It wasn't a nightmare but.....I don't want to do it again real soon. Thuan dropped me off at the bus station and I desperately started to scan the waiting customers. In the morning there had been two stinky very large Germans on the bus....I hoped to God they were not going to replicate my plan......As I was scanning I met a lovely Polish girl who is studying in China and was on her University break. She picked up on my scanning and told me of the night bus she had been on where there were two gigantic American guys in the back seats who hardly fit and who entertained everyone with their play by play in the back seats. I looked for them - good so far. The bad thing was it was so hot in Hue; most people were pretty sweaty including me.
The bus station woman told me the bus was full so I gave up my hope for an empty seat next to me.
We loaded into the back row- at first just a nice couple - he from England, she from Wales - he a teacher, she a vet and they had been living and working in Hong Kong for the last 18 months. Travelling a bit before heading to South America to look for jobs. Cool. Except they were two seats away from me....then a Vietnamese gets on - a full size one, not a average 94 pounder. Damn. He is very excited it seems, to be getting to sleep with me - for 12 hours. Then another Vietnamese guy - they share their amazement and attempt to chat me up. Pretty funny. I put on my reading glasses and buddy takes them and charades some bizarre facial massage exercises that will allow me to throw my glasses away.....seems he is willing to do the massage..... Important to set some boundaries really soon. One thing I do excel in is setting boundaries. We all have a few laughs; buddy goes through my books, and of course, wants to know how old I am. He is 46 it seems and all of this without a word spoken......Beginning of a long night.
I decided to take the sleeping pill half I brought with me because I did not want to play charades all night. Popped the pill at 6 pm, put in the IPod and hoped for the best......when I was doing chemo I broke down and got the prescription for sleeping pills. They were a godsend at that time and a half would get me a good 8 hours. Last night, my half got me 45 minutes - 7 pm to 7:45. Yikes. As always, the rest of the bus slept the whole way - buddy1 and buddy2 snoring loudly, somewhat disappointed after I thought it was not ok that we hold hands!!!! The ride was quite wild - lots of road construction which translated into huge bumps and rough roads for the back of the bus. Also lots of the slow ascents and having to pull over on the switchbacks.
Long night and yes indeed - the bus did simply did pull over at 4:30 am and the guy from the front came back and told me to get off. Just me, off in the pitch dark in a City on a main street. A first for me. Rather daunting. I was truly surprised that there was not one tout to meet the bus.
I did choose this City because I was hoping for some calm and to get off the Lonely Planet Guidebook route. That thing is such a bible, it is crazy when you see 98% of the travelers carrying it around and going to all the same places. Very little diversity. So - be careful what you wish for - I didn't want touts in the daylight, but damn, I would like a few in the dark.
I gathered up my stuff and found a street light and pulled out my Lonely Planet where I had written the name of a Hotel I found on the net. It had a great review from some guy who said it was like joining a family. I chose this town because a guy I met in Cambodia said he like this place best of all. No tourists. Not a lot of information to start the day with. I decided I should wait til sunrise or at least until the City came awake. I knew that life starts very early in Asia so figured I was in good stead.  
Sure enough - the first thing I see is....a water buffalo coming through the dark......then a tout arrives on a bike, promoting a different Hotel. He is baffled at why I am sitting in the dark street and not jumping at his Hotel offer. Quite sweet and gentle guy. Then a bunch of women get off one of the screamer buses - local buses that scream around with hundreds in them, motorcycles and bicycles and animals hanging off the roofs. These women had massive bags of stuff and just plopped themselves across the street from me and started doing something. I hauled my stuff over there and saw that the huge bags were pulsating!!!! The tout reappears and helps me understand everything that is going on. More buses, more bags chucked off.....the bags are full of live itsy bitsy crabs. The women squat and start ripping the live crabs apart and are making tiny piles of goo. Buddy tells me the goo is very tasty and it sells very well because these crabs are not available everywhere so this goo will be a hot seller at the markets all over the region later today. I can't believe how little goo you get from so many crabs. He then tells me that they crush the shells and make it into flour. All this and buffalos are cruising by, scooters loaded with vegetables are coming into town, it is still dark and I feel very privileged, tired but lucky, to be able to see all of this. So many people work so hard, everyday. I felt bad about not wanting to sleep squished against a funny stranger. People here sleep on the ground in their houses - just pull out little woven rattan mats and sleep in their shops or in the entranceway of their homes. I think sleeping on a sleeping bus, next to a non monkey face foreigner was good. I give the guy his do for wanting to hold hands.
