"One day these white folk came to our village…"

Day two started with possibly our first and only Asian breakfast since we've been away - although we stay away from western food and eat locally, breakfast has always been a meal were we hunt out fruit, cereal or eggs and baguette.Instead we feasted on beef and noodles with strong coffee for Sam and Green tea for me.Although it seemed a strange meal for 8am it tasted good and helped relieve the karaoke related tiredness.

Today we would be heading back down from the highlands, through the jungle, back to the coast and Mui Ne.The scenery was spectacular as we started winding down the hillside.It was very quiet and still quite cool as we very so high up.Here we really were a novelty for the local Vietnamese as they pointed at us passing by, waving as we disappeared into the distance.This was the first time we had really been off the beaten track enough to be considered 'different'.Peter had promised we'd visit an ethnic minority village on the way through the jungle so he stopped to buy some bags of candy (I wasn't sure giving poor children candy was the best gift but we followed his lead anyway).

As we pulled up in the village three small children were flying homemade kites at the edge of the hill (plastic bags on the end of sticks) but they ran back to the other side of the road when they saw us.We have met lots of children all over SE Asia but these were the first who were scared and cautious of us.The children in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand (even in remote Soppong) had waved, smiled and called Hello - they knew that white people mean money and we would buy their goods or at least give them attention.These children haven't developed that trust and to them we were strangers who look very different.In each group of children we approached there would be one more confident one who would eventually sneak forward to accept a handful of sweets.The others sometimes then followed and sometimes we left a pile of sweets on the ground and they snuck forward once we'd gone.As we headed out of the village on the bikes Peter pulled over to one last group of children - they seemed more confident and came forward hands out to take sweets from me - one tiny girl in a big hat hung shyly at the back and the others pushed her forwards (I gave her a few extra!).He told us that once westerners came to build a water pipe here - they had money to give each child a 50,000-dong note (about £1.60) but they were too scared to take it.

We continued following the road as it wound back down the hillside - as we go lower it grew hotter again until we stopped for more tasty lunch.We weren't far from the coast now and Peter and Terry dropped us safely at out hotel in Mui Ne to enjoy a few last days by the beach.

We had such fun on this tour and best of all felt that we got to see some 'real' Vietnam - it was definitely a great way to travel.

Liz