There's really nothing to say about the town of Quy Nhon, except that we shouldn't have bothered going there.
In an attempt to get off the tourist trail, we plumped for the apparently up-and-coming beach resort. After being the only ones dropped off by coach, in the middle of the night, it started to become obvious why it wasn't exactly on the map. It was bland and soul-less and the only hostel-type accommodation charged a fortune in their cafe. You couldn't even swim in the sea. To make matters worse, it was approaching Tet, the Buddhist lunar New Year celebration, and most places were closed. We didn't get hassled by touts though, and everyone was genuinely very smiley and friendly!
So we booked a bus into Dalat in the Central Highlands, which apparently took seven hours, leaving at 5pm, so arriving at about Midnight. We booked a hotel in Dalat, phoned ahead to warn them we would be late, and headed to the bus station.
Asking around the bus station, we were directed to three different buses until we realised that our 'high quality' a/c tourist bus was actually a clapped out grey minivan. We were travelling with two drivers, who did the drive in two shifts, and one Vietnamese couple.
The journey was fairly hellish, with the drivers never telling us when we were stopping for a comfort break and, at one point, chilling out at some random local restaurant for about an hour and a half even though we were way behind schedule. Although everyone else in Vietnam seems to know that there is a new, quick road into Dalat, obviously these guys didn't - or simply loved going down interminably long, dark mountain roads ridden with pot holes.
So, ten hours later, we arrive at Dalat at 3am. This is fine for the Vietnamese couple who, speaking the same language as the drivers, managed to get a detour to their front door. For us though, we had to be content with a lonely, deserted, bus station in a town we had never been to before.
'Hotel? Taxi?' I asked the drivers, hoping they might at least point us in the right direction, at which point they shrugged and turned their backs on us. Fortunately, we came across a couple of guys with motorbikes who were able to take us to our hotel. Just as we pulled up, however, Ben realises that we are one bag short. The 'plug bag' (with all our chargers and plugs in) has been left back at the bus station.
We tried to explain this to the motorbikers but they had no knowledge of English whatsoever. As I launched into an elaborate piece of street theatre, where I picked up one of rucksacks, left it on the pavement and mimed riding a motorbike away from it, several other Vietnamese guys joined us on the side of the road to try and help. Eventually someone understood and, rather than me stand alone on the street with the rucksacks, we decided that I should go back and get the bag.
When I got to the bus station, the bag wasn't where we thought we left it so I had to go back to the bus we came in, with one of the nice motorbikers helping me, and knock on the window. I definitely felt a moment of karma as we woke the two sleeping drivers up. The best thing was, it turned it out I hadn't really needed to as the bag was on the ground behind the van.
So I headed back to where Ben and the group of Vietnamese men were waiting. We picked up our bags and walked down the road where (unsurprisingly, now it was about 4.30am) our hotel was all locked up and dark. Resigned to the fact that we would be sleeping on our bags outside until the morning, we were thrilled when half an hour later the sister of the hotel owner came past and helped us get in.
After a disastrous start, the hotel was great, with a big buffet breakfast included every morning. We explored Dalat and the surrounding area on the back of more motorbikes, with a couple of 'Easy Riders', which is what the local tour guys on old Harleys call themselves. Whizzing through the mountains of the central highlands just about made up for the journey there!
