This journey has been pretty darn sporadic so far, nothing has really been planned. The original plan was to drive From Da Nang to Saigon, following the coast on National Highway 1A. Then we changed our minds and decided to take the Ho Chi Minh trail back, through the jungle in the central highlands. But after yesterday (which I'll get to), we abandoned that idea and came back to the coast. It just so happens that we forgot that its typhoon season in this part of the country. Right now we're in the pleasant coastal city of Quy Nhon, about 250km north ofNha Trang after another epicly long day of driving.

So the Da Nang to Kon Tom stretch along the Ho Chi Minh trail was straight out of all those war movies. We were right in it. Pouring rain, mosquitos, amazingly beautiful mountains, lush green jungle, the works. All that was missing was warplanes, Viet Cong and land mines. Let me just clarify that the real Ho Chi Minh trail was not a stretch of road, it was a long series of jungle trails, lots of them impossibly difficult to traverse even by foot. We met a guy in Hoi An who told us that it took him 2 days to get just 20km, on a proper dirt bike. What we did was a newly laid stretch of highway that followed one small part of the trail. You could see the real trail in some parts, like the occasional overgrown bridge. The scenery along the route though was nothing short of amazing. In some parts, the highway passed by the occasional minority village, right up in those misty, jungle-covered mountains. Wooden and mudbrick huts, goat herders, waterfalls, farmgirls carrying wheat in bamboo sacks on their backs, a dozen mudslides and a LOT of cows, herded by ragged small children in plastic-bag raincoats. I'll never forget it. A truely magical experience hampered only by the rain and cold. Oh, that bloody rain...

The whole day it rained. From when we left Da Nang at 6am until we got to Kon Tum at 5.30pm. Even wearing a rain jacket, fisherman pants and a heavy-duty plastic raincoat over the top, I was still wet. My feet and hands were the worst though. I was wearing leather sandals (oh how I wish I had bought those $3 rainboots at Big C...) and cheapo leather gloves, which got sopping wet. My hands and feet were elephant wrinkly. It was one hell of a long day. Poor Shannon though, my housemate already had a cold before we started out, she was on the point of collapse by the time we got there.

Kon Tum itself was nothing special, just another town up in the mountains. Its a halfway point between central Vietnam and the Laos border. The road to get there though was incredible. A big battle happened in and around the town during the war, but there was no way of telling that now. All the B-52 craters have been farmed over I guess, its just rice paddies and wheat fields now.

We decided that we would have to abandon our plan to take the Ho Chi Minh trail back to Saigon through the central highlands, and head back to the coast. None of us wanted to be driving through the cold and rain like that again. Turns out it was typhoon season for that area. Whoops.

So today we took Highway 11 from Kon Tum to Quy Nhon, a pleasant coastal city which for some reason is not on the tourist trail, even though there is a lot to see here. Ruins from the ancient Cham civilisation dot the area, and there is a tank from the war that is still submerged in the beach. Hell, I wanted to come here just for that.

The drive today along Highway 11 was for sure the best day of driving yet. It was exactly what we'd been waiting for, coming down from the mountains through some stunning mountain passes and into gorgeous green countryside with rolling hills and singing birds. I felt like I was in France or something. The whole day was sunny and warm, the first day it didn't rain. Though is wasn't without drama. After all those mountains, my bike was on its last legs...wheels. The bike was struggling to make it up even small inclines, I had to really open the throttle, and even then it didn't make much difference. Just a lot of noise.

We stopped in An Khe for lunch, which was yet another important site from the war. If I'm not mistaken, the movie 'We Were Soldiers' was set around here. Once again nothing to see though, expect for endless rice paddies and some stunning mountain vistas. It was here that my bike decided it had had enough. Being Vietnam though, everyone drives on 2 wheels, so a mechanic is never hard to find. At all. In fact, there was one just a few metres from where we had just finished lunch. I didn't even have to do anything, the food guy just pointed to the mechanic next door, I pushed my bike over, pointed at the engine, did the shaky-hands-thingy (which is the Vietnamese equivalent of shrugging your shoulders) and away he went. Two hours, ten dollars and a major engine overhaul later, we were back on the road. My bike has never run so well! Best ten bucks I ever spent.

We pulled in Quy Nhon at sunset, tired from another full day of riding. You knew it right away when you were back on the national highway, those bloody trucks!!! Dusk on Highway 1A is not the place to be.

The plan as it currently stands is to take the national highway from Quy Nhon to Nha Trang, another 250km stretch, which means another long day in the saddle and another sore ass. We'll stay for halloween and the Ministry of Sound party thats going on there. Personally, I'm just looking forward to kicking back on beach somewhere and reading my book.