So, we have certainly been on our fair share of public transport on this trip but the train journey between Ga Sài Gòn and Bình Thuận station was just a little bit different! We left Ho Chi Minh City at 11:40 and the first 2 hours of the journey east were uneventful but then we slowed. Suddenly, we pulled into a siding and stopped. All was quiet. We looked at each other. And Then. Katy leapt out of her seat! The 2 TV's had begun playing Vietnamese/communist propaganda. We clearly can't speak, read (apart from Bo means beef) or write it but the videos were enough to illustrate their point! The green soldiers marching beside tanks and military vehicles along with farmers in the rice paddies and the occasional image of Uncle Ho Chi Minh himself! With composure regained and only a little fright when the passing freight train blew it's whistle we made good time and arrived (we kid you not) early. By 2 minutes. We re-read all the blogs and skimmed through the journal Craig has kept and we have never been early when travelling by land! The station entrance was a disaster area. A narrow exit lead to a narrow strip of concrete with a stramash of passengers and staff milling around the stacks of bags, all waiting on a taxi at this outlier of a station. After we both endured the most disgusting toilets in Vietnam we shared a taxi to Mũi Né with a French couple. Sadly, the driver struggled to understand there was 2 stops so we got out at their stop and took another taxi along to our accommodation for the next 3 nights, Marigold of Coconut Garden Villas. We really didn't do an awful lot with our time in Mũi Né to warrant a full blown blog post so in summation, we spent the next few days between the pool and the upstairs veranda of the villa, reading our books and not doing very much at all. For dinners, we went to the Dong Vui Food Court, an international eatery of 19 different stalls surrounding a central seating area that had a host of eating and drinking options. Tomorrow we head into the mountains to the cooler weather, where Vietnamese strawberries grow, to Đà Lạt.
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