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Published: March 30th 2010
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Sheer Drops
...and a landscape so big it's hard to fit it in a camera lens When we went to buy bus tickets from Dalat to Nha Trang the ticket lady told us our bus trip would be about five to six hours long, and knowing that it should only be about three to four we asked why. She reluctantly told us the bus took the 'old road', implying that there must be a 'new road'. This sounded much more desirable, so we insisted on the 'new road'. Seemingly trying to put us off she said “bus old, mostly local bus, old road bus is tourist bus”. Well quite frankly I don't know what's worse, locals and their mobiles phones or Poms trying to chat each other up. So “new road-local bus” it was. The following day our bus to Nha Trang arrived, of course, exceedingly late. It was a clunky old thing, and I wondered whether it would make it's way successfully through the difficult terrain I knew we were to encounter. Local bus! There was not one local (or mobile phone) in sight, so we resigned ourselves to listening to Poms chatting each other up (admittedly there were also a few Australians and various other Europeans). Happily it wasn't fully occupied and we could spread
Oh dear, what's this?
Looks like we have a problem out a bit.
The scenery as we ascended was spectacular, definitely the best, most unspoiled scenery we've seen this trip so far. The 'new road' was great and made us feel very safe admiring the views from such huge drops. The bus driver spoke close to no English and at frequent intervals would stop the bus and get out with a few tools and tinker with the bus. This raised some alarm, but as the bus kept going, no one asked any questions. About three hours into our trip the driver stopped and pronounced “Eat”. Hmm, is it lunch or dinner at 4.30? It soon became apparent that we actually had a flat, as the bus driver and some local workers began to remove the tyre and play around with the spare, which I suspect was also flat, so they then started on trying to repair the tyre. Nick and Phoebe wandered off to talk to some local kids who were quite enthralled by the bus load of foreigners that had suddenly decended upon them, while I sat watching the tyre change over a bowl of noodle soup. Next to the cafe (if you call someone's house with chairs
Trying out some Vietnamese
Phoebe and the village kids sitting on concrete water pipes attempting to communicate and tables out the front a cafe) was a bamboo hut and in it was an old rusty air compressor, which one of the guys had to hand crank to get started...I thought this was pretty funny. That is, until the compressor which was humming along smoothly, suddenly raced up the revs, so much so that I thought “Any minute now and I'm going to be a roadside casualty”. It was almost hissing the revs were so high and as I waited for some sort of auto shut-off I saw images of the tank exploding and debris flying everywhere. Then I remembered that I was in Asia, and that safety features shouldn't be taken for granted. I grabbed my pack and moved quickly away to join Phoebe and Nick at which point one of the workers turned the compressor off....that was their auto shut-off! The wheel change though, did give us all a chance to try out our Vietnamese with the kids that lived in the village and Phoebe attempted to play a few games with them, although they mostly just wanted to stare at her. One mother came up to Nick and handed him her baby....he looked like a
Nicholas Redwood for PM
well who could resist such a cute baby? politician before elections!
The 'new road' eventually turned into 'so new it hasn't even been sealed' and our bus slowed considerably. Finally we arrived in Nha Trang (only a mere six hours later - I wondered if perhaps the old road might have been a better idea after all) and just as we got into town our bus gave up the ghost again. Even though we weren't at our bus stop we decided to get off anyway. We were meeting Robert, an old family friend now living in Nha Trang, and his friends, so we gave them a call and they were able to scoot over and get us a taxi. Ah, the ease of knowing someone! Actually, our stay was mostly punctuated by moments of realising how much easier traveling is when you visit someone, as Robert & co. had also organised a hotel, a boat trip the following day and our bus tickets from Nha Trang to Hoi An.
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janet farrow
non-member comment
hello
Thanks for yet another well penned blog - Nick you do look the part, the fatherly part that is (PM lets hope not!) - love Janet/Mum/Grandma Janet