My life is so damn weird and random sometimes. So I took a bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang, which took all night. Here's what happened:
- A Canadian boy met an Israli girl during traveling and I guess now they're going together. That's great and all, except at about 9PM, they got into a heated debate about the whole Israel/Palestine thing. She, of course, got completely emotional about it (understandable). Did I mention that I was sitting directly in front of them? It reminded me of this.
- Oh, and I was supposed to get two seats because I booked a "sleeping" bus but got stuck with a "sitting" bus. Bummer. So this cute'ish Vietnamese boy sat next to me and tried to talk to me, but I was totally curt because, well, I am like that sometimes when PEOPLE TAKE MY SPARE MOTHEREFFING SEAT! (Why didn't I speak up about the discrepency? Because I'm lame and can't defend myself. Duh.) So, the seats are small, but luckily so are both of us. You would think it'd be smooth sailing, right? No, not so much. After he fell asleep, his leg would very so slightly take up some space on my side. Normally, that would be fine, I would just move my leg over to be nice. But after a while, it just got ridiculous and there was nowhere to go. But I figured - and BTW, this is naive Chung talking - that he's so asleep, it'd be kind of mean for me to perpetually move/wake him, right? Right? Especially after being so curt in the beginning? Oh man. Long story short, I guess the guy takes that niceness to be an "OK" to be all chummy with me. At about 4AMish (I'm so tired by this point because of lack of sleep), he's holding my hand. Like, "you're my girlfriend and this is how we hold hands" holding my hands. I'm sitting there thinking, "What. the. fuck." (Yes, pardon my French.) So I took our hands and promptly let go of his on his own lap. Seriously now. Sheesh!
- This was the second "sleeping" bus SNAFU, and thankfully the last. I've been so tired from these journeys, that I've had dreams about transportation while on the bus - that's how traumatizing it was. The first time, I dreamed that I was having an AWFUL bus ride only to wake up to realize that the dream was, in fact, a true nightmare in real life. Le sigh. This time, I dreamed I was getting coffee. mmm speaking of which, haven't had any today....
- So I got to Nha Trang around 6AM, sans-Vietnamese-pseudo-boyfriend. I went to 3 different hotels before finding a room. I'm walking down the street to go find a particular dive shop when I stumbled upon one that offered certification for $190. Pretty cheap! It's Russian owned. My instructor is French. And was translating the lessons from his French cards into English. ZOMG. Seriously. And usually people teach you in the pool? Nuh-uh. I got hands-on, sink-or-swim training out in the ocean. Verdict thus far? It's not too hard, but it hurts the ears. Apparently you get used to this. (I'm still waiting for my hearing to return, several hours later.) But the crew is pretty cool. Reminded me of America because there was a tall, thin Russian named Dima on board. (:
I have 2 more days of instructions to go. WISH ME LUCK!!!
