Our trip through southern Vietnam on an open bus gave new
meaning to the phrase, getting there is half the fun. We started the “open” of Vietnam on a bus
like none other. At least, none like we
had ever seen before. It was a deluxe sleeper
bus – on the inside, instead of one, there were two skinny walking aisles that
divided three long rows of reclining seat/beds, double bunk style. When we boarded, we received a black plastic
bag for our shoes as, on these buses, it is customary to remove your footwear
before making your way down the aisle to your seat/bed. Our bus had a nice patch of fake green grass at
the door, which gave it that extra little quirkiness.
When we got on, Aman and I were directed to some upper bunks
near the back of the bus. Though half
empty when we got on, it would fill up as we made some additional stops at
other travel agents before hitting the highway out of Ho Chi Minh City. Aman and I climbed into our seat/beds and
exchanged amused glances with each other.
It was a beautiful morning, and from my bus window, I saw people doing tai chi and other early morning
exercises in every park that we passed.
Little ladies in conical hats riding bicycles were a common sight as
well. And there were motorbikes everywhere, of
course.
We were driving to Mui Ne, a charming little fishing village
on the Vietnam coast, about five hours east of HCMC. I can’t tell you much about the landscape as
we drove out of town, as I was quickly asleep.
But Aman woke me up shortly before we reached our destination. Whereas I had fallen asleep to a modern urban
landscape, I was now awake amidst rice fields and groves of dragon fruit
trees. Before long, the magnificent South
China Sea was in our sights; it was the first open water that we had seen since
we were in Thailand, and it was glorious.
When we reached the coast, the bus made a left, turning north
on the two-lane main road that runs along the very simple waterfront. We passed some low-rise resorts on the right
and little shops (with stacks of conical hats on display for sale, of course)
on the left. Further along, there were a
bunch of seafood barbeque joints that didn’t look like much, but would become
popular at night with locals and travellers alike.
Passengers were hopping on and off the bus at various points
along the road. Not knowing the offloading
procedure (um, was there one?), we kept a lookout for our hotel and got our
bags ready so that we could jump out at any moment, if necessary. We thankfully, however, did not have to make a
dramatic exit. We got out at the final
stop with a group of travellers who were still on the bus and staying in Mui Ne
(the open bus would continue on with other passengers to the next city, Nha
Trang). Immediately, the local touts who
were waiting for the bus to arrive swarmed in.
Aman and I politely ignored them as we picked up our bags and started
down the street in the direction that we hoped to find our hotel. A few meters down the road, we arrived.
The hotel was blissfully serene. As we drank our welcome coconuts, we gazed
out upon the South China Sea, which came right up to the hotel’s little beach. In the water, we caught our first glimpses of
the funny bamboo basket boats typically used by local Vietnamese fisherman.
On shore, Aman was also getting into character.
We spent the next two days relaxing in the warm sun,
alternating between the beach and the pool (yup, it’s a tough life) since there
is not a whole lot to do in Mui Ne except enjoy the beautiful water. We had plans to visit the nearby red and
white sand dunes, which are famous and supposed to be amazing to visit at
sunrise IF the weather is clear.
Unfortunately, the skies were incredibly overcast on both mornings that
we were in town and so we decided to skip the dunes. We did, however, rent a motorbike to explore
the local fishing village, which was a spectacular sight of colorful wooden
boats and bright bamboo fishing baskets.
Having a motorbike also allowed us to get around at night
for purposes of dining out, as Mui Ne is pretty spread out along the main strip
of beach and some good restaurants were beyond walking distance from our hotel. Our favorite was probably Ganesh, the local
Indian eatery. Not only was the food
really good (and a needed break from our developing pho habit), but also we were thoroughly entertained by the table
next to us, where two thirty-something year-old guys and their pet monkey were
all nonchalantly dining… as if bringing your pet monkey out to dinner was no
big thing in these parts. No one even
blinked when the monkey smashed a water glass on the floor about halfway through our
meal... Amazing.
