The bus that doesn't stop

After the mountain biking trip I spent a night in Mui Ne then took a bus back to Saigon and spent another night there. I met a guy in the hostel who was complaining how Vietnam was very expensive. He had just paid 300,000 dong for a taxi from the airport. He was not too happy when I told him I was planning on taking the public bus that costs 3,000 dong. To put this into perspective €1 is approximately 25,000 dong.

I got to the bus station and I was the only tourist there. I knew the bus I needed was 152 so I saw that on a sign and waited there. There were no signs in English. A few minutes later a young guy approached me and asked if I was going to the airport. I was a bit suspicious of him as you are constantly approached by taxi and moto drivers. He told me that it was bus 152 and that there was on due in about 5 minutes. Then he saw his bus and ran to get it, it didn't stop so he just jumped on as it passed.

Soon after he had gone a guy and girl said hello to me. They asked where I was from, where I was going and so on. We chatted for a few minutes until some people started shouting at me and I noticed bus 152 coming down the road. I grabbed my bags and walked towards the bus. The bus didn't stop instead it just slowed down as it was passing the bus stop so I had to throw my bag on and jump on while it stayed moving. Once I got on the bus I put my bags down on a seat and went up to pay the driver. At this point I noticed the two people that had spoken to me earlier were also on the bus. They had already paid for my ticket. They would not accept money from me, instead they sat opposite me and spoke to me for the rest of the journey. Once we got the the airport they walked with me to the departures entrance. This was my second time to meet people in Vietnam who were genuinely friendly, helpful and not trying to sell me something!