March 5, 2018
D30: Quỳnh Nhai
I have no idea what was going on last night when the people from the street side bike mechanic wanted me to follow them to a specific place to stay. Might have been a hotel. Might have been someone's home. Problem is, even if I'm in a country where I can understand what people are saying without resorting to a mutual game of charades and combined "guess what Google Translate is trying to say" I just don't feel that comfortable taking obvious hospitality from people who clearly make a ton less money than I do. Triply even more so when I'm not sure if the hospitality is supposed to come with a price tag or not.
This one time in Guizhou in 2012 I figured that the place that fed me and put me up for the night was an actual place of business so I paid the wife. Waited for my change and waited for my change and waited for my change. And finally I coyly asked "so, how much do I owe you" thinking that this would either get me my change or get me told I hadn't given enough. Only, instead, the husband says "You are a foreign guest! We wouldn't dream of asking you for money." Super awkward.
I kept pointing at the sign for a hotel just 50 meters this way and right next to the bus station and eventually, after a bunch more times conversing through Google, I went there. Where there was more like 50 meters to the turn-off and then 50 meters to the next turn-off and then 50 meters uphill and all told it was closer to 250 meters from the sign to the front door of the hotel that was right next to the bus station but the price wasn't unreasonable and the building, which was sort of the mansion version of a stilt house, was very nice.
Underneath and at the back of the house there was a concrete building which had three or four bedrooms on the first floor. The second floor of the concrete building was only accessible via the bedrooms in the stilt house and was sort of kind of gigantic semi-enclosed balconies twice the size of the hotel room that led into cavernous bathrooms. As with the other times I've slept in stilt houses (twice now in Vietnam, once in Guizhou), my bedding was set up on the floor, though this time it was a honest to goodness sprung mattress (one of I think three I've slept on this trip).
The owner's English was much better than the conglomeration of people from in and around the bike mechanic's. That is to say, she could occasionally form sentences without resorting to her smartphone. She more or less confirmed that there was only one bus a day to Hanoi and that it left at 7pm. But don't worry, that 7am bus you are freaking out about waking up in time for, that's just to Son La and there's an 8am, 9am, 10am, 11am, 1pm, 2pm, and 3pm bus to Son La. You can sleep as late as you want.
So I slept as late as I wanted. Which, on an honest to goodness sprung mattress after a tiring day was plenty late enough to miss a number of the early buses. It was then made later by the discovery that my phone hadn't charged and later still in the daily quest to get my passport returned to me as it appears that the vast majority of the people who insist on taking my passport do not have any kind of standardized passport storage location.
The bus station, which is both huge and completely abandoned, appears to have somewhere between two and five people. They could be employees. They could also, judging by the amount of laundry hanging up to dry, be residents. There is an office and a waiting room and a classroom with desks and chairs, standardized pictures of traffic signs, and information which even I can puzzle out is about the cost of fares and the distances between towns. There are signs indicating where the buses to various locations should be parked but there are no buses in the parking lot and no passengers in the (locked) waiting room.
After a lengthy (in time) conversation between me, the woman who might maybe be the station master, Google Translate, and someone on the phone, I am told that I've missed the morning buses to Son La and that the afternoon buses won't be arriving for a while. How about, instead of my taking a bus to Son La and transferring, I just take a taxi-van that's already going to Hanoi instead. It will be here at 5pm. It's supposed to be 250,000 dong which is only 50,000 dong more than I was told last night would be the fare for the overnight sleeper that I didn't get on. Sure, no problem.
Sit around all day at the bus station leaving only briefly to walk down the street, eat lunch, and walk back. I never see any afternoon buses to Son La or to anywhere else. Getting close to 5pm, I leave the classroom, use the bathroom, and go wait on the covered porch. About 10 minutes later, a large overnight sleeper bus arrives. Not a taxi-van. Definitely not a taxi-van. And the word "taxi" in Vietnamese is both pronounced like the English word "taxi" and spelled like the English word "taxi".
Ok, whatever, it's going to Hanoi.
Today's ride: 4 km (2 miles)
Total: 1,469 km (912 miles)
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