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From Hanoi we flew south 1200 km to Nha Tranh. Now to get back to a big city we could go a further 600 km south to Saigon or we could work our way north to Hanoi. The choice was easy for us: go north, taking a bus. We decided to do it in one big step and then two small ones. The first big step would be a 450 km ride to Hoi An, a popular tourist destination that we knew only by reputation — our friends the Meads from HK had recommended it to us. The two small steps would be 30km from Hoi An to Danang and then 110 km to Hue, both familiar war names. We'd fly from Hue to Hanoi.

Every hotel in Vietnam sells tours and will get car, bus, and airtickets for you. Labor is cheap and they send somebody off to get it. So at our hotel in Nha Tranh we asked for bus tickets to Nha Tranh, a phone call was made to reserve our place, and we paid our $12 each. The ride would be a long one because we were going to average less than 40 km/hr (25 mph) according to the Lonely Planet guide and others to whom we'd talked. Our departure would therefore be early.

On the appointed day, we got up with the alarm at 05:25 and quickly finished the packing and got everything downstairs just a minute after 05:45. "Everything"  for us is a lot — a total of six bags, whereas most of our traveling companions would have a single backpack. We found some hotel staff  sleeping in the passageway near the counter; that's typical — why pay rent elsewhere?  Of course, it was still dark, so our presence woke them all up and they put away their mats and blankets.

We sat down in the wicker chairs by the door and at first waited with hope that the bus would come within a few minutes of its appointed time, 5:45. After ten minutes of wait when that didn't  happen we got out our books and read. Each of us, starting with Gerry, went once to the street to see what was happening out there. That is a useless but interesting exercise as we can see the morning lightening and the early birds on the street. After 45 minutes the bus had still not come, but the hotel clerk called and verified that we had not been forgotten. Very nicely he also brought us a cup of Vietnamese tea which we both found very welcome.

Long after dawn the bus driver finally arrived and we learned that it is a minibus that will drive us to the long distance bus, waiting at the office of Open Tour - Sinh Cafe. We are almost the last arrival (we pick up one American woman and her boyfriend en route). When we get to the Sinh Cafe and see the main bus we learn it is already just about full. Gerry helps the bus guy to load our bags in the back of the bus — there is an area behind the back seats but it is already packed to the ceiling and takes up at least three of the back row of seats too. At first it seems that there may not be enough seats for the last six or so of us who are getting on. But when everything shakes down, Jan finds a seat on the right hand aisle one row from the front while Gerry gets the jump seat next to the driver, which should be used by the driver’s assistant. In spite of the danger he is very happy with his lot as there is no seat that offer’s a better view, although the bus driver’s assistant is less happy as he will have to stand for the whole journey.

At 6:45 we finally leave with the sun now climbing quickly. It doesn’t take much to make a route familiar, and we are familiar with at least the first part, having bicycled a lot of it. We go along the beach, then through the center of town, past the monument to the sacrificing Viet Cong, past the little bus station with its tiny blue buses that look as if they came from a cartoon strip, over the two northern bridges, and past the Champa ruins. The next ten or so kilometers are also familiar from our little trip to Ba Ho falls in a car+driver that we had for the day: we join National 1 (QL 1), go past the coastal restaurant where we had lunch, and then past the turn off for Ba Ho.

During all of this the driver gives Gerry good vibes: he seems cautious, never trying to pass just for the sake of passing, whatever the consequences. He chooses his moments, waiting if appropriate. As for pedestrians and cyclists he is considerate of them, even if always assuming that he has the right-of-way. Depending upon how you look at it he is heavy or generous with the horn: Heavy in the sense that his finger, with just a small motion, is often in use to sound it; generous in the sense that he wants to make sure that all are aware that he is coming through. And, although he does wait for slowpokes to get out of the way, he is coming through. Before we bought these tickets we’d read and heard horror stories about Vietnamese busses and wondered if we should chance it. Because of one piece of advice we’d been given and because of our good experience with our driver hired for the day, we did. And so far, it seems to have been a rational decision.

