[travel] Happy on misery bus

[mattbell]

I'm finding few opportunities to write. I'm doing this one on a cramped sleeper bus from Nha Trang to Hue, two cities in Vietnam. You know how little kids sometimes put a bunch of insects in a jar and then shake the jar to get them to fight? That's kind of how the bus is, except with people in the jar. I even spent extra for the “nice” bus, but it's still a hellhole. If they showed people pictures of the cheap seats, no one would buy them. The cheap seats don't have a cushion for your back. This also isn't the just-scraping-by bus for locals... this is the “nice”, “air-conditioned” bus for tourists. I'm happily typing away though, oblivious to the drama between the autocratic driver and the frustrated passengers. Next time I use the train. Thank Science for my little bottle of Ambien.

When this country gets ubiquitous cheap internet access over cellphones plus the high review density that sites like Yelp currently have in the US, half their tourist enterprises will be screwed. For now I try to look things up on TripAdvisor.

Anyway, I'm actually really having a good time. I just wanted to write an entry in a bus full of miserable passengers. Now to write some more...