TET - Terribly Expensive Time or Vietnam fast forwarded

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WE ARE SILLY! At the moment we arrived in Mui Ne we regretted that we are travelling in Vietnam during TET. Oh sorry, actually we already regretted it once we asked for the price of the bus tickets from Saigon to Mui Ne. We completely underestimated that as prices in Saigon were normal but everywhere else they doubled or tripled or ..........

After 3 hours looking for a room we found a room for 20$. It wasn't great but did its job. Ryan was so fed up that we decided to leave the next day. Luckily, we got a seat on the afternoon bus as the morning bus was full. In the evening we went for some food in the place where I ate last time and which had been really great - not this time though. Ignorant, stupid and slow staff and disgusting food. We then went to LyLy Guesthouse for a beer. Paul - the owner - could still remember me from last time. I also met Greg again who showed me around in Mui Ne when I was there in 2010. It was a nice evening but ended at 10 as we were so tired. YAWN!

The next day we got up, had breakfast, waited for the bus and left Mui Ne. We thought it would be way better in Da Lat. Terrible mistake!

We arrived at 7 pm and asked for rooms in 50-60 places (no exaggeration!) and hadn't found one available room by 10 pm! Loads of Vietnamese tourists were there as there was a festival down at the lake. Of course, we didn't know that. It was cold that night, I was desperate and about to cry. At about 10 pm we decided to sit down in a restaurant to eat and have a hot drink. The people at the table next to ours looked kind of familiar and then the girl said they were sitting next to us in a bar in Saigon. I thought of the street bar and couldn't believe that I was that drunk... The bar turned out to be a restaurant. Thank God. haha. Lolo and Louis from Canada offered us to share the room with them as they had a spare bed! I was so happy, grateful and relieved. They even invited a Czech couple to sleep on the floor so we were 6 people in the room but we had A BED! Yay!!

The next day (27th) we walked around looking for a place to stay but all was so expensive. The place I stayed in last time for 5$ was 30$!! Once more we decided to leave straight away. The most exciting thing about Da Lat was probably a guy who tried to make a runner out of the back of an open police car and 5 police men chasing after him. Within seconds there was a massive crowd watching the scene. He got caught straight away.

We booked ourselves on a sleeping bus to Nha Trang and arrived there in the early evening. After 35 minutes we found a place to stay for 30$. We kept looking and made a reservation next door for a 15$ room for the next day which we cancelled again later as the receptionist in our hotel offered us the room for 15$ as well.

We spend our days walking around and having some drinks in the evenings in the Wave Bar where we met Manfred and Marion from Austria. The Austrians were in their 50s and by now I really think that we only attract older people. haha.

One evening we were desperate for some nice Italian food so we went to Da Fernando and had Bruschetta, Gnocchi Pesto and Pizza Diavolo for 333.000VND. The food was delicious, the service was great and the cutlery was solid. We had already learned this from a Tripadvisor Review and we actually only chose Da Fernando to prove whether this is true or not. haha.

On the 30th it was time to move on so we booked ourselves on a sleeping bus and after 11 exhausting hours we finally arrived in the most beautiful town in Central Vietnam.......

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