Awoke on Christmas morning in this ****** hotel with no breakfast thinking the day could only get better. The only alleviation of our misery was when I donned my golden bling Christmas hat and wished Tanya a Merry Christmas!!!

Prepare ourselves for the days touring........given that we were charged 20% extra for the Christmas holiday you would think our guide would wish us a Merry Christmas....but OH NO it was business as usual.

Headed to the Buon Ma Thuot ethnological museum to see how the many minority groups live and their local customs. All very interesting but given that most of the valuable information was available in English the need for our guide became superfluous especially as he only gave us minimal information and far less than we could actually read for ourselves!!!

We then went to visit the "king" of coffee in the region and well known throughout Vietnam – Trung Nguyen Coffee. What a disappointment this place turned out to be. The displays were superficial and much that was displayed was not local in origin. Many of the items were of Eastern European origin which Tanya could translate and actually tell the guide what they said.......forgive me if I've got it wrong but I though the guide was supposed to be telling us not the other way round!!

Stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant....Christmas lunch was chicken and rice.....weird place...the restaurant was full of drunk Vietnamese army officers and not a woman to be seen....bizarre!!!!!

We then traversed the countryside which was quite scenic on our way to Pleiku. Stopped at a roadside restaurant which was basic to say the least. However it was full of local men who we learnt were very drunk army officers who hassled us endlessly until our guide suggested we eat up an move on. I got the feeling he was uncomfortable dealing with the army especially as I gathered he was saying no to certain suggestions that may have been made about the “beautiful foreign ladies”!!! By this time we realised that we were on the private tour from hell. We had paid a premium Western price for what is turning out to be at best an awful skit from a Monty Python scene.....we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry L.

Finally arrived in Pleiku at dusk and demanded that the guide find us a shop that sells alcohol....figuring that this might be the only thing that would get us through Christmas night if worst came to worse. Got to our hotel and after last nights experience decided that an inspection of the room was in order BEFORE we accepted what was offered. I sat with the luggage while Tanya did the inspection. After examining FOUR rooms we finally found a basic room that would suffice. Unfortunately after checking in we found that our room inspection was not up to scratch.......upon entering the bathroom we found a pair of mens underwear behind the door...YEAKS......all I could think of was the infection control issues and headed down to reception to get the offending items removed. This proved to be a challenge and I ended up having to ring our guide to explain to the hotel staff that leaving the previous occupants underwear in our room was totally unacceptable.

We then headed out to try and find Christmas dinner......oh dear......nothing to be found. The restaurant our guide recommended did not exist and we could find no suitable alternatives. .As we wandered the dark streets we heard Christmas songs being played and were almost reduced to tears. After walking many blocks we gave up our search and headed back to our hotel room to drown our sorrows in black label Johnnie Walker and potato crisps.......not exactly the Christmas dinner we envisaged.

Spent the evening drowning our sorrows with the whiskey and listening to tunes on you tube...... I think I can safely say this is the worst Christmas of my entire life.

Pleiku is the capital of Gia Lai Province with a population of about 200.000 people; Many years ago, it was inhabited primarily by the Bahnar and Jarai ethnic group but now, it is inhabited primarily by Kinh ethnic group.

Pleiku was strategically important during the American-Vietnam War because it was the primary terminus of the military supply logistics corridor extending westwards along Highway 19 from the coastal population centre and port facilities of Quy Nhon. Additionally, its central location on the plateau, between Kon Tum in the north, Buon Ma Thuot to the south, and the North Vietnamese Army’s base areas inside Cambodia to the west made Pleiku the main centre of defence of the entire highland region of the Republic of Vietnam. This was obvious to both sides; the U.S. established an armed presence very early in the conflict at Camp Holloway, and the Viet Cong attack on this base in early 1965 was one of the key escalating events that brought U.S. troops into the conflict.

After the fall of Buôn Ma Thuột to a major North Vietnamese assault in early 1975, and the resulting insecurity of Highway 19 leading from Quy Nhơn, the President ordered the hasty evacuation of Pleiku. The military operation to withdrawal ARVN forces down poorly maintained tertiary roads led to a horrific catastrophe in which over a hundred thousand evacuees from Pleiku and Kon Tum were killed or left stranded without support.