mon day 150

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Most of today was spent gazing out of a bus window on a 7-8 hour journey to Da Lat, directly north of Saigon. I was picked up at 9ish by a sleeping bus - in the day! Opting for an upper bunk it was a tight squeeze to get up on it! The bus has chairs which basically recline - almost flat - one on top of another and in rows of three. Wanting to be by the window to have something to look at as the last thing I could think of doing was sleeping. The bus headed off half full of locals and half tourists - stopping every hour or so for a bite to eat, stretch the legs and have a wee! Which was nice but lets just get there and not prolong the agony of this journey too much. As we got clear of Saigon the road became very twisty - combined with the erratic driving of our driver and others on the road it came as no surprise that we were involved in an rta. The cause of it happened between the lorry in front of us and another lorry coming in the opposite direction - pretty much a head on collision. Windscreens were completely smashed in but drivers were out and perfectly fine. Luckily no one had been hurt - common sense prevailed and thankfully not an ambulance in sight - what a breath of fresh air! Our involvement happened when the lorry rolled back and hit us smashing the windscreen and thus disabling the coach! So, grabbing all our stuff off we got, not being completely sure exactly what was happening as no one really spoke English. As we saw another coach pull up by the side of the road we scuttled over and got on to carry on the journey - only being about an hour away. At 5pm we had made it - what a long day. Jumping on a Moto I was taken to the hotel which was very pleasant and a very friendly owner - just what was needed after such a day. I popped out after taking a shower to a nearby restaurant for some dinner and relaxed in my room watching the National Geographic channel - has some really good shows before settling down for the night.

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