Ho Chi Minh city is nice. It really is. Something about seeing girls cycle around in ao dais which just sums it up nicely.

So why am I taking a jaunt out into the countryside on a 36-hour bus journey? Why am I not spending more time in Saigon by taking a train to Hue? Why do I subject myself to this kind of torture?

It's quite simple, really. Because I've never done it before, and I'm curious. And because it's cheaper than taking a train both ways by about USD15.

In the same sort of way that I'll never take that 12 hour bus pot-holed journey of hell between Bangkok and Siem Reap, I'll probably never again, after this, want to take a bus journey lasting for more than 20 hours. But until I have lived through it, I can't say I won't.

For this is the way to travel. Not to rush from one highlight to another, blurring the parts in between, but to live it all. It's all good, even the bad parts.

Labels: big trip