If the long-distance bus is a person, there’s a high chance that it’s a character who’s not very well-liked. Perhaps it’s a rude guy who smokes like a chimney and often yells whenever someone overtakes him. If the bus is female, then it’s a moody princess, especially during long holidays. Countless people queue up in hopes of accompanying her on trips, but she only takes the few earliest arrivals, and will give them a hard time with everything.
What I remember the most about the long-distance bus trips of my life is the brightly lit window frames flashing in the night, and the half-sleepy, half-alert state I was in every time, set to the driver’s greatest bolero hits soundtrack. The scenery outside repeats itself after a while, but I strangely never find it boring. I can peer through the windows for hours, just to marvel at the endless dragon fruit orchards of Bình Thuận or cloud-wrapped houses atop the Đắk Lắk highlands.
Every blink of my eyes, those scenes of nature slowly fade in and out in my mind, tinged with wistfulness. Perhaps rest stops are born of a need to anchor us down to reality after hours spent mesmerized by passing sceneries. In the middle of trips across hundreds of kilometers and a handful of rest stops, sometimes I wonder if anyone ever feels a longing for those temporary rests?
I once read about the concept of a non-place, put forth by French anthropologist Marc Augé, which precisely portrays that feeling of alienation I feel in the middle of a crowded place. A non-place is somewhere you pass by to reach a different place, the many rest stops you drop by on the road to a holiday destination. It rarely elicits any emotions in visitors because it’s not their set ending, like a video footage filled with instructions but lacks sounds. While at rest stops, we can satisfy needs without uttering a word, via signage, advertising banners, and visual cues everywhere. The most basic human needs are met: from eating and drinking, to peeing and pooping. Our individual identities seem to momentarily fade away as we go through the same need-meeting movements and rituals.
That’s one way to dissect the rest stop through a western framework, but one could try to dig deeper into the archive of their mind, and that non-place might surprise us with surprisingly strong emotions.
Would anyone be able to recall what they did at the numerous rest stops they’ve been through in their life?
When I was in elementary school, I once boarded a bus with my family to the north. Our road infrastructure was not as developed then, so it took us three days to arrive. Throughout the trip, I stopped keeping track of how many times we got on and off to visit a rest stop. However, I can still vividly remember the kids my age who were actually living there. One time, I followed them through the thick throng of people, and arrived at a small room. In front were a smattering of footwear. Inside, they were laughing and playing, so I pictured a hidden playground for kids. A while later, those same kids left the room to carry plates of food to the table for guests. I didn’t really understand much about life at the time, so I only noticed how different my summer could look compared to theirs, even though we were of the same age group.
Another aspect that remains entrenched in my memory about rest stops — as a car-sickness sufferer — is the smell. It’s still just as vivid, even in my reminiscence. A mix of diesel and car exhaust lingers on my clothes, my hair, and every corner of the rest stop. Then, there’s the aroma of prepared food from the stalls, especially phở. Mom often ordered an adult portion and asked for a small bowl to scoop some out for me. The smell was never that strong, but in combination with every other element in the atmosphere, it’s become a hard-to-forget experience.
One rest stop that has stayed with me is the one right after the Hải Vân Pass. Below the canopies, the shops were brightly lit and a stream of passengers flowed in and out, but just turn your head to the other direction and the view was completely different. Cliffs, hills, and expansive stretches of foliage filled the scene. In between the wilderness was the soft lighting of small temples, like torches guarding the sacred jungle.
The summer I turned 16, I got a job working at a rest stop after a friend suggested I join them.
Every day, I woke up at 4am and traveled 10 kilometers to work. The workday ended at 7pm, when I made the same trip home. I was assigned the bánh bao, sugarcane juice, and phèn la pancake stations — the latter was the most popular at the rest stop. Bánh bao always attracts customers thanks to its ease of transport, fulfilling meat and dough skin combo, and warmth. Adults nibble on them as a mid-trip snack that they can bring back to their seats, while children adore the fluffy bun and quail eggs.
In addition to shopkeeping, I also wiped tables, arranged takeaway boxes, cleaned the counter, and topped up products in between bus arrivals. I felt as if I was a cog in the rest stop assembly line. Right at 6am, the first round of bus passengers poured into the dining hall. Today was the same as yesterday. Every element functioned as if programmed: buses arrived and departed right on time. We didn’t really need to chit-chat too much with the guests. They came, made a quick purchase, rested their legs for a couple of minutes, and then left forever.
Only after I stepped inside this liminal non-place myself did I start to perceive it differently.
Years ago, I was once on the other side of the counter, looking at the kids who worked at the rest stop and wondering to myself: why didn’t they travel to their hometown like me. Back then I thought they must have a tough livelihood. To get me to behave, mom often told me stories about kids who had to start their adult life early, so I only saw them through a lens of childish pity, from a sheltered kid.
The rest stop was actually a meaningful place in my maturation.
Not until I stood there behind the display myself could I understand that the world is wide and more complex than what I once knew, and that perhaps I shouldn’t impose my frame of reference on other people’s lives. Each child was born into a different circumstance, and behind those counters were stories that a passerby like me could not completely grasp. Perhaps, amid the busyness at rest stops, they too enjoyed the little moments of fun too, like that “secret nap room” that I once spotted through the window that day.
As for me, I never saw the summer at 16 as a tradeoff for a more conventional holiday. On the contrary, those three months behind the staff counter in the middle of countless buses have become an invaluable experience outside of school. Once summer ended, I could buy little gifts for my family from the salary.
A rest stop is like a boarding pass of human life: the more times we encounter them, the more we have traveled. As a little kid, I had to grip the back of my parents’ shirts every time we got off in fear of losing them, but yet as a highschooler, I could stand at a counter on my own, preparing food and marveling at the never-ending stream of strangers who I would never see again. And as a college student, I once again became one of those strangers stopping by after hundreds of kilometers on my bike to buy bánh bao, rest, and then leave.
Each of us, I think, will experience some milestones of our own at a rest stop. That could be the first long-distance, the first time driving across provinces, or a chance encounter. So, if the timing is right, I hope we can take a moment to slow down to notice if one visit differs from the next. I wish everybody a safe trip on their own journey before and after a rest stop.