This drive is going to give us the chance to know Vietnam in a way that cannot be known by only flying over it and seeing just a few cities. Seeing how town fades to country teaches something of the geography and geography teaches something of life. After 20 minutes we are at last entering new territory. Our first new experience is to cross the Doc Let peninsula. That requires that we climb a bit, go over a pass, and then descend to the coast. The Doc Let beach 10 km to the east on the peninsula is said to be spectacular. Well, the beach just beyond National 1 is fine enough.

As we first come along the coast we see three or four "dipping nets” of the kind we first saw in Kerala, SW India, in 1978 and have hardly ever seen since. These are square nets, about 10 m to a side, supported by a vast wooden apparatus that can be lowered so the entire net, kept in a plane paralllel to the water, goes under water. After five or ten minutes or longer the net is pulled up, catching whatever fish might have been swimming over it as the net is raised. This time we saw nobody about the nets. That may be because these are night fishers: if so, they use lights to attract fish over the net, resulting in a richer catch.

About an hour into the trip we stop for gas. The girls on the bus want a toilet but the station, although reasonably modern, doesn’t have one. We go on less than ten minutes when the driver stops by the side of the road. This is the toilet for the moment. The men get out and go a bit of a distance from the bus and are relieved. This doesn’t help the women any. Two hours later we at last stop for a real toilet (and snack) break, which the driver announces as a half-hour. Gerry is always the first one off the bus (after the assistant) because he has to get off his chair, which partially folds up, so that others can get by. There is a shack next to the road with a few toilets out doors to the left, slightly better than outhouses. Gerry is about to buy a cold drink or an ice cream, but before he can the driver grabs him and pulls him to the back of the placet and points with pride at the view through the opening-- call it a picture window but there is no glass — of the sea. He has seen Gerry taking photos and thinks this is a worthy subject. It is, in fact superb, but Jan gets to take the photo because her camera is more readily accessible.

It is a rather pretty view. Pretty soon everybody has come to see it. It’s quite likely Dai Lanh beach which LP describes as "another beautiful spot 83 km north of Nha Trang ... at the southern end is a vast sand dune causeway; it connects the mainland to Hom Gom, a mountainous peninsula almost 30 km in length.” From the amount of time we had been traveling 83 km is about the right distance and we did see a vast sand dune, at least a hundred meters high, that Gerry wanted to get out and run up. But without going back we can’t be sure.

What is sure is that over the course of the day we had repeated experiences, large and small like this. We would be at a cove or bay that was the opening of a hemisphere of mountains to the sea, climb over the the ridge that separated it from its neighbor to the north, and then descend into a new, larger bay, or a new, smaller cove. Typically these mouths were about 5-10 km wide with an equal or slightly larger back country. They all seemed to be essentially river deltas, making the Vietnam coast one enormous delta: that is, ages of erosion had filled what were once ocean coves with the erossion debruit, leaving a flat sandy land extending from ocean coast to suddend mountains. At perhaps half of them there would be a wide sand bar separated from the route by an equally wide wind of river. Being so far unfamiliar with Vietnam they made us think of South Seas islands.

But to the extent they made us think of Vietnam it was how Nha Trang must have looked before its population growth and development. Just the day before we had been at the Nha Trang branch of the Pasteur Institute, founded by Alexandre Yersin. He had come to Nha Trang in 1869 at the age of 26. This was the year when the transcontinenal railroad was completed in the United States and was a year in which there were no roads in Nha Trang. Then the only access was by ship. Even walking was a great expedition. Seeing these undeveloped beach fronts we could better imagine the primitive state of the Nha Trang corniche upon which we had spent several days sampling restaurants and lounging in deck chairs.

When we had been on the road about five hours Gerry was getting unhappy with himself that he couldn’t follow where he was. On the left side of the road every kilometer there were red-topped marker stones. When he’d first seen these he’d thought they would be enough to follow the route. But unfamiliarity with the names on them and the rapidity with which we passed them meant this was not so. Thus he started looking at them closer and finally read a name: "Phu My” was ahead. He got out the LP map (page 373) and found Phy My. From then on Gerry generally had a pretty good idea of where we were. Jan was enjoying the view and chatting with her Australian and Danish neighbors. About six Danes, almost a drunken lot, were seated about her.

