patience*
patience, part one
a few mornings ago, i took a tourist bus from the cool hill station of dalat to beachside nha trang, where i am now. as is the custom, the bus was packed, with all seats taken and some vietnamese hopefuls turned away due to giant backpacks cramming the rest of the available space. i was the last person to be picked up from my hotel before we pulled into a nearby dirt lot. a few more travelers showed up and boarded, and next to me sat the one other independent unit on the bus, a young italian lifeguard/design school student whose english made for some laboriously simple but jokey conversation over the next eight hours - six hours descending from dalat to nha trang, two waiting around in confusion in the dirt lot. why are we stopped here? what happened to the driver?
it being a week before tet, the cops are cracking down on normally-ignored violations and collecting the corresponding 'fines.' they confiscated the driver's license, forcing him to go down to the station to get it back. two young guys who worked for the tour agency ran back and forth between the bus and the tour office across the street but never bothered to explain what had happened. 'you wait ten minutes,' they kept saying unconvincingly. after an hour of this, half the people on the bus had wandered off for coffee or breakfast or one last email nearby.
after two hours i walked back down the street to my hotel and the lovely manager asked, 'what happened? why are you still here?' and i asked her to call the tour agency to pressure them to get us another driver. she called and angrily yelled at someone in vietnamese, hung up, smiled gently at me and explained that she'd said, 'i sold one of my guests this bus ticket for your company and now this guest is here complaining at me! your bus was supposed to leave two hours ago! why can't you get another driver?' then giggled at me conspiratorially. the agency told her the driver was just on his way back, and sure enough we all eventually got herded back onto the bus.
patience, part two
after about two hours of the 'how long will you stay in nha trang? how long are you traveling in vietnam? where else have you been on this trip?' conversation with my italian companion, i yawned and feigned sleep (feigned, because despite my desire to sleep, my head kept bonking on the windowsill and defensive driving in vietnam consists largely of honking a lot AND LOUDLY). so the boy cranks up his CD walkman and what do i hear floating out of the headphones? guns n roses, baby. big in italy. no one can sing a metal ballad called 'patience' and make it sound like cats in heat except axl rose (aka 'axl rose is love' to some misguided high school sophomores not me thanks for asking).
patience, part three
i'm supposed to be wrapping up one of my last projects while on the road. this requires downloading a lot of big files from a dialup connection on a friend's borrowed laptop in various hotel rooms. from saigon to here, it's been a zen challenge. dial up. connect. unable to access FTP. unable to access email. disconnect. connect again. get email! lose access inexplicably. connect again. lose access inexplicably. connect again. AD FUTILIUM. due to the rush-rush nature of the spy industry (...or is it hush-hush? geez, i can never remember), i need to turn all this work around very quickly and it's taken me four days to even download the freaking files (i am doing so as i write this). but i can't do anything about the slowness and the disconnections, so it's like the zen exercise of washing a sink full of dishes, and then starting all over and washing them again, and then starting over... and somehow, that is OK. i'm no longer a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown as i was maybe a month ago. oh, i waited too long to book a flight to danang and will have to take a 12-hour bus trip instead? - OK! so i'm still being greeted by 10% of the vietnamese male population with a shout of 'korea!' or 'nhat!' (japanese)? - fine! it's just sliding off like water off a duck's back. quack quack quack.
* now watch, just because i wrote this i'll be gibbering or ranting angrily next time...
a few mornings ago, i took a tourist bus from the cool hill station of dalat to beachside nha trang, where i am now. as is the custom, the bus was packed, with all seats taken and some vietnamese hopefuls turned away due to giant backpacks cramming the rest of the available space. i was the last person to be picked up from my hotel before we pulled into a nearby dirt lot. a few more travelers showed up and boarded, and next to me sat the one other independent unit on the bus, a young italian lifeguard/design school student whose english made for some laboriously simple but jokey conversation over the next eight hours - six hours descending from dalat to nha trang, two waiting around in confusion in the dirt lot. why are we stopped here? what happened to the driver?
it being a week before tet, the cops are cracking down on normally-ignored violations and collecting the corresponding 'fines.' they confiscated the driver's license, forcing him to go down to the station to get it back. two young guys who worked for the tour agency ran back and forth between the bus and the tour office across the street but never bothered to explain what had happened. 'you wait ten minutes,' they kept saying unconvincingly. after an hour of this, half the people on the bus had wandered off for coffee or breakfast or one last email nearby.
after two hours i walked back down the street to my hotel and the lovely manager asked, 'what happened? why are you still here?' and i asked her to call the tour agency to pressure them to get us another driver. she called and angrily yelled at someone in vietnamese, hung up, smiled gently at me and explained that she'd said, 'i sold one of my guests this bus ticket for your company and now this guest is here complaining at me! your bus was supposed to leave two hours ago! why can't you get another driver?' then giggled at me conspiratorially. the agency told her the driver was just on his way back, and sure enough we all eventually got herded back onto the bus.
patience, part two
after about two hours of the 'how long will you stay in nha trang? how long are you traveling in vietnam? where else have you been on this trip?' conversation with my italian companion, i yawned and feigned sleep (feigned, because despite my desire to sleep, my head kept bonking on the windowsill and defensive driving in vietnam consists largely of honking a lot AND LOUDLY). so the boy cranks up his CD walkman and what do i hear floating out of the headphones? guns n roses, baby. big in italy. no one can sing a metal ballad called 'patience' and make it sound like cats in heat except axl rose (aka 'axl rose is love' to some misguided high school sophomores not me thanks for asking).
patience, part three
i'm supposed to be wrapping up one of my last projects while on the road. this requires downloading a lot of big files from a dialup connection on a friend's borrowed laptop in various hotel rooms. from saigon to here, it's been a zen challenge. dial up. connect. unable to access FTP. unable to access email. disconnect. connect again. get email! lose access inexplicably. connect again. lose access inexplicably. connect again. AD FUTILIUM. due to the rush-rush nature of the spy industry (...or is it hush-hush? geez, i can never remember), i need to turn all this work around very quickly and it's taken me four days to even download the freaking files (i am doing so as i write this). but i can't do anything about the slowness and the disconnections, so it's like the zen exercise of washing a sink full of dishes, and then starting all over and washing them again, and then starting over... and somehow, that is OK. i'm no longer a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown as i was maybe a month ago. oh, i waited too long to book a flight to danang and will have to take a 12-hour bus trip instead? - OK! so i'm still being greeted by 10% of the vietnamese male population with a shout of 'korea!' or 'nhat!' (japanese)? - fine! it's just sliding off like water off a duck's back. quack quack quack.
* now watch, just because i wrote this i'll be gibbering or ranting angrily next time...
posted by a wandering eye at 4:48 PM
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