Well at risk of making every coach journey sound horrible, (They are actually a huge part of our traveling experience and are really funny to look back on) here we go again.

Bus from Da Lat to Nha Trang

A huge coach with plenty of leg room winding up into the mountains offering spectacular scenery of the Vietnamese highlands on a brand new (not bumpy) road. This was all true of the 4 hour journey. But it is a good job we had a 4 hour Elton John playlist to drown out the sound of the spewing duo that were directly behind us. This meant we only had to deal with the smell of vomit for the duration not the sound. Ahhhhh every cloud.

We have noticed a trend with the bus journeys so far in Vietnam. They drop you off at their friends travel agency out of town where their friends who drive taxi's or want to sell trips are waiting. There is nothing we can do to stop this but get in a taxi to our hostel. The language barrier between us and our driver was a problem today. He said 50,000 dong and we heard 15,000. Matt was already pee'd knowing that he was taking the long way around as we were following the map in the lonely planet. But when were delivered the news that the fare was more than triple what we wanted to pay this caused a scene. Resulting in a five minute dispute over what we were paying and we were truly unsure if it was a scam that was done on purpose. We gave him 25,000 and walked away.

Today's activity was a visit to the mineral mud spas that the area is popular for. Thap Ba Spa was our chosen destination. Never had one before Matt didn't really know what to expect. We took a gamble and opted for the communal mud bath which luckily we only had to share with four locals as some pictures from the reviews showed ten people. The mud was of a chocolate fountain consistency, warm and gritty so we took the opportunity to exfoliate each other in monkey fashion. Next was the mineral hot tub, cool mineral pool, mineral waterfall, hot mineral pool, mineral whirlpool and mineral water jets. Basically a day of all things mineral. The spa seemed to be never ending as we walked the many paths to the different sections. A lovely relaxing day!

When leaving we were happy to see we had missed the inv-ASIAN. For those not familiar with the term it defines an event, situation or occurrence when every single part of personal space, floor space and seating space if filled by the presence of mainly Chinese (or other) tourists, who just fuss. It is an unknown phenomenon that happens all too often when traveling Asia.

M & C xxxx