Vaccinations? Check. Passport? Check. Visa? Check.
After months of route-planning and preparations, the countdown is over. My boyfriend and I are ready for our long-awaited backpacking trip around Vietnam and Thailand, and everything is finally sorted. But I soon learn that no matter how organised you are, or how many travel guides you skim through, there are some things that you just cannot prepare for.
It’s day four. We have just checked out of our room on Cat Ba island, and laden down with backpacks, make the sweaty trek to the bus stop. Our next stop is Hoi An, where we will finally experience the vibrant lantern festival that I had been gazing at online for months.
Before my trip, people had warned me off mopeds, drinking tap water or swimming at certain beaches. But buses? Nobody mentioned them. As far as I am concerned, the bus is safe territory.
I throw my heavy pack underneath the now-packed coach and settle into my seat, sandwiched between two couples at the back. “This is going to be a cosy ride,” I think to myself, as I wave at my boyfriend who is perched beside the driver. Except it was anything but.
Within several minutes of rolling off the car ferry, the deafening honk of a horn suddenly drowns out my music. I had been in Vietnam for four days and know that car horns are basically background music here. So I choose to ignore it…until it grows louder, more urgent, more frequent. I try to steal a glimpse out the window but the dated curtains conceal my view.
And then I feet it.
The powerful force that hit the left side of our bus and sends it crashing over. Beeping is replaced by screaming and the screech of steel against concrete as we toss and turn, like a blender full of bodies and luggage.
Some say that when you’re in an accident, life flashes before your eyes. But the only thing I have running through my mind at that moment is, “This is where I die…”
When we screech to a halt, I look around to find absolute carnage. Broken glass. Crying children. Blood. I still don’t know what had happened when, leg throbbing, I clamber out through the emergency exit. The heat is the first thing to hit me. Then reality. A huge articulated truck is responsible for knocking us off track and sending us sliding for about 40 metres. Looking back, it’s a wonder that we all survived.
Other passengers find their way off the bus on their own or in the arms of another. Some are much worse off than others. A distraught man screams for help as he crouches over his unconscious, blood-soaked wife who he soon lifts into a hospital-bound taxi.
I find my boyfriend and hug him close, speechless but relieved that we are alright. Soon, we too are rushed off to hospital, where we are surrounded by doctors and nurses, speaking to us in an unfamiliar tongue while examining every inch of our weary and shaken bodies.
Several hours of prodding and broken conversations later, we are discharged with two souvenirs: A swollen purple leg for me, eight stitches for my boyfriend. In our torn and blood-stained clothes, we make our way to the nearest hotel and await word about our luggage.
We spoke long into the following nights, questioning whether we should continue our trip. In the end, we decide to keep going. The following six weeks are a struggle as we lug bruised legs and egos around Asia. Yet, choosing to get back on the road is the best decision we ever made.
Before our accident, I felt invincible and to be honest, took many things for granted. The accident, albeit terrifying, brought me quite literally crashing back down to earth. For a while, I became cautious, too afraid to try anything that felt even remotely dangerous. Those feelings soon cleared, making way for a sense of understanding, an understanding that some things in life are outside of our control. But we shouldn’t let this stop us from living. If we can’t always be in the driving seat, we might as well sit back and enjoy the view.
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