Day 206 – Travel to Ha Giang, Vietnam

August 31st, 2019

Today, we got off to a rocky start and continued to have some challenges throughout.  We were told by the only somewhat English speaking guy at our hotel to be down in the lobby by 5:15am.  He assured us that someone would be there to call a taxi for us to take us to the bus station where we could catch a bus to Bao Lam.  If we left on the early 6am bus we would make it to Bao Lam in time to get on the noon Ha Giang bus which is our next destination. 

So, we got up at 4:30am to pack our stuff.  The first slightly annoying thing that happened was when we checked out of the hotel, they charged us $7 to replace a white towel in our room that Brendan used to clean a few drips of spilled coffee.  This was half the price of the entire night’s stay and we found it hard to believe the towel could not be washed and needed to be replaced. I guess in hindsight we should have just left the spilled coffee on the floor?  Whatever, we hurriedly gave him the $7 and asked him to please call the taxi as we needed to get to the bus station.  He said he would, but then five minutes later when we asked if the taxi was coming, he said he could not call and that we needed to walk around the street to find one.  Too much of a language barrier to find out WHY he could not call the taxi so I stayed with the luggage and B went out to roam the town and find a taxi.

By the time he did and the taxi loaded up all our stuff, we were feeling stressed to make it to the bus station in time.  Once we got there it was close to 6am so we jumped out and rushed to get all our stuff and find our bus.  There was no one behind any ticket counter so we both walked up to random people to see if anyone could understand we needed to find the bus to Bao Lam.  Brendan found one lady who seemed to understand but just kept shaking her head saying “No bus Bao Lam. Maybe at 9am”.  9am?  Wow.  Really glad we got up at 4am to rush here and sit around for three hours for a bus that was “maybe” going to happen. 

Brendan went to look at the time on his phone to see how many hours we would be waiting here and realized he didn’t have it… he said it must have fallen out of his pocket in the taxi.  The taxi was long gone and it sunk in that we were in a place where no one spoke English, and with a lost phone (on airplane mode) that is maybe in a taxi that we have no idea the name or the company. It seemed like an impossible task to even attempt to get the phone back.  After the whole towel fiasco, and then not having the hotel be able to call us a taxi, we were so rushed, neither of us really paid that good of attention to the taxi that brought us here.  Brendan sat down feeling a bit defeated and annoyed and I knew what a terrible feeling it is to lose your phone.  Without having insurance on it he knew it would be over $500 to replace it which feels devastating after what lengths we go to in order to pinch pennies and keep traveling.

I didn’t want Brendan to be sad and have that terrible feeling so I started thinking about what to do.  I started by calling some numbers on signs posted around the bus station that were advertising taxi’s.  The only problem with that is as soon as they answer, and you start speaking English they just hang up. I tried to call our hotel to see if they might know what taxi picked us up but was also answered with the click of the phone being disconnected when I started talking. 

Luckily, I had my phone with Google translate (that is often not that useful for some reason in Vietnam) and started showing random people a message that said we left a phone in the taxi that dropped us off.  Some people looked like “what do you want me to do about it”, others pointed to the signs with taxi numbers on it, and others did a vague point towards the street.  Wandering the street looking for an unknown taxi that MIGHT have our phone didn’t seem like a useful idea, so using hand signals I had a guy watch me attempt to call the taxi number and showed him how they hang up when I start talking.  I held out my phone to ask if he would talk to them since he saw my Google translated message.  He did not want to, but another guy who must have been observing the situation came over and motioned for me to give my phone to him.  Always being nervous someone is going to steal my phone, I was reluctant but had pretty limited options at this point if I wanted someone to help me.  This nice guy did talk to a taxi company for me (I had no idea if it was even the company that dropped us off) and after a few minutes there were about 5 guys circled around me all talking, texting, and making phone calls.  Finally, one guy asked for my phone again and motioned for me to get the Google translate back up.  He took my phone and wrote me a message saying he would drive me around to look for the taxi with the lost phone for 200k dong.  That kind of felt like a bribe to me and I was doubtful we would even find the taxi that we couldn’t remember the name of, but for the equivalent of about eight US dollars we had to take the risk.

