This is a special post for the Overnight Buses of Vietnam, because they oh, so deserve an extra special mention……….

There are three main ways that as a freelance tourist, can get around Vietnam; Bus, Train and hiring a motorbike. We have tried the trains and unfortunately they didn’t stop where we wanted to go. I refused to get on motorbike with Duncan as it would have been suicide with the kamikaze Vietnam drivers… so, the only option was the 8 hour overnight bus to our next destination of Doc Let Beach.

My experience of the overnight bus was , character building. However, I have to have respect for the engineering of the overnight bus construction. Around 45 seats which fully recline down to form a surprising comfortable bed within the average size coach. The way that the seats are designed you also have no issues with reclining down and irritating the person sitting behind you.

The way that they fit 45 beds in a normal size coach is by having essentially bunk beds…yes…in a coach…hutling down the highway…Western laws would of course have 101 reasons why this would be unsafe.

As I mentioned, the beds are surprisingly comfortable with ample leg room, that is after Duncan changed from the first seat he was given (even Mini Me would have found too short!). Despite this, there were a number of crucial elements which prevented me from a fitful sleep:

1. Duncan and I were on the top bunks – Great view from the window! But this meant that we were up near the roof of the bus with about 1.5 meters from the floor. As the bus bounced itself down the highway, Duncan and were lolled around in our beds like an empty tinny in the back of a ute, and on quite a few occasions I felt I needed to hold on for dear life to save myself from a painful fall.
2. The horn – Vietnamese drivers use their horn as a form of communication. Every turn of the wheel they will beep their horn to alert the other drivers to say “hey, I’m about to turn” or “hey, I’m about to drive 1 km on the wrong side of the road”. Our bus driver also did this…all night. Buses are quite large and hence they have really, really loud horns
3. Entertainment – We chose one of the better bus companies and one of the services they provided was entertainment in the form of a 4 hour Vietnamese variety show. Not so bad unfortunately however it was turned up so loud that even my calming classical music from my i-pod couldn’t drown it out.
4. The Floor – Not content with piling people in bunk bed configuration, the isles of the bus turned into makeshift beds also. This meant that everyone was to be awoken when someone needed to get up and go to the toilet.
5. Chucky – As I mentioned above, you move around quite a bit on the top bunks. Sometime during the night I did manage to doze off only to be woken by the French Chick in the asile across from us hurling her guts up. Being in such close quarters it took no time at all for dry retching to be heard from a number of the other passengers.
6. Air Con – It is fair to say that Vietnam is quite hot. In case we were in any danger of actually going to sleep on our bus the driver turned the aircon on to “arctic”. I not sure if it was to aid fresh air or what, but our driver had the air con cranked, to the point that I had 2 (not so clean) blankets around me and was still shivering. Who would have thought that I would have needed my fleece in Vietnam?
7. Asian Loos – Not even daring to use the toilet on board, we were given numerous toilet stops on our onward journey. All I need to say is that a not so clean porcelain hole in the ground and splash back on the back of legs is eewwww and the traumatic experience is enough to keep me awake for a further few hours.

Now, before I sound too much like a whinging Pom, I would have to say that it wasn’t all that bad a good way to travel a great distance. And our bus wasn’t all that bad, just unique, and worth a good story. We heard horror stories from other travellers of cockroaches running around their beds and maniac bus drivers hitting scooter drivers – thankfully we had none of that.

All in all I can say that I did it, survived it and it was certainly Type 2 fun – the fun that wasn’t that fun at the time but looking back on it now certainly makes me giggle at all the craziness.