The Beach or Bust!

We spent our last hours in Ho Chi Minh City at the Majestic’s rooftop bar drinking our dinner. We watched the crowds of people and motorcycles board the Saigon River ferries. We watched the traffic on the streets below and contemplated our trip to date. Reluctantly Lucy and I left this lap of luxury and boarded a bus to Mui Ne at 8:00 pm.

Street scene from the rooftop bar at the Majestic Hotel. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The bus ride was a little crazy. It was filled with both locals and foreign travelers looking for a cheap way to blow town. I swear our driver and the pals he had along for the ride were trying to break a land speed record. He was absolutely crazy, doing double and triple passes along a winding two-lane road with oncoming traffic. I had a view of the front windshield and I should have looked away! The ride was so jostling that the poor woman sitting behind me and Lucy was carsick and spent ½ hour very politely puking into a bag. Her boyfriend/husband was not very sympathetic and tried to distract his ill partner by giving her a very annoying hand-held electronic game. The noises that emanated from that thing were maddening. Every so often it would emit a tinny laugh or ridiculous monkey noises. Between hushed vomit sessions and loud burps of ape sounds, Lucy and I were beside ourselves with delirium. After over four hours we finally made it to Mui Ne and thankfully stumbled into our peaceful beach havens.