Thus when a little later we saw and quickly passed some Champa ruins it was easy to deduce they were near Qui Nhon, perhaps the Cha Ban Cham ruins. It was disappointing that this time, as all too often in this great voyage, although we theoretically have an unlimited amount of time to see things, in practice we didn’t. If we had had the time, and had taken our own car, we could have stopped and seen these too. In China id was a question of our visa having limited duration. For Vietnam as a whole it is the need to get back to Shenzhen by February 21. But in this instance, it was simply because we were on public transport.

The morning had given us the idea that the bus stopped every hour and a half or so for a toilet and perhaps snack break. By this calculation the next stop was due about 1:00  p.m. It didn’t come then but we all showed patience — at least for a while. But then Jan asked Gerry to ask when lunch would be. Gerry thought that it wasn’t worth the effort to ask because neither the driver nor assitant spoke much English, but he reluctantly tried. He was told "15 minutes”. Not too long later he saw a marker stone that said that Duc Pho was 29 kilometers. Since that was the next big town and since it would take more like 40 minutes to go the 29 kilometers, we wouldn’t be having lunch soon.

At 2:30, just before getting to Duc Pho, we stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant at another one of these Vietnam - South seas shore marvels. From the road there was nothing too exciting about the restaurant; it was a simple structure with plastic chairs inside and out on its patio. But from the back there was a such a fine view. Leading directly from the restaurant was a plank bridge, about a meter wide, that crossed a channel to a wide sand bar. It sounds like one already described, but this was a deserted isle worthy of sunbathing. Almost everybody on the bus went over there before or after the meal or both. One girl had her boyfriend order for her while she went to catch five minutes stretched on the sand. Someday in the future this will be one of dozens of frequented resorts. For the moment, it was empty except for the temporary visit of our bus.

As soon as the bus had stopped Gerry had folded his seat out of the way, rushed to claim a prime table overlooking the water, and be the first to order so that his — and more importantly — Jan’s rather large hunger could be assuaged. While Jan rushed to the toilets so that she would not have to spend any time in the usual lines, Gerry ordered. The menu was simple and the descriptions, in English, were also. So he commanded a "steamed fish,” "barbecue pork shop (sic),” and "meat fried rice” as well as two Seven-ups. The steamed fish was simply top notch. The pork, as expected, was a chop, not a "shop”, but was several chops, each already cut into five or six pieces and deboned. It was a mighty fine taste. The only thing disappointing was the fried rice, which wasn’t really fried. We paid, for two, D78000, about $6.

The toilet on first use was of very high quality. It had a flush toilet, toilet paper and running water and soap for hand washing. By the end of the meal, however it had succumbed a bit to overuse. It no longer flushed. But we travelers are thankful for small mercies. Back on the road again and except for a short toilet break (for the men only who did it by the roadside again) we had no more stops.

Gerry writes:

As the clock neared 4:00 p.m.I saw ahead that the road was blocked by a bus going our way (north) in the middle, a crowd on the right, and other traffic coming our way on the left. Those coming toward us were slowly inching their way around the stationary bus in the middle. I looked at my watch, wondering how long the delay, if any, would be.

As we got behind the north bound bus I saw on the road some scattered shopping: there were two nearly emply pink plastic bags and lying near them was fresh meat, maybe pigs feet. Clearly an accident had occurred and this was what was left behind. This was a bad omen as far as I was concerned. I hoped for the best but expected to see something hurt or broken when we passed the bus.

The delay was almost minimal: the traffic is so low on the road that only two south-bound buses were backed up and in a few seconds they had gone by. Then we inched around the north bound bus, having to move half of our bus onto the left dirt shoulder. As we passed the stationary bus a few meters in front and to the right of it there was a middle aged woman lying on the road. She was stretched out with her arms above her and she looked a combination of relaxing on one arm and catching her breath. A crowd of 20-50 — it’s hard to say, we went by so fast and my attention was on her — was about, but standing well clear of her. It was immediately apparent that she had been hit by the bus. My hopes were up for an instant and then were dashed.

