Our last morning in Hoi An so made the most of the opportunity for a swim before and after breakfast. Packed and bid farewell to the Riverside Resort with beautiful tropical setting and lovely staff. We have debated over the preferable area to stay....Raym is keen on the beachside as would be slightly cooler temperatures and refreshing water - while I like the atmosphere of the riverside town. Would also consider Da Nang - more of a city certainly with a lot to offer.
The resort vehicle drove us the 40 minutes back into Da Nang with plenty of time for a coffee and roll before our 1.20pm flight to Ho Chi Minh. Only an hour and 20 minute flight, thank goodness as turned out to be the "nursery" flight - so many crying babies and toddlers! And guess who got stuck with the one that did not stop the entire way?!? Poor Raym!! With all our travelling that's the first time we've experienced that - but felt so sorry for the unconsolable little boy and his grandma(?) ...who naturally fell asleep after we landed!
Our car (Kia!) and driver (non English speaking again!) were waiting for us as organised and we were soon off on our four(!) hour drive north east to Phan Thiet - only 220kms away. First impressions of Ho Chi Minh were favourable .....massive modern city with wide three lanes of traffic in both directions even though incredibly congested with motorbikes, cars and taxis. Plenty of western commercial businesses - like Gloria Jeans, Starbucks etc and high rise office buildings.
Surprisingly seemed to take only about 40 minutes to be out of city and onto a motorway though we rarely travelled at more than 80kms per hour. We were still in dense residential area that seemed to sprawl indefinitely finally interspersed with some vegetation, becoming dense "forest" areas. These were on both sides of motorway spanning an incredible distance; fine narrow trunked trees with much newly planted or saplings. Larger trees had "cups" attached to trunks. Thanks to Google, have determined these were rubber tree plantations with the cups collected the sap. Certainly labour intensive!
Our driver stopped after about 2 hours at a roadhouse for a brief break. Once we turned off the motorway with still 120kms to go the trip became much slower due roadworks, continual built up areas - one town virtually flowing into the next - and an abundance of trucks and buses. Once it was dark we still had over an hour to go with light rain falling. We were expecting Phan Thiet to be a "town" but overwhelmed to realise it is actually a city of 100,000 people! Looks interesting - for what we can see in the dark! Our accommodation, the Ocean Dunes Resort, looks amazing - though doesn't seem to be many occupants. Didn't waste time in hitting the bar area for a drink and some food, then took a stroll around the grounds, right on the beach. Look forward to seeing it all in daylight!