Our early morning dawn chorus shaved about 2 hours off our intended rise at 6am and we looked in envy at our Italian bunkmate who was flat out and sleeping peacefully.
We took a taxi to the junction where we'd been told we could flag down bus and were dropped off at a petrol station. There were several people who looked like they might work there and just one girl working but they tried to chat to us a little and were very helpful in identifying the right bus. One of the nice things about Vietnam is the equality between men and women and they socialise together everywhere.
We had been told that we should haggle on the bus because they would try to rip us off, which was a good thing because we did not have the money to pay for the fare that they ask us for. They wouldn't bargain much though and we considered getting our bags back off for impact but didn't want to risk being left. Even for something that doesn't techinically cost them anything, the Vietnamese will not haggle further than they think is right and will quite happily not sell it than 'lose out'.
We stopped for lunch and Matt and I bought some fabulously red-looking lychees and some bread. The bread was really sweet and came with a tub of something they we soon found was the Asian favourite - condensed milk. It was interesting but not all too unpleasent.
I was still munching mine when Matt dug into the lychees and expertly started peeling them and popping them into his mouth. When I took one and complained about how squidgy they were, Matt assured me they were very ripe but fine. He looked down at the one that he's just opened and saw some tiny milky-white maggots scoot back inside the fruit. Despite feeling quesy at the maggots he may have already eaten, he perservered and tried a couple more before catching another infestation.
We debated just throwing them away but since there were 2 kilos I had a go at taking them back to the stall. I used my finger to gesture wriggly things inside and surprisingly, she gave me our money back. More surprisingly she gestured for me to return them to the place on the stand that we had bought them from. Icky!
There wasn't enough time to get any more food and we were herded back onto the bus to continue our voyage. A kilometre or so up the road there was a bit of discussion and we did a U-turn and pulled back into the rest-stop - where a very-relieved looking passenger that we had forgotten, climbed back on.
Later, a few hours and many scenic views later, we stopped at a stall at the top of a hill so everyone could buy fruit from the colourful minority women. They didn't have much apart from marrows and some of the tiny, under-ripe green peaches that they seemed to be so fond of so we didn't indulge. However, the old man in front of us insisted that we shared some of the ones he'd bought and, although they were bitter and crunchy, they weren't as bad as other ones we'd tried and they satisfied our hunger pangs a little.
We arrived about 5pm to a few awaiting touts for the hotels in Dien Bien Phu. We wanted to get food first but one of the touts thought we were following him to his hotel just across the road and so we said we'd have a quick look. As we were crossing I heard an urgent whistle and a shout and turned to see a local man shaking his head at me to warn me off. As tempting as it was to find out what he was talking about, we politely declined and went to reintroduce ourselves to noodle soup.
We looked around a few local rooms but since we had a 5am start the following day we didn't have many needs apart from proximity to the bus station and wifi. We found a place called Thu Diu where I got to show myself around before checking in. A few other Westerners were arriving at the same time and had selected the same place and so we performed brief greeting rituals and heded out to find some fruit.
We explored the first actual supermarket we'd seen in Asia for a long while but it was fruitless (pun not intended but a pleasent surprise all the same) and some of the massive outdoor market but we were tiring and so headed back to our hotel with 2 more kilos of less ripe looking lychees and some green oranges (that always messes with my head). We attacked the lychees with considerably more caution than usual but it didn't take long until I found one with a tiny, green caterpillar thing mooching around in it and so we abandoned our vitimin C fest.
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