I was on a long bus ride from HCMC to Bien Hoa. The ride took about an hour as the town I was going to was about 30kms. from the city. I was sitting in the very back row which had 5 seats - mine was the middle one. At one point a lady got on and stood in the aisle some meters in front of me. Then I felt her stare. I didn't know why (as usual, I'd forgotten that I looked different) and looked in a different direction. But when I looked at her again, she was still looking at me. This went on for a few minutes. Finally, she started to step towards the back row and I immediately wondered where she was going - there weren't any empty seats. "Excuse me," she said to me in English, "Do you speak English?" Yes, I replied and she told me that I was the first foreigner she'd ever seen on this bus route. We had a short chat with the usual questions and then she got off. This is how it is here: put a funny looking person on a bus that never has funny looking people, and the conversation begins.
