34 Hours.

On Monday, October 4th at approximately 1500 hrs Darren and I boarded a bus from Cat Ba to the port.  At 1600 hrs we boarded a boat from the port to Haiphong.  At 1645 hrs we got off the boat and onto another bus which was to take us to the long distance bus station.  At 1730 hrs we arrived at the long distance bus station.  After watching a man pee in a canal and then continue to wash his face, hands, and feet in the same place he had just peed we boarded a bus to Hue at 1930 hrs-- expected arrival time:  0730 hrs Tuesday, October 5th.  At 0500 hrs Tuesday, October 5th, the bus stopped in the middle of Ky Anh (which we discovered much later).  At 0730 hrs everyone got off the bus, washed their faces, brushed their teeth and ate breakfast.  At approximately 0900 hrs, we re-boarded the bus.  At 1100 hrs after I had finished my book and the bus had not yet moved, I got off.  At 1130 hrs everyone (our bus plus the other two that had arrived) ate lunch.  At 1200 hrs we figured out what was going on.  Flooding (at this point it had been raining for 6-8 hrs).  At 1400 hrs we watched "I Love You, Man".  At 1600 hrs we finished watching "I Love You, Man" and tried to see if we could hire a car or find a flight from a nearby city.  At 1630 hrs, after many "do you speak English"es, no luck.  At 1700 hrs we began watching "How To Train Your Dragon".  At 1720 hrs, we got back on the bus.  We proceeded to drive through what can only be described as small lakes, while watching people push their cars and motorcycles through the waist high water.  At 2300 hrs we stopped for dinner (20km away from Hue).  At 2330 we got back on the bus.  At 0005 hrs we and are soaked bags arrived in Hue.  At 0010 hrs we straddled the backs of some strangemen and their motorbikes.  At 0025 hrs we arrived at a hotel and the driver of one of the bikes proceeded to shout and wake up the guard.  At 0100 hrs we unpacked our wet bags, hung up our wet clothes and went to bed.

What does it all add up to?  34 hours of my life I will never get back, and 10 minutes of your life that you'll never get back!