As soon as there was some light I hauled my bag up the street and amazingly found where the Hotel I wanted was located. What good luck except it was locked up tight with an accordion screen. I figured it was too early to try and get in - It was still before 5:30 and the side streets were still asleep. Wandered until 6 am and rang the bell.
What a nice place. Lovely kind family. They had lots of choice and I decide to splurge on a bigger room with a balcony so I could get some fresh air. $10 with wifi and breakfast! Speaking of which, as I type this, there is some kind of creature that came in earlier through the open balcony door and is behind the wall of curtains. Every now and then - I hear some weird kind of chirping???? It just makes noises now and then - like every 15 minutes. If it was a bird it should be freaking by now.???? Just don't know.
Had a big sleep and then lunch with the family then the fun started for the day!!!!   More firsts.
The owner gave me a map he had developed of the community . He is very proud of it and it shows all of the local attractions. They are all out of town - 3km to 25 k m away. He gives me a bicycle and marks a route on the map. I have not seen anyone else in this hotel or any other foreigners in the town. He assures me that others have stayed here and that others have used this map before without problems. I know I will be lost. I cannot do maps. I have DD - Directional Disability. The owner tells me this is not Hanoi, not like other places - everyone is nice and gentle and will be very helpful if I get lost. Also he gives me his phone number so if I get into trouble he will come and get me. Nice.
I head off and am lost by the first turn. A bunch of school kids are riding with me and they try to understand the map but can't stop laughing long enough to be very helpful. Other farmers just shake their heads and smile. I figure what the hell it is so beautiful I might not find the official attractions, I will find other Karsts. This area is surrounded by rice paddies and huge mountain cave outcrops that look a little surreal. Very beautiful landscapes.
Everywhere I go, kids yell Hello and old people wave. The further out it starts to get to be only rice fields yet I can see big individual mountains so try and get there by crossing the rice paddies. Between the fields are little lanes, some wider than others - some I think wide enough for a Buffalo as there is a lot of buffalo poo around.
Long story - fully lost, out in the fields, started very late as I slept til 1pm, starting to worry about darkness again, try to take a picture of myself using the timer because it is so lovely.....don't know how to do that......have camera on bike seat........run to get in front......bike falls - into rice paddy, all my stuff goes into the water - had a day pack with me.....rice grows in muddy lakes...... jump into the rice paddy to get my stuff before it sinks.......deep mud..........couldn't make this stuff up.........all my stuff is soaked, wallet, Lonely Planet, my nice Cambodian silk glasses case, my tissues, cosmetic bag,.... the daypack filled with muddy, buffalo poo water......the only thing saved was the camera as it stayed on the skinny little strip of land......bike basket schmuked and twisted......me, in my new Maude outfit now looking like a regular Vietnamese rice harvester......notice my sunglasses are still in the water....back in....covered in mud......and way out of town and still lost..........and the lovely map is soaked and the magic marker route has run all over the rest of the drawing.......yuck.
Now I push the bike because it is too skinny to ride and my shoes and feet are too caked in mud to make good contact. I get to some weird cemetery with ancient tombs and hear a weird noise coming from the basket of my bike. I look in and find the personal alarm I bought at Radio Shack. One of the little things that you pull a string and it makes a shrill siren- like noise that is supposed to be so annoying your attacker chooses someone less annoying. Seems like the water is doing something to my alarm so I pull the string. Yup - the alarm starts shrilling, in the middle of a rice paddy cemetery and the only person around is a woman half a field away who probably saw me at 4:30 am and knows I am now the town nutcase!!!!!! So - I abandoned the alarm and it might still be shrilling the dead out there - I did find a nice tomb to leave it on as whoever comes along will see it as some anthropologically important specimen.
Headed back to town, apparently on the route I should have taken at first, stopped a few times to take photos but found out that when one is sweaty and smells like buffalo s***, one becomes a bit of a fly magnet.
The Hotel family could not believe I could get lost, could fall into a rice paddy and suggested they find someone to drive a motorcycle very slowly in front of me tomorrow so I would know where to ride on my bike. This is a very gentle place.
The weird noise is still behind the curtain.....might be sleeping with the light on. I just have to get some sleep.