We’ve finally discovered the art of travel on Asian overnight buses. The trick to weathering these fantastic abortions ( and avoiding complete mental collapse) is treating it like a collegiate night out: be well-rested, get showered, listen to some music, and partake in heavy alcohol/narcotics consumption, knowing full-well it’s going to get buck-wild. The biggest mistake is to arrive on the bus old, tall, or expecting to sleep. If you want to avoid a nervous break-down, follow these rules and allow the most outlandish circumstances to hypnotize you as they inevitably unfold.

Each bus-ride, its own grotesque saga, contains eerily consistent mania in time-release capsules, tailored for a person’s mental/physical limits. In just 14 hours, we were acquainted with meditation and a renewed faith in God as strange, Vaudevillian participants acted-out scenes difficult to endure, comprehend or describe. But for your reading pleasure, I’ll try…

When the Hanoi-bound bus arrived on time ( something we’d not experienced before), I was pleasantly surprised. We stored our bags easily in the luggage bin, and boarded without incident.

This would exhaust the easy quotient of our journey.

Chomping contentedly on Oreo’s, I took out my Ipod and tried to relax in a seat made for someone much smaller than me. Troy’s knees were sandwiched against mine and the seat in front of us. Apparently, the vehicle’s engineers did not consider passengers in the design, because when the seat reclined, you rested squarely on the chest/legs of those behind you.

Just another 14 hours to go.

Boarding after us, were 3, thirty-something British hippies, whose seemingly innocuous decision to pop Valium would later drive Troy to incredible ends. The blackened feet of the barefoot (yes, barefoot) trio trod all the way down the empty bus into the seats, of course, directly in front of us. While we rolled slowly through Hue’s streets, picking up remaining passengers, one bestowed blustering, slurred conversation on how he consumed 12 bottles of wine in 24 hours. Their infestation, loosely classified as hair, came obtrusively over and through the seat dividers ahead, a writhing morass, bringing with it the unwelcome odor of dirt and French Fries. As the intellectual repartee ensued, the messes would throw themselves about their reclined seats in a drugged glee that would prove most disappointing to all the commuters; especially to us and our tattered knees directly behind them. Hours down the road, as we inched away from our rested demeanor, these special people would lose their novelty, and Troy his better judgement.

Somewhere buried in my definition and understanding of “bus-travel”, lie several pre-conceived notions adopted after experiences on Western buses. One such notion assumes the purchase of a ticket secures an individual seat; quite a hapless fallacy if you’re traversing a long distance, on an overnight-bus in Asia.

Plainly at-capacity, we pulled into, yet another, hotel. Troy and I, confused, were mulling over the space needed to stow the waiting family of three, completely oblivious to the growing altercation just outside. If you remember, we learned how unsatisfactory seating arrangements are settled ( pushing and shoving ) on our Thailand-Cambodia bus ride. Wildly shouting profanities in Vietnamese and, surprisingly, English ( “BUU-SHEE”/ “FOOK YUU”) the mother boarded the bus armed with, unbeknownst to us, a handful of rocks. A few seconds later, after a violent tango in the aisle, I thought they’d reached an understanding, as the woman got off the bus. Unpredictably and decisively, she pivoted in a ninja-like maneuver, and began hurling the projectiles through the window and at the driver. I must admit, in a place so completely devoid of customer service….or just any service, I empathized rock-throwing was the next logical step.

Our first disaster under the belt and with a couple extra stones on board, we were on our way, hurtling off into the misty Vietnamese sunset. Save picking up another 4 people from the country-side who would lay in aisle, playing an aggressive game of territory demarcation with the intoxicated hippies and passing 2 dead bodies splayed across the road, the next few hours would pass without occasion.

We made our first stop just after midnight, but the heat and humidity were still staggering. My painfully full bladder forced me to negotiate a motley stew of large insects, urine and feces in what I can unequivocally label the worst toilet I have ever seen. ( see inset photo). Troy, biologically superior and somewhat removed from this particular situation, laughed as I ran horrified, stall to gut-wrenching stall, eventually squatting in darkness, near some sort of sludge-drain. Refusing to employ the stagnant tub of brown, viscous liquid ( with which you are to wash your hands?), I located my trusty Purell- which has been indispensable on our journey: thanks, mom-and splurged on half a bottle.

Upon reentering the bus, I gaped, momentarily frozen in shock. Somehow, I’d overlooked a major caveat of our safe-passage to Hanoi: our bus driver’s missing eye. We learned gratuitous use of the horn is a legal and effective substitute for sight while driving in Vietnam, especially at night on a challenging, mountainous road with a loaded passenger vehicle. I thoroughly enjoyed the luxury my back-of-the-bus seat offered: partial ignorance of the frequency and severity of near-misses, as we passed 18-wheelers, and pitched towards the ravines. Earlier, Murphy’s law would lead me to peruse the Lonely Planet forum where I would read about a Vietnamese bus crash, 2 weeks ago, on this very route. Not to worry, however, as it was clear T.M. brother’s travel agency took its passenger’s safety seriously, probably enforcing routine maintenance and state-of-the-art precautions with our $2 fares.

Never having left the bus, the drugged failures, one drooling with shades on, and both unconscious, had fully reclined their seats onto ours, preventing any ease of seating. Lacking further tolerance, I abruptly righted their seats with two swift kicks; which, with the Valium, they seemed to take in stride. As soon as we pulled away, the lights were killed, and the vicious game of see-saw seats commenced.

Our bodies met with their seat backs and hair in painful, repetitive collisions for two hours, when Troy, deciding to take part in the lunacy, began hashing his plot . Long ago, I’d pulled my knees up to cover my chest, as we jerked violently along, trying to recall the maximum force a breast implant can withstand before rupturing.

While passing a rogue street-lamp, I caught a glimpse of Troy, wild-eyed, holding a tube of super-glue. Upon further inquiry, he confessed a desperate attempt to super-glue the hippies hair to the seat cushion in the darkness; an understandable response to such stimuli.

Exhausted and preoccupied with the glue stratagem, it took me a few moments to notice the pairs of feet coming through, at face level, from behind us. I was considerately roused from a few seconds of shut-eye with a blackened toe-nail inches from my face. Following vigorous elbow jabs, the feet withdrew, but it was only minutes reprieve before the encroachment began again.

I can do this.

Just 4 hours to go.

Eventually, the devilish road leveled, and the ride quieted. There was a palpable, collective sigh with assumptions that the worst had passed. The intermittant air-conditioning snapped miraculously back in order, adding to our optimism and relief. Listening to Coldplay, I focused on relaxing my body, my mind. Maybe sleep was possible on this abomination.

The small, quiet man sitting to Troy's immediate left, however, decided against that concept. Ingesting something ( probably at our unsanitary stop) that enraged his innards, the small man became a spout of projectile vomit. Amazingly, rather than following usual protocol ( lunging for a window/opening/door) he turned in our direction and spewed into the aisle of the bus, on our laptop bag and Troy's calf. As you can imagine, this was the perfect night-cap and happy ending to a memorable sojourn.

In the words of someone else: "Long live TM Brothers tourism agency. I am forever grateful for each moment of my life not spent on this bus"