left our jobs, went to Asia

The first video, yay! Click on the "Play" button in the middle, watch it, and then read a few words about the public bus system in Vietnam.

Undercover

It is not easy to find a right bus station, especially in big cities. There are usually a few, with different routes. So if you arrived at the wrong bus station, it's your problem.

Not always logical

Sometimes the bus leaves each hour to the destination. That is convenient. But sometimes the last bus leaves at 12.00, even though the distance is one or two hours worth. It soes not always seem logical, but maybe there is an explanation which we don't know yet.

Slow

If you managed to hop onto the bus, be prepared that the doors will be constantly open, the conductor sticking his head out and shouting the name of the destination. That way he tries to attract all the possible passengers who stand near the road with their luggage. Obviously, if the passenger's and bus' destinations match, the passanger gets in with all his cages full of hen, packs of half-squashed tomatoes and three crying children.

Having all this in mind, imagine what is the average speed of the bus, which stops on each crossing looking for passangers.

Check out the footage above to see what I mean.

Packed

I don't think that there are words like "overloaded", "transport safety", or "limited amount of seats" in Vietnamese.

The driver takes whatever amount of passengers he can, if there are no empty seats, the new passengers sit on an edge of already busy seat, and while time passes, occupy more and more of it, until both of the passengers share the same seat. The better version of this scenario is three passengers sharing two seats.

Vietnamese don't seem to worry about it.

The luggage? No problem, just drop it onto the aisle!

Did I already mention that the public buses are small - something between minibus and a normal bus?

Noisy

That is not something that is exclusive only to public bus. All the Vietnamese honk and horn and beep and signal like crazy, without any obvious reason for that. Constantly. The bus is not an exception.

I don't think I can explain it with words. Look at the video above.

Tiring or fun?

It solely depends on your current condition.

If you are travelling in such a bus and tired from previous travel or had a bad night's sleep, the trip will be a nightmare.

If you are in good health, happy and energetic, that will be a lot of fun, as it is quite a close connection to the local culture.

In any case, you won't be able to read anything, due to constant and distracting signalling.

Having said all that, I have to admit that there are better buses in Vietnam, they are normal sized, travel faster and are not so packed. It usually is an "open ticket bus", travelling longer distances, sometimes during a night. Sometimes - doing a toilet stop in the middle of the field.