To go back a bit to what hopefully will one of the last bus journeys in Vietnam, from Quy Nhon, the strictly Vietnamese tourist resort, to Hoi An. This should have been perfectly straight forward journey including a 6.a.m. pick-up from the hotel.

Firstly the non-English speaking Hotelier, (are you a hotelier when your rooms are £6.00 a night?) called a taxi as soon as he saw me come downstairs, the taxi- driver’s eyes glistened when he thought he was to take me all the way to Hoi An. The only way to get this sorted was for Hotelier to call the travel agent to check what was what…. We’re talking 5.45a.m. here. So dead on 6.00 a.m. a mini cab arrives and drops me at the side of the road by a bus stop. Why not the bus station????

I was told the bus would be 10 minutes and luckily just able to grab a baguette (or Baget , as I saw on one menu ), the second mini bus which I was bundled on to, proceeded for about an hour to drive around the town, very slowly, hurrah!! Picking up people, parcels and letters. Then we we out on the open road, and I knew this was for real, and we speeded up.

However there is a silver lining to every cloud.The journey was alleviated by Mrs Motor-mouth. A stout middle aged lady in a blancmange pink sweat shirt and a flowery pink sun hat . She caused much hilarity when she turned to me with a toothless leer, and asked “woss your na’e?” And repeated Vicky back. The rest of her harangues was probably about dumb foreigners but she made everyone laugh. She had no on/ off switch nor volume control, thankfully after about 2 hours her batteries ran out.

As we went through towns and villages the driver’s assistant lent out asking people standing on the verge where they were going, occasionally people got on, or handed a shopping bag to him. There was no stop on this ride for food or a pee, no free water or hand-wipes. After a bit people started to get off, but quickly, he didn’t even stop properly. The driver would race past three or four lorries at once,then pull sharply in front of them all to stop to collect or discharge a letter or passenger. On one occasion a guy on a motorbike appeared on our near-side and a shopping basket was exchanged on the move, like the baton in a relay race.

I was thrown off at what was obviously the end of the drive, but even I could work out it wasn’t Hoi An. Umpteen taxi and moto drivers hassled me, but the bus driver gracelessly pointed out the local bus. That slowed things down a bit, but I reached Hoi An in one piece….. So though the journey was not at all what I’d expected I was so relieved to reach my destination I even took a moto (20 kilo suitcase and all) to my luxurious hotel.

Imagine my joy when the room had a bath and a kettle………