day 270, buon ma thout

Our big day plans disappeared as I was feeling rough again and spent half the night awake. Slept in till ten and revised our plans to reach Buon Ma Thout. It was a scorching day outside and was rolling along, quite busy traffic and had a slight hairy moment where a truck without any prior indication or signalling attempted a screaming u-ey whilst I was overtaking him. We both emergency stopped so no harm done. Stupidly I rolled my sleeves up and have an attractive square of red skin on either forearm. Carried on to get most of the ride out the way then stopped for lunch. We went to a food place where there was a five year old watching monster’s inc, and he was transfixed. We said hello to him numerous times, got in his eye line and even stood aside the tele though we weren’t there, he was away with Sulley and Mike. Went next door and had a good meal plus a coffee then we carried onward to Buon Ma Thout. Somehow going round a toll bridge I didn’t see the end of a boom pole and hit it with my arm, the thing broke though just carried on riding and hoping for the best. We arrived at Buon Ma Thout and found our hotel, pretty tired and dehydrated. Went out for a coffee as this is the coffee capital of Vietnam (and Vietnam is the second biggest exporter of coffee only to Brazil), and it was fantastic. On the way back stopped off at a supermarket and got loads of water and lemon juice, plus sunblock and moisturiser and sat in the hotel for a bit watching Titan A.E. and then went out for Com Hen, a dish of rice, clams, peanuts, sesame seeds, pork fat, shrimp sauce, salad, chilli sauce and clam broth, and was decent. We’re trying to have a specialty from each place we visit and this was it. We also had a drink which sunshine pioneered, the milk, yoghurt and suger thing, and it was fab. Back to the hotel to watch Bear Grylls highlights and go to bed, to DaLat tomorrow!