I
knew that the border I was about to cross was remote, just not to what extent. I
got in a minivan along with 8 Vietnamese peole and loads of random merchandise.
We were stopped at various police checks, at some, the main lady gave them
money. She was dressed in a matching pink outfit with yellow flowers. She had
long gloves on, a hat and one of those masks they use here to cover their mouth
from the dirt. Weird…
The
immigration itself was very easy. A few stamps and I was in Vietnam. The van
dropped me off at the Pleiku bus station by 11 am. No one in that town spoke any
English and I had no Vietnam currency (dong). Fortunately, they let me pay with
American money…phew. Now, the only issue was that the bus didn’t leave till
8pm. 9 hours to waste. Pleiku must not see any tourists because everyone in the
bus station was staring at me. Some of them would try to speak to me, but at
that time I didn’t even know how to say hi…Fortunately I had the guitar and a
book to keep busy. I eventually ventured outside and managed to exchange money with
a random vendor to buy some food.
The
sunset was gorgeous; most random location for something so beautiful. The bus
departed on time, and stopped at 11pm for dinner but I chose not to get off. The
guy sitting beside me brought me back a coke. I tried to decline politely but
it was of no use. Then, he tried to make conversation. His English was
impossible to understand, so he would typed the questions on is phone. It stared
like any other convo, where are you from? How old are you? Blah blah blah but
then he asked me if I had a boyfriend… I knew better, so I said yes, but he didn’t
stop there. He couldn’t understand why my so called boyfriend wasn’t there… and
moved on to asking me if I thought Vietnamese boys were beautiful… what was I supposed
to say? No? …. After that, I just put my headphones in and went to sleep. I woke
up at 2am, fist off, he had covered me with a blanket and secondly, his had was
uncomfortably close to my thigh. To top it off he was “asleep” and his head was
falling to my side… I was so shaken… I bluntly pushed him towards the window,
took the blanket off and moved in my seat until he had moved far enough from
me. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
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