 I told Brendan to go with the guy and I would stay at the bus station with all the luggage.  About 30 minutes later Brendan came back with the phone!  It was a real miracle and in the end I realized the guy wasn’t even really bribing us but basically just asking for the money to drive to and from the bus station.  The original taxi fare was 91k for one way so this guy charging 200k for both ways was really not even inflated.  Brendan said he could have asked for a million dong to get the phone back and wouldn’t have batted an eye and easily given it to him.  So, it turned out to be a good ending to a somewhat stressful situation!

As for the rest of the day… I think everyone in the bus station knew our whole story as I’m sure we stuck out like a sore thumb and caused so much commotion with the lost phone. Around 8am a random guy came to us and said Bao Lam while pointing to a crappy, run down shuttle.  Although this vehicle did not look the least bit comfortable I thought it was prosperous it was here at 8am instead of the ‘maybe 9’ we were told a couple hours ago.  As it turned out, it actually meant we were just sitting on that crappy shuttle for an extra hour in the parking lot while they loaded it down with all sorts of cargo.  We were thankful it at least wasn’t full of people but once it turned 9am, THAT’S when all the people came.  They were all local and many more people came in than there were seats.  Brendan and I were crammed next to each other with a ton of luggage on our laps for 6 long hours…

I was so happy when the bus finally started moving around 9:15am but it only went across the parking lot before it stopped and the driver got out to change the two back tires.  We all sat in the bus crammed like sardines while they jacked up one side at a time to change the tires.  After the new tires were on we were finally on the move again.  Only to go right across the street and stop for fuel.  B said “they seemed really prepared for the trip”.  The bus continued to make dozens of stops all along the way.  Sometimes people would get off and more people would get on than would get off.  At one point we stopped and a guy got out and ran up to the door of a house and left a letter.  I didn’t think too much about it until it happened about 10 more times. Then I realized this bus loaded with people to Bao Lam must also serve as the mail delivery service all along this rural region.  I also noticed people would run up to the bus when it slowed down to hand packages and more cargo to the bus as they yelled what seemed to be instructions for their cargo to the driver.

At one point we stopped and all the locals got out to buy fruit at one dragon fruit stand on the side of the road.  They were not just buying one or two pieces of fruit but bags and bags of it. It seemed like the thing to do so I also got out and picked a couple pieces of dragon fruit.  I didn’t want too much as it was just going to add on to the pile of stuff on my lap during the ride.  I waited patiently for the lady to weigh my fruit and give me a price.  I put my two pieces on the scale and then she put a third piece on the scale and gave me a price.  I guess there was a three piece minimum?  When the bus stopped and everyone got out to eat pho, we also did that and tried our best to just do what everyone else was doing and blend in.  Although I definitely don’t think we fooled anyone as we pretended to know what was going on. During the ride I started handing out pieces of hard candy I had in my pocket.  That seemed to get some smiles which was nice. 

As the hours rolled by I began to fear we were once again not going to reach Ha Giang.  It was almost 4pm by the time we got to Bao Lam.  However, when the bus stopped some nice guy pointed to an even more piece of crap bus and said “Ha Giang”.  He motioned for us to hurry so we got our stuff and transferred it onto the next bus.  We were in desperate need for a break but this bus was ready to go. It was fully loaded complete with a motorbike tied down in the small aisle.  We had to crawl over the bike to get to our small seat where our legs didn’t have any place to be. 

Once we got in and the bus started moving I looked at my maps to see how far Ha Giang was and was pretty terrified to see it was another four hours.  Brendan was definitely not having fun at this point and we both had bad headaches.  It’s at times like these where you have to look at your phone to see the amazing pictures of what you have done to make this kind of journey worth it.

We finally made it to Ha Giang around 8pm.  We got checked into a hostel that was only $3 a night per person which is the cheapest hostel we have stayed in.  This included breakfast! The hostel was really nice and we got some dinner at the restaurant they had down the street.  It turned out to be our best meal yet in Vietnam so that was a nice way to end a tough day.  Being too tired tonight, we will figure out how to do the Ha Giang motorbike loop tomorrow.