Via beautiful mountain roads we left Dalat for Nha Trang for a few days which this time did exactly what they said on the guide book - provided the perfect battery recharging beach spot. Thinking that we should make the effort to see a bit of the area beyond the beach we went on a boat trip on the second day and this was certainly a unique vietnamese experience the highlight of which was undoubtedly the floating bar - taken more literally than we were expecting this was a small piece of polystyrene floating in the middle of the sea decorated with a bunch of plastic flowers and manned by a bartender in a rubber ring who swam around filling the glasses of all the rubber ring wearing boat passengers with very strong wine. A recipe for disaster perhaps but it seemed to work!
On the Friday after birthday celebrations with some girls we have met along the way and a true creation of a vietnamese birthday cake we headed for our first night bus trip - 14 hours to Hoi An. 'Sleeping bus' might not be the most accurate name for a bus which spent most of the journey going around hairpin bends and the whole journey in the company of other vietnamese road users who use the horn more then they use their pedals but I was relieved to find that the lonely planet book was exaggerating a bit when it described the trip as prison - especially as we had actual bunk beds and blankets.
This would probably have led to an ok night's sleep had I so far managed to stick to my resolutions to travel light. Unfortunately given the absence of any hand luggage storage I was sharing my bed with 3 books, sun tan cream, sunglasses, a scarf, a beach towel, hundreds of toiletries that definately don't belong in a coach toilet and all the other 'essential' hand luggage I had brought with me. As from today I am organised, efficient, and clutter free. Unfortunately I am making this resolution the day we arrived in the best spot for shopping so far - Hoi An - so I shall see how this goes...
