suicidal vietnamese cows

Landing in Hanoi was just like any other place I’d landed over there, you climb down the set of rolling stairs and hop into a bus, a la LAX 20 years ago. They don’t have those drivable accordion hallway things that Jim Carrey ran off of in Dumb and Dumber. While the economies are making a concerted effort at recovering after decades and decades and decades of conflict and oppression, they have yet to get to a place where the airports are comparable with the West; it’s just as well though, this way you get a feeling for the weather straight away instead of being fooled by the misleading pleasant temperatures provided by the a/c in the airport only to have you visions of bliss shattered when you step out the front doors and walk get hit in the face by a blistering wall of heat.
Once we were on the ground I did the Asian shuffle through the airport, the considerably smaller than Ho Chi Minh airport, and shot outside to be ambushed by a mob of Vietnamese men shouting at me and at one another lobbying for position and trying to get me to hire them to drive me on their motorbike to wherever I needed to go.
I was only swinging through Hanoi on my way out to the glorious Halong Bay, so I had my mind set on getting to the bus station a.s.a.p. The concierge outside of the terminal told me that the bus station was about 40 minutes away and that it was reachable by taking the local bus number 17 until it stops, and that would be the bus station. That sounded credible. Motorbikes are a great way to get around, and are generally cheaper and faster than buses, and a few blocks by motorbike is no big deal, but there was no way I was riding on the back of a little man’s motorbike for 40 minutes, that just wasn’t going to happen, so I went the bus route and bummed out all 20 motorbike drivers that were trying to get me.
The bus ride was fantastic. It revealed a very primitive version of Vietnam that Saigon very effectively covered up with its commercialism; there were many, many farms with cattle grazing in the fields accompanied by rice fields after rice fields. There were a great number of older people meandering about that seemed to have been born and raised in this middle of nowhere town between Hanoi and its airport. This was the Vietnam I had anticipated seeing, and I was very glad to be out of the chaotic metropolis that is Ho Chi Minh City.
Just as I was relishing in the wonder of this place I was in, the skies opened up once again and unleashed a tremendous downpour as quickly as any I’ve ever seen, making me ultra-thankful that I decided against the motorbike ride into town. The metal enclosure I was rolling in was ever so awesome as the gods dumped a plethora of water on us.
Twenty minutes or so into the commute, we’re cruising along haphazardly when all of the sudden, the bus driver slams on his breaks, literally screeching to a halt. I fly forward in my seat but am able to hang on and not fly over the seatback in front of me. Other people were not so lucky, kids were flung from their seats landing a couple rows in front of where they took off from, groceries were spilled from bags, purses were dropped, and people just toppled all over one another. Certain that someone died in the street, a few of us on the bus got up and raced to the front to see that everything was OK, the bus driver just sat shaking his head in annoyance. Right as I approached the front of the bus, a cow moseys out from in front of the bus; bell around its neck, ignorant as possible, and completely unaware of its life having just been salvaged by an eighth of an inch. It popped into view of the rest of the passengers on the bus and everyone cursed it in Vietnamese, “damn cow!”
With everyone’s items and thoughts collected, our fearless driver forged on. We stopped several times picking up upwards of 30 school children ranging from about four years old up to perhaps twelve years old at most. The bus was relatively full by this time, so when the children got on board, it was downright crowded, and I was the sole representative of the West. No one really seemed to have the time of day for me, not that I was reaching out to speak with people, but I had asked a couple people where the bus stop I was looking for was located, and no one really seemed interested in helping me out, so I was keeping to myself, and for whatever reason, no one seemed to really want to sit next to me, so when the kids arrived, the biggest selection of seats was available next to, in front of, and behind me; and suddenly I was surrounded by school children. Blue pants, white button up shirts, and a red scarf/tie kind of things ruled the day; that seemed to be the uniform for all schools in the country. The little Vietnamese boy who sheepishly took me up on my offer for the seat next to me frequently looked at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I was looking at him. The other kids were looking over the seat behind them, at me; my neighbor was going to be all the rage at school the next day for sitting next to the dirty American traveler guy on the bus. The girl standing in the aisle, a couple years older, maybe his sister, kept nudging him. Finally he turned to me and said “hello” hoping he hadn’t pronounced it wrong, and as I replied with a hello, all eyes within earshot were on he and I and our newly kindled conversation. He would look at his friends for approval to continue and asked me how I was, and what my name. He was probably in third grade, so I assume that’s all the further he’d gotten with English, but it was awesome. When the got off the bus they were all hi-fiving him and patting him on the back and as the bus moved ahead, all 30 something of the school kids now located on the sidewalk waved at me and said good bye. It was incredible interacting with such innocence. They were completely unaware of the history between our two countries and were everything but jaded by the loud and obnoxious cliché that Western tourists carry with them and are invariably subjected to by a lot of adults.