Took a sleeper bus to Mui Ne, on the coast. A bit pointless during the day, but it seems to be the standard for coaches here. We were shoved in the back where you can't actually sit down. We had an argument with the conductors - we had been given seat numbers and I swear they weren't these, but our voucher wasn't around to prove it (they kept it at Ho Chi Minh City) so we had to back down when we were aggressively threatened with being chucked off. Crap service. The seats/beds are on two levels, like bunk-beds; also noticed the top was full of tourists, and the better seats on the bottom were full of Vietnamese, they obviously know the system. Next time we'll be better prepared to fight the issue better, and also make sure we get bottom seats. The icing on the cake was arguing with a taxi driver who refused to take us as the hotel was under a couple of kilometres away (a cold-hearted monster who ignored my pleas for help for moving a family with 2 small children). In the end we found one who would take us.
With 5 days here and not much to do but flop on the beach the next few posts might be a bit short. We have a tour of the sand dunes in our sights and not much else. I might devote my writing energy to typing up a best-selling novel. The only other activity here seems to be kitesurfing (
only!? I can here the cry from New York all the way here - you know who you are). Apparently there has been no wind for 4 days (kitesurfer-speak for "no gale-force winds") but today it picked up and the sea is full of them.
Lesson learnt today: when we travel we usually wear our mountain shoes to use up less space in our backpacks (tying them to the outside is not an option for planes, and annoying for buses); on sleeper buses this is a pain as they make you take them off, so getting on and off the bus is a hassle - it's better to wear flip-flops.
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