Failing in the Clutch

The difficulty, you see, was the bus driver. He should have learned to drive standard before getting aboard.

It was a morning bus out of Nha Trang, headed all the way to Saigon. Normally, I would have taken a night bus to save on accommodation but the weather was not pleasant the day before. It rained buckets. Puddles at the curb almost met in the middle of the road. If the next day would be that foul, why kill time in the rain and then spend nine hours on the road? At least this way, I stood to have a nice evening down south.

We started at 8:30. Rice fields, roadside shops and palm trees rested in the sun. The bus stopped for a break and humidity dropped on me like a blanket in a stuffy room. Not an hour later, we pulled off the road again and I looked up, confused. The door opened to the smell of burning.

"Smells like he's burnt out the clutch," said Steve, a burnt-out Brit.

Off the bus, we looked at the wood shacks that housed who knows how many people. Locals peered out of the gloom at us. A little boy played in the dirt.

"We should start looking for houses here," said a huge Nigerian with a laugh. "Maybe I live here!"

The bus got going again, then broke down and most of us found refuge in the shade of a roadside cafe. The glasses of beer were cold, the ice in them just perfect.

An older and very round German strolled up. "They say we'll be here for a couple of hours."

With help from the mechanically-inclined passengers, our delay was not so long. The driver gave a short, sharp shot on the horn and we snatched up our bags and climbed aboard. The general consensus was that our bus was patched together well enough to get as far as Mui Ne down the coast where we would have to switch to other transportation.

But eternal hope was no mechanic and we would not get there. At every hill, the bus slowed down, stopped, rolled backwards and crept forward again - Steve was of the opinion that we would eventually have to get out and push. The gears gave a metallic scrape every time the driver shifted.

Tyler, a Canadian, was the first to lose patience. "First time driving stick?!"

"We should have dropped this driver a long time ago," grumbled someone else.

The bus gave up the fight for good on a shallow hill. The bald sun beat down, sparse shrubs and rocks no cover for us. Horse dung lay dried and smeared on the road. We kicked a soccer ball and avoided traffic.

The driver, seeking cover from the wind, leaned under the engine hood to light his cigarette.

We waited.

A replacement bus arrived an hour later. Coming from Mui Ne, it passed us going in the other direction, turned around and came back. The driver's assistant, leaning out the door, got a wide, toothy grin on his face.

"Byeeeee!" The bus accelerated as it passed us, then pulled off the road. I laughed.

"Where? Saigon or Mui Ne?" the driver's assistant asked.

"Mui Ne." We would get to the little beachside town by four in the afternoon and, with Saigon a further five hours away, I couldn't fathom getting off the bus at 9pm. The sun and sweat and waiting to go had beaten me. I needed to stop.

We drove the last forty-odd kilometers down narrow roads flanked by pristine, blue-watered coastline and smooth sand dunes and fishing villages. After an hour, the new bus pulled into a quiet resort with little bungalows for rent. I stayed, along with Steve and Tyler and another Canadian from Edmonton, Jackson.

"We're heading for the water straight-away," said Steve.

Good idea, I thought. The sun shone and the beach chairs were plentiful. I changed and dove right in.