Leave At Your Own Chosen Speed

February 21, 2010
HCMC to DaLat

I decided to break up the trip to Nha Trang with a detour to the mountain town of DaLat in the Central Highlands. It was advertised by my bus company as a 6 hour ride northeast of HCMC. In Vietnam, as this trip would teach me, pick up times and estimates are vague at best. You're at the whim of your driver and his cronies. Not five minutes into the trip and the only whitey on board, I knew six hours was a fantasy.

The conductor, who looked to be about 19, did not speak a lick of English and was a prick to boot. I tried to ask him a question and he flatly ignored me. Just walked away and pretended I was invisible. Yep, this was going to be a long ride. As we got underway, leaving the city and hitting the open “highway, ”we were clipping along at the steady pace of about 5 miles an hour. I don't know what the metric conversion is, but it's damn slow. I stood up to see what the problem was. Maybe an accident? No traffic up ahead. I had a window seat and craned my neck to check out the scene to the east. All clear. After 10 minutes, we stopped at a roadside stall selling baguettes. It was not a stop for us to purchase any, however (and I would have; the bread is good here). We picked up a random man who loaded everything but the kitchen sink into the luggage compartment. As that was right beneath my seat, I took inventory. Cases of water, boxes of mangoes, something in a cylinder that I hoped was not flammable, a duct taped box containing God knows what, and a tiny backpack, which he brought with him on board. I would not have been surprised to see a basket of piglets loaded beneath. And that is how we proceeded for the next two hours, picking up random passengers at random (as in clearly not bus stops) places along the road.

Once into the drive, the road began to climb steeply into the hills It was not as scenic as I'd hoped. Lots of shanty towns lined the way, which meant lots of garbage and all its wonderful odor. A girl got on at one point halfway through the trip, and I was happy to have her company. She spoke pretty good, if formal, English and seemed eager to practice it. She was good company, and ran interference with the surly conductor until she passed out and kept knocking her head into my shoulder for the next three hours. She also took my mind off the hairpin turns and dirt roads that thankfully our driver was not taking at break neck speeds. It was still a little sketchy. Four wheeled vehicles have the right of way here over two (and over pedestrians for that matter), so the driver basically had a constant hand on the horn, as a warning for anyone on a motorcycle to get out of his way. At one point I counted; 45 loud beeps in 60 seconds. Couple that with the Kenny G that our conductor was blasting at brain damage inducing volumes and I was pretty happy my ipod was fully charged.

The Rough Guide to Vietnam says that the North and South agreed to leave the town of DaLat out of their war, as it was such a fine hamlet in the hills. Why, I cannot understand. While its mountainous surroundings are scenic, the town itself is nothing more than a run down ski town in the off season. It reminded me of Hunter or Tannersville, NY, but with none of the charm. My guest house, the Nice Dream Hotel (insert PeeWee joke here) which I foolishly let the bus company in Saigon book for me, had a kind of a Shining vibe. It was almost totally empty, and was dark and dank. My room only had windows that opened into the hall and the smell of mildew was sickening. I'm sure the going rate was 8 bucks a night, but I had already paid 20 and was none too happy about it. They refused to move me to another room, so I was stuck there. Thankfully it would only be for a night.

Aside from a very tasty meal and a chance encounter with a loopy hippie lady from New Mexico, this side trip was a bust. Total waste of time and money - - the lake didn't even have any water in it! I went to bed early, eagerly awaiting my 7AM pick up for the beach.