The Ride to the Ferry - Vietnam

        The bus finally left at 11:30 pm and boy was it cramped.  The van was supposed to fit 15 people, but it would not have been comfortable.  We had 13 people in the van, and it was so uncomfortable because the back two rows, which can hold 4 people, were only really seating 2.  Everyone else was cramped. 

          Through the whole night, we drove down streets that occasionally had street lights.  The van went through streets that would have jungle, and random little villages.  Some of the houses had only three walls and a roof, others were enclosed.  In one of the houses, you could see people sleeping on their wood floors wrapped in blankets.  It was so hot, I don’t know how they slept in a blanket.  Many of them had flat screen tvs, which was surprising when you saw what the outside of the house looked like.  There were sometimes bridges into the forest across little rivers that you had cross to get to huts.  Randomly, there would be really nice houses, which had three floors and went back as far as a shop did.  I’m assuming whole families live in them.   On the ride, four of them were drinking and took sleeping pills and eventually passed out.  Poor Heather was sitting next to one, who passed out on top of her, keeping her from getting comfortable and getting any sleep at all.

          Bathroom breaks on this trip were interesting.  I never had to go, but I heard the stories.  In the first situation, almost all of the guys just got out of the car, including the driver, and peed on the side of the road.  The girls had to go to restrooms, some of which made you pay like 10 cents, where you had to squat to pee.  A common concern is getting it on your clothes, but if you squat the right way, you don’t have a problem.  All of the girls that went to the bathroom talked about the giant cockroaches that were in the bathroom.  I’m very glad I was able to hold it and didn’t need to go. 

After seven long hours, we finally arrived in the town we needed to catch the ferry in.  There was a market in the middle of the street, so we got redirected to the ferry.  We got to the street and it just looked like a deadend.  We got directions again, and I guess they were right.  We continued on and ended up in a street that was barely wide enough for the van we were in.  Maybe of the people had put up little cloth roofs held up by wood sticks.  Every one of the rubbed on the top of the van, and we all were afraid of what would happen.  The driver finally maneuvered through this side street, finding the ferry we needed to take.