We stayed away from the local seafood barbeque restaurants,
despite their popularity, after walking by them the first night to find tanks
and cages sitting on the sidewalk full of such food items as snakes, turtles,
frogs, rabbits, etc. One divided cage
housed a massive python (on the left) and a couple of really spooked rabbits
(on the right). It was all a little too
much.
On day three, we had plans to move on. We would have loved to stay one more night to
see whether we could get a clear morning to visit the sand dunes, but the
weather was way too iffy, varying the whole time we were there between sun and
clouds. We were also way too curious
about the next stop on the open, Dalat.
We waited for the bus to pick us up at our hotel that
afternoon, as we had arranged the day before.
It wasn’t surprising that the bus was late, and we used the extra couple
of minutes to walk to a nearby shop and pick up a large bottle of water for the
4-5 hour ride. On the way back, I saw a
bus parked across the street from our hotel. I saw a young Vietnamese guy hop off and run energetically across the
street in the direction of our hotel lobby.
That’s our bus, I
told Aman grimly.
No way, he
replied. It can’t be.
We both stared with suspicion at the bus sitting on the
other side of the road as we walked slowly back to the hotel. It was not the luxury sleeper bus that we
rolled into town on. No, no, no. To the contrary, it was an old, dilapidated mini-bus
that had maybe 6 or 7 rows of seats. It
looked like one of the local buses that carried people up and down the Mui Ne
coast in return for a cheap fare. Worst yet, most
of the windows were open… as in, GASP, it had no air-conditioning!
It can’t be, Aman
repeated.
I shook my head. It totally is….
By the time we reached the front gate to the hotel, the
young Vietnamese guy and one of the hotel employees were hauling our bags out
of the lobby. They smiled warmly as they
passed by us – Vietnamese people, from what we had experienced so far, were
incredibly kind-natured. The owner of
the hotel, who was also a very nice woman, looked relieved that we had not run
off too far, and told us that our bus was here.
We thanked her for a lovely stay, and she wished us a safe journey.
Walking up to the bus, it looked less than half full. We took the two seats right behind the door,
which stayed open as we pulled away from the curb and on towards the next hotel
for more passengers. The next couple we
picked up entered the bus speaking French.
The only words I picked up were uttered by the woman in a
surprised/horrified tone, “…un petite
autobus…”, which made me laugh to myself. Vous etes
correct, sister.
As the bus accumulated more and more people, a huge pile of
bags and suitcases grew up front.
We picked up passengers until the mountain of luggage
started spilling down the middle aisle of the bus, and there was not a single
empty seat left behind or in front of us.
After stopping for gas (interesting timing), we finally got
on the road and it was beautiful.
Generally, there is an incredible amount of scenic beauty as you drive
through Vietnam, but this is especially true about the drive to Dalat. A complete contrast from the coastal village
of Mui Ne, Dalat is a mountain resort town located in the central highlands of
Vietnam. As we entered the foothills of
the mountains, the air turned crisp and everything was varying shades of green
– the dark green of pine trees, the vibrant green of fruit and vegetable
plants, and of course, the light green of the rice fields.
Dalat is situated some 1500 meters above sea level, so it
was quite a steep climb through the mountains.
And remember, we were navigating the hairpin turns of the road in an
incredibly beaten up old bus… At times,
we were crawling at a snail’s pace up the incline of the mountain. I watched the driver get visibly frustrated
at times as he tried to switch gears. I wondered
whether he or the vehicle was the problem. Surely, I thought, it must be our turn to
break down on the side of the road in the absolute middle of nowhere. (This has not been an uncommon sight since
we’ve been on the road and, indeed, we saw two other buses that were broken
down on the side of the road that day.)
Miraculously though, we made it to Dalat without incident.
Aman and I were both a little surprised that Dalat was fairly
big. Relatively speaking, at least. We had been driving for hours on a remote
road through tiny little villages that were few and far between. Apart from a simple concrete foundation, the
small houses in these villages looked as though they were built of
semi-permanent materials (bamboo poles and wood beams, corrugated metal roofs, heavy
duty tarps). Once we reached Dalat,
however, we found ourselves in a very busy town. It was once a French hill station, and you could
see the French-colonial influence in the pretty villas and boulevards.