Not only was she lying motionless but down the road shoulder from her head was a large pool of blood. That, and the fact that nobody was standing near her to help or comfort told me it was the worst: she was dead. Poor woman. In my guess she had not seen the bus coming and walked straight in front of it. The driver had probably braked well before impact, but could not stop in time. Upon impact her groceries fell to the ground and she was carried through the air until the bus stopped. Then she flew forward a bit more and fell to the ground.

I saw and surmised all that in less than a minute. Very shortly we were kilometers further and there was no visible evidence of the accident. As we went on I felt like an ant among other ants. The people I could see along the road had no idea what had just happened to their fellow human and were unconcerned. Hardly any different from what happens with ants: I have often cleared ants by killing scores of them away from one spot and their nest mates have gone on with their chores unaware and unconcerned.

The motorized traffic on the road was at least 2/3 busses and most of the rest split between trucks and motorcycles. During the whole day, this is an actual count, we saw only seven private cars going in the opposite direction. Every two hours or so there would be a police check by the side of the road; this consisted of three or four people. The exact purpose was not too clear, but presumably included catching overloaded vehicles. At anyrate, each time we passed one the driver’s assistant would squeeze down in the stairwell where he was standing and hide. The first check he was day dreaming and the driver called out to him. The later ones he was on the mark, doing his squeeze with a sheepish look offered to all nearby passengers.

We mostly passed through country side, with actually infrequent villages and rarely through a town big enough to have side streets. None of them gave the impression that they were worth visiting, except for the Champa ruins outside two town. The stores were too limited, even non-exisitant. No signs of interesting parks or museums. Vietnam is a pretty poor country. In the town and villages the road is usally paved only in middle and a several meter wide strip of dirt exists between paved road and curbs. This gives the town and villages a very dusty appearance since this strip has long ago been turned to dust by foot traffic and vehicles entering and leaving the road. One interesting site usually seen near villages was of people coming from the countryside with a load of cut wood — really twigs - piled high on the backs of their bicyles.

The day ending, near 5:00 p.m, we went  through Quang Ngai, the last big town before Hoi An. It was another dump and we’re happy to not be stopping there. Gerry starts looking for signs to My Lai (or Son My, the district in which the village is located) but never sees them. My Lai and surroundings are famous for the massacre that took place there on March 16, 1968, just three weeks after the Tet offensive that lasted from January 28 - February 22, 1968. The country we have been going through must be very similar to that of My Lai, which is 15 km to the west. It is now possible to imagine from first-hand viewing the experience of American troops on patrol in this area. Gerry never sees the actual turn off. Jan does see a board in a cafe advertising tours to My Lai and so assumes that that is the nearest town on the main highway.

By 6:00 p.m. the sun has set and it stays reasonably light for another fifteen minutes, but soon thereafter it is truly dark. From this time on the driver’s assistant "rides shotgun”. He stands by the door looking intently ahead. Each time he sees a person on the side of the road he quietly calls it out to the driver. Gerry sits between the two and ruminates on the accident and wonders if it could happen again in his presence. He’s uncomfortable with his minimal connection to the afteroon accident and that didn’t even involve our bus. Now it would be much worse to be an eyewittness to it.

Ten kilometers from Hoi An there is a turn-off toward it which we take. Later we learn this is called "the back way". The closer and closer we get to town the more people are out on their bicycles, mostly without headlights, but most at least have reflectors on the back. They are either unconcerned or more likely fatalistic. We have been that way when bicycling: you just have to hope the vehicle and driver bearing down behind you is concerned with you. If you are going to be hit it will be sudden and over. You cannot cycle and be continually turning around to see what is happening. In this case we arrive in the center of town and we’ve neither caused nor seen any accidents. The town is well lit and the main danger has ended.