“Is this a bus or a van?” I ask raising my eyebrows and looking down at my ticket.
“It’s a bus. Small bus,” replies the woman at the reception desk.
“Is it a minivan?” I ask motioning with my hands and pointing to a minivan on the street.
“It’s a bus,” she replies confidently.
I nod and hope she is right.
The next day, my alarm goes off at 5:45 a.m. I shower, pack and rush downstairs to make a quick breakfast in the hostel kitchen before my taxi arrives at 6:30 a.m.
The taxi drives into the bus station and takes me directly to the “bus,” which is, indeed, a minivan as I feared. Said minivan was my only option to go from Can Tho, the capital of the Mekong Delta in Southern Vietnam to Ha Tein, the ferry port for Phu Quoc island, one of Vietnam’s best tropical beach destinations.
I get out of my taxi and hand my ticket to the driver who motions for me to give it to a woman outside the van. She directs me to sit in the back of the minivan. I shake my head and slide into the seat directly behind the driver. I’ve spent enough time in Asia to know that sitting in the back was a terrible idea. The driving in Southeast Asia is erratic—people in the back row are alwaysthe first to vomit.
I notice a small stack of plastic stools in the aisle by the door—these are used as seats once the regular seats are full. It was going to be that kind of trip with frequent stops to pick up people along the way.
The van was pretty empty except for a two people in the back. We depart promptly at 7 a.m. as scheduled. The woman gets inside and sits on a plastic stool at the end of my row behind the passenger seat. She has the window open to make it easier to yell to prospective passengers.
I am grateful that I snagged a spot in the front of the van. Maybe this trip won’t be so bad. My plan is to sleep the five hours to the ferry so I start blowing up my inflatable neck pillow. The driver and the ticket lady both look at me with confusion. Then, ticket woman realizes what I’m doing and starts laughing uncontrollably. She slaps the front seat and yells at the driver in Vietnamese who laughs in return. I shrugged. Do they not realize that neck pillows are the greatest thing since the invention of the burrito?
I snuggle down in the seat with my neck pillow. As we pull out of the bus station, Freddie pipes up.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!!
I open my eyes and look around. Where was that coming from? Clearly, there was a rooster on the side of the road. It couldn’t be in the van.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!!
It was too loud to be anywhere but in the back of the van with my luggage. I got a mental image of my suitcase covered in rooster poop. Freddie continued to crow every 2.5 minutes for the next 30 minutes.
In over a decade of nonstop travel, I’ve been on many chicken buses – local open-air buses but never one that had actual live chickens on it. Chicken buses are a rite of passage for travelers because it normally means you “escaped” tourist trail. Deep down, part of me has always wanted to be on a bus with live chickens just for the story. Today was not that day. Today, I wanted to sleep. And, Freddie wanted to sing.
Freddie quiets down as we drive along. We stop along the side of the road to pick up new passengers every 30 miles or so. I try to count my blessings – at least, the van is blasting the air-conditioning.
Then, the driver rolls down his window to smoke. I instantly regret my seat choice. He averages a cigarette every 30 minutes. At this rate, I will have stage 4 lung cancer from the second-hand smoke by the time we get to the ferry.
In typical Vietnamese fashion, the driver is swerving in and out of traffic, passing cars on blind curves and narrowly avoiding head-on collisions every five minutes.
Since I can’t sleep, I begin to reevaluate my life and the events that led me to the Rooster Van. It started with my fear of flying. (Yes, it is entirely possible for girl who’s been to over 50 countries to be afraid of flying. My love for travel is greater than my fear.) I never enjoyed flying but a series of aborted landings on flights in Asia and one in Charlotte made me a nervous mess. I took medication for a while but now, manage it with a variety of tactics including wearing a collection of good luck charms—a set of turquoise Buddhist prayer beads blessed by the Dalai Lama and a St. Christopher’s metal blessed by Father Jim, my favorite priest at my parent’s church.
The flights into Vietnam a few weeks prior were bumpy and anxiety-inducing. (One flight took a steep 10 second nose dive while landing!!) Once we touched down in Da Nang, I promised myself I wouldn’t get on another plane until my visa expired in a month. That decision lead me to the Rooster Van.
