April 8th, 2024.
I spot a dinner next to the bus station, where bus drivers are eating. They seem amused when I come in. I don’t know how to order in Vietnamese, so I look at the patrons and their food. One is eating something appetizing. One older fellow sitting at a table approaches, still amused. I point to the appetizing food, and after a couple of several attempts, we understand each other.
I woke up with my feet well-worn. 16.5 km, I walk yesterday. Today I take a bus from Dalat to Buon Ma Thuot, capital of Dak Lak province, the largest producer of coffee in the country (Vietnam being the second-largest producer in the world behind Brazil). Second time taking a sleeper bus on this trip. No shoes inside, put them in a yellow complementary plastic bag. This time, the bus is newer, has a screen and more leg space. I can’t help but feel I’m in the movie Passengers. Traveling in hibernation cocoons until we reach our destination. I close my pod via curtains and slumber until our first rest stop.
Each rest stop has a plastic basket with communal sandals, as to not have put your shoes one at each stop. I forget to take my personal sandals from the bus storage, so no choice but to use the communal ones. “Go with the flow“ I think, they seam… clean?
After the first stop, I feel dizzy the rest of the way. I feel like trowing up. Quick, what do I do? Take your shoes out the yellow complementary plastic bag. I make a mental note, that’s why you travel with dizziness pills, just bring them with you on the bus next time. I continue filling dizzy, but the 5-hour journey passes like nothing. Chris Pratt would be jealous of my travel cocoon. Plus, I didn’t have to wake up anyone unwillingly. Well, maybe my trowing up did.
Interacting with locals has been hard in Vietnam. How to put it. It’s not only that many don’t speak English, it’s that I can’t speak the language, the sounds too foreign to nail the pronunciation. Every time I say thank you. (cảm ơn) I seem to fail at pronouncing it in a million ways. One time in a café the staff thought I was ordering orange (cam) juice. Sometimes they speak English, but I suspect they pretend to not understand or ignore me completely. I had a lady try selling me a 30-day SIM card (yeah I know, physical SIM cards in 2024…). “Shorter time” I tell her several times. She only repeats “30 days”. As I leave without buying, she says, “shorter time”, and takes out a different SIM Card.
I get to the bus station in Buon Ma Thuot at 3pm. The usual welcome committee of taxi drives is by the bus door. They show me their phone screens. For what? Have a little chat through Google Translate? Show me they are my Grab (like Uber) driver? I don’t know. I have to get away from this madness. I get my backpack from the bus outer storage and walk away. A taxi driver pulls my backpack as if to say, come with me. The other drivers laugh. What a welcome committee.
I get to my hotel and go out for a walk, still feeling dizzy. Less than 10 minutes walking, and I get a ton of smiles from people. They ask me to take pictures of them, they ask me where am I from. They say hellos and xin chàos. Ok, what’s going on? People in Buon Ma Thuot are friendly. I correct myself. Interacting with Vietnamese is easy. If you look for kind people, you will find kind people.
