Schoolbus in the sky

I took a two-hour flight from Saigon to Hanoi on Jetstar, a budget airline that serves Southeast Asia. The seats are covered in vinyl and seemed to have been designed for hobbits. You get what you pay for.

But this time I got so much more.

I generally don't write posts about the process of getting from point A from point B because stories about traveling by train or bus or plane all tend to run together. This, however, was something else entirely.

As I was waiting in line for my boarding pass a group of at least people got in line behind me. And beside me. And in front of me. I've discovered the idea of waiting in an orderly queue is a western phenomenon which hasn't yet caught on in other parts of the world. (Russians are the worst queue jumpers I've seen.)

I don't mean to cast aspersions on Vietnamese people, or the poor, or country folk, or anyone. It's just that this particular group of people was rather ... coarse. I don't think any of them had ever been on a plane before.

We started boarding 40 minutes late with no explanation -- am I still in America? -- and that's when the fun started. We took a bus from the gate to the plane, where stairs led to the front and rear doors of the plane. Boarding passes indicate which door to use.

What happened next was not queue jumping. It was a riot. The entire group rushed the flight attendants at the stairs. I was one of the few passengers who had my boarding pass handy and one of fewer passengers who was at the right entrance. There was a constant push and pull of people leaving the mob at one set of stairs and forcing their way into the mob at the other.

Passengers were moving up and down the aisles and switching seats as the bewildered flight attendants attempted to maintain control. I was in an aisle seat and ended up sitting next to three different men before the plane even started moving.

(Fun fact: Movie theaters in Vietnam have assigned seats!)

My (final) neighbor in the middle seat spent most of the trip shouting to his acquaintances throughout the plane, often while standing on his seat. He stopped occasionally to hock impressively revolting loogies into his barf bag. I noticed he wasn't wearing shoes, which wasn't so strange, since I often remove my shoes when flying. Keep that little detail in mind, though.

Jetstar charges for beverages and snacks. Flight attendants started serving from carts at each of the plane. Passengers rushed the carts, shouting and waving their arms like traders on the New York Stock Exchange.

This went on for approximately 87 hours. Or so it seemed. It was only two hours but it was a looooonnnngggg two hours. I spent much of the trip with a various assortment of asses in my face and lap as the passengers crowded the aisle trying to get to the snack cart. It called to mind scenes of refugee camps, when crowds storm UN vehicles delivering food.

Finally, we landed. The touchdown was soft enough but you would have thought we'd crashed into the side of a mountain from the shrieking. After we landed the pilot gave the obligatory "Please stay in your seats until ... " spiel but it was too late. Virtually everyone on the plane had already gotten out of their seats.

My expectorating neighbor and the woman next to him literally crawled over my lap to get into the aisle. Which was already full of people. I slid over to the window seat and didn't get up until the plane was almost empty.

As I was leaving baggage claim I saw my buddy from the middle seat ... still with no shoes. He did the entire trip barefoot.

I've been in three airports in Vietnam. They are all strict about checking baggage claim stickers on the boarding pass against those on your luggage. You can't leave the airport without showing a boarding pass. This was not common knowledge...

I gathered most of my fellow passengers had lost them or thrown them away. From the back of the mob I waved my boarding pass at the woman checking the baggage claim tags. She waved me forward through the chaos. Free at last!

I've had my share of funny-crazy travel stories. I rode a chicken bus in Nicaragua with a bicycle in the aisle next to me, trying (unsuccessfully) to dodge the handlebars for two hours. I got off the bus looking women had been touching me with ten-foot poles. On a local bus in Nepal a man boarded the bus and, seeing no empty seats, sat in my lap. (At which point I graciously offered my seat and stood.) And so on.

But I have never seen or even heard of anything like this. It was like flying on the set of the Jerry Springer Show. Again, I must stress that I do not feel these people were typically Vietnamese, typically poor, typically anything. If I had seen this in a movie I would have thought it a tasteless and ignorant caricature of non-Western culture.

It was so over-the-top crazy that even at the time it was hilarious. Besides, uneventful flights make for boring blog posts.

Lucky me

I'm sort of legendary for my freakish bad luck. Things happen to me that just don't happen to normal people. So my experience getting to Honduras was quite a pleasant surprise. We took a bus from Granada to Managua, booked a hostel, then took a bus to Leon for the day. The girls I was traveling with were going to Honduras, but only as far as the capital. We booked a bus out the next morning. I continued on to San Pedro Sula, a few hours further north. We said an awkward farewell on the bus, and then I felt suddenly very alone.

I wanted to get to La Ceiba, on the coast, which is where to catch the ferry to where I am now. The bus ride from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba takes a few hours. I would be arriving in SPS around dinner time, so my window of opportunity to find a bus was small. I would have to take a cab from the bus station into town and then find the right bus line for the trip. According to the map in my travel guide bus stations are all over town. So I was resigned to staying the night in SPS, making arrangements, and leaving the next morning.

A Belgian girl on the bus was getting off in SPS but heading in the opposite direction, to the Mayan ruins in Copan. We discussed sharing a taxi into town and I started considering how to get the cute Belgian girl to invite me along to Copan.

So imagine my shock when we arrive at the bus station in SPS to discover it's the size of a small airport. Hundreds of buses on two levels. My heart sank. It was boing to be a daunting task figuring out where to go. While I was waiting outside the bus for my backpack to be unloaded I heard a guy yelling "La Ceiba!"

The bus I needed was parked next to the one I had just arrived in. And it was leaving in five minutes. What an incredible stroke of luck. I rode on a luxury bus in a fully reclining seat, with complimentary beverage and snack service, in air conditioning so cold I needed two blankets, watching Terminator 3. For $14US. Hardcore backpackers would be aghast that I spent that much for a bus in Central America, but boy oh boy was it worth it.

(By way of comparison, neither of my flights from the US to Nicaragua had a snack or movie.)

I woke up at 3 a.m. in Managua to catch the bus that morning. (For some reason all buses in Central America seem to leave at 4 or 5 a.m.) After three bus rides and a taxi it was about 9 p.m. and I was dead. I figured I'd get up the next morning and get my bearings.

I met an American girl at the hostel and asked her if she was coming or going from the islands. She said she and her friend were heading to the ferry and had a cab on the way to pick them up and, oh, would I like to tag along? 10 minutes later I was on my way to the dock.

Sorry no pix with this post. I'll do better next time.