Mui Ne, Dalat

Well, we made it to Mui Ne after a very long bus ride. The roads out of HCM City were jam packed as it was the start of the public holiday and the bus just crawled along for a couple of hours before we escaped the city. Luckily we had booked accommodation at Mui Ne as we din't arrive there until nearly 1.00am - otherwise we would have been sleeping on the beach.

We only spend one day in Mui Ne as Debbie and Angus want to make it to Hue before the end of their two week trip so we needed to keep moving. It was a nice place though and I could have stayed longer. The hostel where we stayed was right on the beach. What was left of the beach was clean and pretty (it seems to be gradually washing away). The atmosphere was very laid back and there was hardly anyone hassling us to buy things on the beach or go for tours which made a nice change. We didn't end up going to see anything around Mui Ne as we just didn't have time but apparently there is some coloured sand there which is quite interesting to see.

The next day we headed to Dalat. We had decided to save time and money by going in a minibus. When the minibus rocked up to our hostel to pick us up there was barely enough room for one of our backpacks in the luggage compartment. There were a bunch of other backpackers getting on at the same time and it didn't look as if we could all fit in the bus! That was before we realised that there were extra seats which folded out into the aisle. As for the bags - they were piled up to the roof behind the driver. I think one unfortunate Vietnamse passenger had to sit on them. Sandwiched in like that there was no way that the door of the bus could even open - too bad if we needed the toilet! When we stopped to pick up another passenger, he had to get in the front seat and then climb over the bags to get into the back.

Stuck like sardines we bounced up some roads that were all washed out - pretty sure that wasn't the main highway. This is probably why the minibus gets there so much faster. When we reached Dalat we ended up in the courtyard of some hotel instead of the bus stop. Luckily Angus pretty soon figured out that we weren't that far away from the place we had booked - Dreams Hotel. Dreams was the ninth hostel that we rang in Dalat - all the others were full. Lucky we booked something though - another group on the minibus didn't have anything booked and Dalat is pretty hilly to be wandering around finding a hostel with your backpack.

On our first full day in Dalat we decided to take a tour around some of the local attractions. Although Dalat is famous for motorcycle tour guides we decided to opt for a tour in a minivan as there were four of us. Although not as exciting as getting around with an Easyrider, it turned out to be an inspired decision as it drizzled pretty much all day. We opted for the tour program that took us further away from town - being the holidays Dalat city was crawling with Vietnamese tourists. The tour took us to a silk factory, some waterfalls, some pagodas, to see rice wine being made, to see mushroom farming and to see coffee being grown. Most of the sights were pretty interesting but the sights closer to town were overrun with crowds of tourists.

Today, after checking out the market, we decided to hire tandam bikes and take a ride around the lake. Luckily the traffic around the lake was not so heavy and we caused no major traffic incidents. We stopped at the flower gardens on the way around the lake. After returning our bikes we headed back to the market for pho. As I write, Paul has headed off on the back of a moto to take a ride on a cable car near Dalat city.