Advertisement
Published: January 2nd 2006
Edit Blog Post
On the road..the first time.
I'm guessing this was taken when the bus was less than 1/2 full. I just had one big laugh about the events that happened last night. It all started when we, Sarah, Claire and myself, set off to catch the bus/minivan to Da Nang yesterday afternoon. We're not even at the corner to cross the street when the minivan pulls up and this guy starts yelling at us to see if we wanted to head North.
We cram ourselves into the back of the minivan...our feet resting atop sacks of rice. As we drive along more and more people pile in. Sarah is slightly claustrophobic and feels like she is in the farthest seat from the door. Someone gets off...the van is still in motion…we start changing seats! Sarah manages to move up one row to be right by the door and get some air. More people pile in. I think at one point we had 22 people in a 12 seater minvan. Crazy and cramped I tell you. Talk about getting to know your neighbour a little better. In fact the lady beside me kept falling asleep and every so often would rest her head on my shoulder...priceless.
It's funny. Someone asked where we're from. So I answered Canada and of course the person asking announces to the entire minivan very loudly several times just to make sure that everyone has heard. Then of course there is a lot of chatter and laughing and you just know they are talking about you. I was thinking I should start telling them I'm from somewhere obscure to really throw them off. Should I say Zaire, Poland or Urguay next time? LOL
Anyway, one numb bum and a cramped leg later we arrive in Da Nang only to bombarded by motorcycle taximen trying to take us somewhere. We wave them all off and walk off a bit to try and determine where it is that we want to go and how much we are willing to pay. We decided to get dropped off near the main bank and look for a hotel around there. So we negotiated a motorbike taxi for 10000 Vietnamese Dong each (that works out to about 65 cents US). The ride was really exhilarating to say the least. Da Nang is the fourth largest city in Vietnam and the traffic was a clear reminder that we were in the City and not in the little town of Tam Ky any longer!
Anyhoo, we arrived at the bank and almost stopped off at a CD shop that had a million and one knock off CD's, DVD's and video games. CD's were selling for 10000VD but I didn't really see anything that I liked (Side note, Jax, did you want the Kelly Clarkson CD? If so, don't get it because I picked up a copy for you!) Soon we were off again to check into a hotel so that we could dump off our backpacks. We negotiated a room for three for $18/night (down from $20). Then came time to check in..."Passports please." "What?"
Can you believe that ALL three of us left our passports back in Tam Ky because we thought it would be safer there then carrying them. (Western logic??) Well, we did not realize that whenever you check into a hotel you have to give them a copy of your passport. DOH! What to do now? The lady was almost willing to let us stay with just a copy of our passport (the organizer of the volunteer program lives in DaNang and he has copies of this) but her manager said that was not acceptable. Hmmm, what to do now?? We tried two more hotels and a guest house and were shot down again.
Our only choice left was to head back to Tam Ky! We got another motorbike taxi and caught the next passing bus to Tam Ky. That meant another 1.5 hours on the bus! But at least this was a full sized bus which meant we weren't crammed as much as in the minivan. We met a nice gentleman and his new bride on the bus who happened to be going to Tam Ky as well and had pretty good English so he helped us know when Tam Ky was coming up.
About six hours after we had left Tam Ky we were back again. So basically I had just spent five hours on public transport to get to/from Da Nang. Whew! We got back to our guesthouse and as we were walking up to the gate I said, "I will laugh so hard if the gate is locked!" Guess what was locked? LOL So we had to hop the fence to get in and face Hannah, Bridget and Karen to let them know our ordeal. Today's haiku is...
Rule Number one
Passport needed for hotel
A good lesson learned!
I did make it back to Da Nang today. But the internet shop is about to close so I will have to write about today's adventures tomorrow.
Toodles for now.
Hugs and stuff.
Bonnie
Advertisement
Tot: 0.039s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0192s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb