit shy, but very inquisitive. Problem is once you've said hallo, most of the conversation ends. After the shake they shared some Vietnamese tea with us, probably because we had only bought one shake. Heading back we looked for cereal and milk, the latter we found but not the other. In the end we decided to leave it and rather enjoy the Vietnamese breakfast while we could.
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