The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round

October is the start of the rainy season in Vietnam. The book said it might be a little damp, and the book wasn't lying. But with the lame holiday schedule we get around here, I didn't have much of a choice.

I got a look at a paper on the airplane, and it was talking huge typhoon in Vietnam, flooding, and a promise of more rain. Joy. That was going to put a huge crimp in my climbing plans. The plan had been to head to the coast early on, and then take it back to Hanoi for the duration. With the rain, there was no telling if that would happen. The coast in the rain isn't really much fun.

With the late arrival and the lack of details about the weather, I'd thought we'd spend Sunday in Hanoi and figure out the plan. After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel with some delicious Vietnamese coffee, we wandered out into the city.

I bought a SIM card and directed us to a cafe. I ordered another coffee (you have to love a country that loves coffee, especially in this half of the world) and decided to call the tour company that runs climbing trips. I had a very lovely conversation with a nice young man there and he was able to fill me in on the weather details. Yes, it had been raining rather hard, although they were in a little lull between storms. Monday was expected to be fairly nice, but the rain would move back in on Monday night as another system came through from the Philippines. So, if I wanted to go climbing, my choices were pretty limited and the clock was ticking.

The nice young man told me how to get a bus to the island and that the last one left at 1:20. If we got there in the evening, I could go climbing on Monday. I hung up the phone and knew we needed to make a decision. It was 11:30, and we'd need to pack, check out of the hotel, grab a taxi to the bus station, and hop on the bus, all by about 1:15. It'd be tight. TC2 was up to the challenge, however, and away we went.

Things went quite well until we hit the depot. I found the nice uniformed men who work for the bus company and they directed me to the ticket window. But that's when things got squirrely. I asked for two tickets to Cat Ba (actually, I just said Cat Ba and held up two fingers). He dialed a number and handed me the phone. A young woman told me that there was no 1:20 to Cat Ba. She told me I could buy a ticket for the next morning. I told her that wasn't good enough. I needed to get to Cat Ba tonight. She reiterated that there was no afternoon bus and I could go tomorrow. I told her I needed to get there tonight, and maybe she could suggest another bus company. Her English was good, but it wasn't that good, so she just repeated herself. 

Frustrated, I walked out of the depot. The nice uniformed man came over to me and asked if everything was all worked out. I told him the man inside said the was no 1:20 to Cat Ba. He was incredulous. The bus driver was incredulous. He pointed out that he WAS the 1:20 to Cat Ba. The uniformed man pointed to the license plate on the bus to let us know that that was the bus we wanted. And he told us to get on the bus, and they'd sell us tickets inside.

A word on how the trip works: You take a big bus to Haiphong. In Haiphong you transfer to a littler bus that takes you to a boat. The boat takes you across the bay to Cat Ba Island where you get another, smaller bus. That bus takes you the remaining way around the southwest side of the island to Cat Ba Town. It takes about 5 hours all told and costs about $9.

So, we got on the the bus. What was the worst that could happen? We'd get stuck in Haiphong.

And wouldn't you know...

The bus agent motioned to us (we were the only white people on the bus) to get off at a small office, and he got off with us. He said something to the woman at the desk and she said something back. He looked a little sheepish, then walked out the door and jumped back on the bus as it took a swing back by the office.

She picked up the phone and motioned me over. (Obviously, this was not the woman I had spoken to earlier.) A man this time told me that there was no bus to Cat Ba. I had sort of figured that. I tried to ask if he could tell me about another bus operator, but there was definitely something lost in the telling. I eventually came to understand that the nice woman in the office would tell me where we could get another bus.

I hung up the phone and she gave me back some money. (Now that's something that doesn't happen every day.) Then, she pointed us across the street. We crossed the street and another nice young lady looked at us expectantly. "Cat Ba," I said. She pulled out a schedule and pointed to 16:35. That seemed simple enough.

We had an hour, so we walked up the street to see what we could see. I saw a little restaurant, so we went I side to have a beer and pass some time. Well, we must have been the most exciting thing to happen in that place all year long.

We walked in, book in hand, and them owner was beside himself with delight. I think he thought he had made it into the book. I looked through the back and ordered us some bia (beer). A woman brought over a can of Heineken and a bottle of Heineken (because they only bring out the best for Westerners). I pointed to the bottle and smiled. The man sent the woman back for another bottle when she tried to open the can for us. Come on, he was saying, these are white people! They don't drink from cans, at least not in my establishment.

The number of people in the place had increased exponentially as well. Suddenly the whole family came down to see what all the fuss was about. I looked through the book to figure out how to say thank you politely, and the man was once again thrilled. We were only there for about 40 minutes, but you could just tell that he was going to be telling this story to every local who walked in the door for the next five years. 

Things got a lot easier after that (although I was secretly afraid we'd get to the island only to be left at the dock, miles from town). We got on a bus that took us to the dock. We got on a boat that took us to another bus. The bus dropped us off in the center of town.

It cost us about 30,000 dong more than we had gotten back from the first bus company — that's about $1.50. And we were in town in time for dinner. Not bad. Not bad at all.