Buôn Ma Thuột

7am sees us packed, breakfasted and hailing a taxi for the bus station.  We're bound for Buôn Ma Thuột today - an unknown entity as it isn't in the book!  The road is extremely bumpy - at one point Adrian is even thrown from his seat - but the scenery is stunning.  We're in the mountains and hill tribe life is all around.  In one little town we pass through the hill tribe ladies are dressed in their finest and look fabulous, lots of heavy colourful clothing.

At our lunch stop Adrian disappears in search of something to fill his ever hollow legs and I am approached by two young men who want to speak English.  It's difficult but we get there somehow and they help me with pronunciation of some place names.  Another man joins us who spoils things somewhat as he's extremely religious and does not hide his disappointment that I do not read the bible daily with my entire family, or at the very least say the rosary.  I try to explain to him how life in England is different to Vietnam but it's not working - we settle with I do try to always be a good person, but he suggests I should try the bible and the rosary.  Let me tell you it's a long 30 minutes and Mr Fox keeps a very safe distance and makes no attempt to help me out!

Buôn Ma Thuột has a great feel about it and after half a dozen attempts we find a room, there's a lot lost in translation here as they have very few tourists and not much English is spoken. We settle into the room and watch Mr Murray in the Australian Open Final - don't think we need say much more about that!

After a few beers we go in search of food, which tonight is BBQ'd pork with rice and vegetables at a little street kitchen. In the house behind is a pre-new year party going on and we are greet with many shouts of Happy New Year. After eating, we are literally dragged into the house and given beer and food.  It's hard life but someone has to do it. These people are so hospitable and friendly and they have very little English among them and as you probably know our Vietnamese is not that hot! Some young girls teach me to count to ten and we are both taught to say chúc mừng năm mới (Happy New Year).

After our efforts of the previous day we have a very lazy start and decide to just be man about town today.  A visit to the American tank which was left after the city was liberated leads us to a lovely park and then a fabulous flower market.  The road was a kilometre long and both sides are lined with people selling huge pots of yellow Chrysanthemums. This town is getting ready for New Year in a big way.