Statistically, flying is safer than the Rooster Van. (The New York Times reports that car crashes kill more Americans abroad than anything else.) Yet, I still feel safer with Freddie despite the non-existent seat belts in the Rooster Van.
We stop for one toilet break at a gas station. After we get back in the van, Freddie is so quiet that I wonder if he was dropped off at the gas station. Then, I begin to wonder if there is even a rooster in the van at all. Was it someone’s phone? Is “rooster” a ring-tone option? (I literally laugh out loud remembering the time in Thailand when the ringtone on my work phone—one of those indestructible stick Nokia phones that drug dealers use in movies—was set to “frog” by accident. I missed every call for 24-hours because I thought it was an actual frog outside.)
The minute I start to doze off, Freddie starts to sing again like he’s in a karaoke bar.
By the halfway point of the journey, the van is pretty full – two guys in military uniforms are in the front with the driver. Two local women are on my row, followed by a row of men behind me and a German couple on the third row, and one man sitting in the back sandwiched between Freddie and the luggage.
I check the map on my phone. We are making progress. Less than two hours left. I can handle this.
Then, I notice the women on the far edge of my row holding a small plastic bag over her face. I cringe. This is a common site in Asia—she was car sick and puking despite being in the front seat. She ties the bag together and hands it to the lady by the door who immediately throws it out the window. She holds a second bag up to her face.
To distract myself, I decide to record Freddie’s vocals on my iPhone. I notice he tends to crow more when the driver hits the brakes. I spend the next 30 minutes recording off and on narrowly missing his singing. (If you check out my Instagram story on Vietnam, you can hear Freddie!)
The van empties quickly the closer we get to Ha Tien. Finally, we pull into the bus station and the woman motions for me to get off the bus. It was only me and the German couple left on board.
The minute the van door opens, a swarm of taxi drivers appear like seagulls fighting over an abandoned French fry. I had flashbacks to India.
As I climb off the “bus,” I glance in the backseat to look for Freddie. I notice a cardboard box with holes cut in it. Freddie is real.
There’s nothing I hate more than someone yelling “taxi!” in my face. I dart inside the bus station and one guy peels off from the pack to follow me. He relentlessly asks if I need a taxi because it’s obvious that I do.
I’m always weary of trusting anyone who approaches me for a taxi and prefer to make sure I have a legitimate taxi. I walk to the ticket counter and ask for a taxi. The woman calls over the man I was just avoiding.
Feeling defeated, we agree on a price. I walk outside. He motions for me to wait while he gets the car. Two minutes later, he drives over on a motorbike. I look at my bright teal 25-inch suitcase and look back at him confused. He grabs the suitcase and puts it between his legs. Then, he hands me a helmet and motions for me to climb on the back.
My transit options just keep getting more dangerous as the day unfolds. It’s only two miles to the ferry, I tell myself as I reluctantly climb on the back with 30-pounds of camera gear on my back and a small duffle (with the gnome and my snacks) on my lap.
The driver asks if I have a ticket for the ferry. I don’t have a ticket, but I lie. (Unless you want pay double, the answer to this question is always yes.)
The taxi driver swerves a bit at first trying to navigate the steering with my suitcase in the way. I have a death grip on the back of the bike. Then, he pulls over at a travel agency and asks me again if I need a ticket. I lie again. Vietnam is notorious for trying to rip off foreigners.
We finally pull up to the ferry terminal. A man runs up to me to ask if I have a ticket. I lie a third time.
I rush up to the counter inside and buy a ticket from the actual ferry company to avoid paying the “foreigner” surcharge the third-parties add. I only pay the amount that’s visibly printed on the ticket.
As the ferry departs, I take note of where the life jackets are located despite the fact that the ferry is probably the safest form of transit I’ve been on all day. I settle in for a nap and think about Freddie. I’m sure our paths will cross again on another day when I am trying to nap.
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COMING UP NEXT
Photo Guide to Mongolia
In my next post, I’ll share a day-by-day photo breakdown of my two week Mongolia trip. This trip was the highlight of 2018 for me.
(Hint: There will be lots of CAMELS!)
