The travels of Tim and Megan: Nha Trang to Dalat, Vietnam

On Thursday morning we got a"bus" from Nha Trang to the Vietnam highlands city of Dalat. The woman at the travel agent ripped us off good and proper. We were told that our bus would be a 45 seater like the fine specimen parked up outside, so we booked it. What we actually got was 26 people and their luggage piled into a slightly larger than normal minivan (the picture to the right shows how impressed "Merv" was with it all).

We discovered that Vietnamese people have a very different idea of personal space than we do: they like to rub up against you, rest their bare feet on your legs (Steph would have died), even fall asleep on you. Nothing an elbow in the ribs doesn't fix though. Thankfully there were no live chickens on board, but not far off it.

Then again, we should be grateful we are still alive. Not only did we nearly have a head-on collision going up the narrow, windy hill roads to Dalat, and almost slip off the side of the cliff-face a couple of times, but our thoughtful tour guide sparked up a cigarette while pumping petrol into our minivan (see photo). Even if we had wanted to bolt out of the van, we couldn't. The van was so full that they had folded extra seats out where the aisle once was and we were trapped in our seats near the back. We had to watch in disbelief while he casually puffed away and flicked ash onto the wet forecourt (which we hope was water and not petrol) and hope for the best.

We have arrived in Dalat and had a little look around...unimpressive so far, although our hotel is very nice. Apparently Dalat was once known as "le petit Paris", aka the Paris of the Orient. We have visited the "mini Eiffel Tower" and it looks a lot like the old radio transmitter tower up Mt Cargill in Dunedin...