267 Sleeping Positions
Nha Trang, 25th
May 2002 (Part 1)
Oooowwwhhhh, that was a VERY annoying bus journey. Very bumpy,
uncomfortable, and generally not a nice night.
It started well, after everyone had piled onto the bus, I was very
happy to find that I had a double seat to myself. Perfect to curl up
and sleep on, or so I thought. I swear that when they designed this
coach the engineers thought "How can we make these the most awkward
seats in the world to sleep on?". They reached their aim. Firstly,
the seats don't recline at all. Secondly, the seats are a weird
shape that makes them uncomfortable to lie down on. Lastly, the arm
rests don't move and are at just the right height to be right in the
way, 100% of the time. Doh!
At the start we cruised comfortably along, the sun set and we all
chatted to each other. However, just after we decided to get some
sleep, the road got pretty bumpy. I got to know the back of the seat
in front far too well, I lost count of the amount of times I had my
face thrown up against it after going over a particularly bad bump.
That's what made it impossible to sleep. I needed to be awake to
grab onto something every time we went over a big pothole to stop
myself being thrown off the seat.
After trying about 267 different positions to sleep in, and having
Andy laugh and my shufflings, I gave up grumpily and decided just to
sit upright. In this position, I think I managed to grab a few
minutes sleep. And after a long night's drive, the sun began to rise
and we all sat in anticipation of a sign saying 'Nha Trang'.
When we reached Nha Trang, our first stop was at the local branch of
TM Brothers (the company we'd booked the coach with). As we pulled
up, a lively Vietnamese guy jumped on, and we drove off again
quickly. This guy was a great talker, he spoke good English and had
a very strange accent, almost cockney! He welcomed us to Nha Trang
and gave us a bit of info about the place, including a warning to
stay away from the beach at night time. I'd already been told this
by many travellers (and the Lonely Planet). Nha Trang beach is
infamous for theft and muggings. Especially by prostitutes hanging
on the beach at night. Apart from that, Nha Trang was a pretty safe
place, but still, from all the stories I'd been told, I was very
wary and extra cautious with my wallet & valuables. After he'd been
talking for a while, I noticed something strange about our friendly
greeter. He had only one hand, and that hand was severely
disfigured. Still, he had no trouble doing anything. He passed out
leaflets, he smoked, he wrote without any problems. Even more
interestingly, we were to meet this guy a lot, and we always
referred to him as 'the guy with the cool accent'. That was his most
distinguishing feature.
They took us to a few hotels that they recommended, after looking at
a few, we settled on one and unloaded our stuff. Due to our lack of
sleep from last night, we'd planned to have a quiet day, just taking
it easy. Andy decided to have a nap and Gilad wanted to chat with a
friend at the Internet cafe. I decided the best way for me to stay
awake until the evening was to go for a walk, so I set off to have a
look around Nha Trang.
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