● For full details on our route, transport info, hotel details, etc, look at our Google Maps page

Thursday 18 December 2008

The Open Tour Bus

Background
Throughout Vietnam, the ‘Open Tour’ bus rules. An open ticket allows you to travel from Hanoi to Saigon, in either direction, stopping at many places en route, at a bargain price. This doesn’t make for very good independent travel – you are shepherded around like a package tourist. The bus companies also have a habit of trying to make more money from you by taking you to a ‘friends’ hotel at your destination and selling you an overpriced hotel room. For the long distances between some places, there was no alternative but to take an Open Tour bus.

Sinh Cafe is one of the biggest operators, but also one of the most copied. There are tens of other companies in Hannoi claiming to be Sinh Cafe. The real one is this one: http://www.sinhcafevn.com/AboutUs.asp

There are 2 types of bus - Sleeping (around 6 rows of 3 bunk beds where you get to lie almost flat) or Sitting (a normal bus with 45 reclining seats). We don’t think the sleeping bus is worth the extra money as the ‘beds’ are tiny for a westerner and it’s a bit like laying in a coffin!

Top Traveller Tip #9 – Think carefully before getting an Open Tour ticket. They can be restrictive in the route they allow you to take. We didn’t buy an Open ticket, we just bought the legs as we needed them, which for us worked out cheaper. Straying away from the coast (e.g. into the central highlands and Dalat) could mean part of your ticket wasted. There are some local buses available, but in some cases even on the local bus you will be overcharged as you are a foreigner.

Our Journey from Ninh Binh to Hue
We bought the cheapest ticket, 170,000 dong ($10), for a sitting bus with reclining seats. Our bus pulled up at the hotel, and we were ushered aboard. Shoes off and into a plastic bag straight away, we noticed that this was a sleeping bus, and not a sitting bus as we expected. We thought we’d had a result, by paying half what the other passengers had paid, then we found out why! The driver’s assistant ushered Ady to sit on the seat next to the driver – the one that folds away when people are getting on and off – yes, the bolt upright crew seat! Sam was put in a seat in one of the two aisles, jammed between two sets of bunks, which also didn’t recline.

We refused to sit in these places as we’d paid for a reclining seat, and didn’t fancy travelling for 10 hours bolt upright with the chance of going straight through the windscreen constantly on our minds! We weren’t afraid to let them know our thoughts and spent the next 10 minutes ranting and raging at the crew (and under no circumstances are you supposed to lose your rag with another person in SE Asia, it’s an absolute no-no), insisting we were taken back to town, waking the entire bus of sleeping people in the process. Another ten minutes and we were back at the hotel, letting rip at the staff there. They called around and told us that another bus would come to pick us up, this time a proper sitting bus.

Deja-vu as we were ushered aboard another sleeping bus. Shoes off again, but before we pulled away from the hotel we managed to determine that this wasn’t our bus either!

Third time lucky, we squeezed into a couple of seats on the back row of the next bus to arrive. This was going to be a very bumpy journey!

No comments:

Visitors Since 19th May 2009...