As had happened in Mui Ne, Aman and I were very unsure about
the procedure for getting off the bus (right, was there one?) once we reached
town. Passengers who saw their hotels
would give a little shout, and the driver would ease the bus to a slow roll so
they could jump off. After our bus drove
pass Xuan Huong Lake near the center of town, we spotted our hotel on a hill to
the left. It took some effort to, first,
get the attention of the driver’s assistant (who spoke no English) and
communicate that we needed to make a stop and, second, explain to him that we
had two bags in the small compartment under the bus. But, we ultimately prevailed. Watching the bus drive away, I stood on the
side of the road in awe that we had actually made it.
It was early evening by then, and it had been lightly
raining for a couple of hours. Given the
altitude and the damp weather, the mountaintops were blanketed in misty clouds
and there was a chill in the air. Dalat
could not have been anymore different from Mui Ne or HCMC… except, of course,
for the abundance of scooters and ladies running around in conical hats. This scene was a constant.
We quickly checked into our hotel, dropped our belongings,
confirmed our bus reservation for the next day (we were only spending one night
in Dalat) and hit the streets in search of a good meal. The girl at the reception desk recommended a small,
but popular international place (V Café) that was not too far away and seemed a
good bet. Along the way, we made an inadvertent,
but scenic, wrong turn into the busy night market, which sits in the center of
town. Carts and stalls of fresh
vegetables and fruits, clothes, toys, etc.
One section of the market was devoted to the street food vendors and
their little mini-restaurants. As we had
seen before in other locales – from grilled corn, to hot soup, to sizzling
meats – everyone had something different to offer. And the locals sat at little tables on
miniature stools eating it up. Between
the myriad vendors, the pedestrian traffic and the two-wheelers that were slowly
maneuvering about, it was jam-packed and a very cool sight considering we how
isolated we were up in the mountains.
Dinner turned out to be delicious, which was not a
surprise. The food in Vietnam had been
really, really good thus far and, Dalat in particular, is well regarded as the
vegetable capital of Vietnam. Because it
has such a hospitable climate, the region grows many different types of
vegetables, and they are all extremely fresh.
We took advantage by ordering various salads, a platter of grilled mixed
vegetables and a curry dish, all of which was great. We ended the night with a few rounds of
drinks and billiards at a modern looking bar-lounge near our hotel, named the
Why Not Café? Because, why not?
The next morning, we awoke to the sound of rain falling outside
of our window. When I opened the
shutters to investigate, I could barely see the mountains on the other side of
the lake because it was so cloudy. This
was the first time that we had seen weather like this in weeks (probably since
Singapore), but it was okay – there is something about a rainy hill station
that doesn’t bother us.
Our plan for the day (and our main reason for coming to
Dalat, really) was to check out Crazy House, which was – you guessed it –
crazy. It was designed/built by a local
Vietnamese woman who studied architecture in Moscow. With its curved walls, rounded windows and
doors, surreal façade, and a style inspired by nature, it reminded us
immediately of something created by Antoni Gaudi.
After a couple of hours of wandering around the twisting
passageways and narrow footbridges, we started walking back to our hotel. It was only a fifteen-minute walk, and the
rain had lightened up a little. Along
the way, we passed by local women carrying the quintessential woven baskets
tethered to a pole, and slung over a shoulder.
The women carried anything and everything in these baskets. A lot of the women also shuffled their feet
as they walked, giving the impression that their loads were quite heavy. The women of course were quite small. We would see these basket-toting women all over
Vietnam.
Once back at the hotel, we packed our stuff and relaxed for
a little while before the bus was scheduled to pick us up. We passed the time by making bets on whether
our bus out of town would be better or worse than the bus that brought us into
town. Thankfully, it was much better. The bus was small, but it was newer than the
one that took us from Mui Ne to Dalat and it had air-conditioning. We followed the familiar routine of stopping
at more hotels to pick up other passengers, got gas (again, interesting timing) and were soon on our way to
the next stop, Nha Trang.
To be continued…
