DIARY - Tuesday 19th February 2008 Heavy rain as I head towards the Central Highlands. Highway 15 is a decent road, sectioned concrete in parts, widened at some time, just the occasional landslip to keep concentration to the fore. My gloves fall to pieces, my feet begin to look as though I have been in the bath for 24hours they are so crinkled, now I understand why the Vietnamese tend to ride their bikes in flip flops! Pushing ever south I have a feeling I am not going to make it all the way to Saigon before I have to leave the country and begin to ponder where I can make a hasty retreat from and more to the point, will I be able to sell the bike. The jungle clad hills of the Ho Chi Minh Trail would be spectacular if only I could see something, the weather is being unkind again with heavy rain. It doesn't stop the local pastime of panning for gold in the river though, I don't envy one woman up to her waist in the water, she must have drawn the short straw that morning. Towards Kon Tum the road is long straight and boring. It passes through areas infamous for the battles of thirty years ago. Dien Bien Phu is haunting in it's emptiness. There are still searches carried out here for skeletons, though they seem mostly Vietnamese that are found, no Americans. The war cemeteries are everywhere, it is quite a depressing area though Kon Tum has a reputation for being a friendly town the inhabitants being curious towards strangers. It was here I caused two scooters to collide in the market place when the riders being too interested in my presence, ploughed into each other. I beat a hasty retreat behind the pork stall!
The hotel I have booked into for the night looks acceptable, no Hilton but it has water, a loo and a bed with a clean sheet. One sheet seems the normal way to do things here, so I have been using my sheet sleeping bag quite often, just pulling the top cover up while the weather is so cool. Tonight I find that the rain has got into my rucksack and the plastic bag the sleeping bag was in has leaked. I have one very wet sleeping bag. Needs must and I have to pull the blanket up over me. If I had thought to sniff the blanket when I checked the room I guarantee I wouldn't have stayed here. The smell was appalling. A mixture of stale vomit and dirty toilets, though it actually looks quite clean, has me deciding to sleep fully clothed. Quite an asset when the door knocking began at around 1.a.m. The local prostitutes were out in force. It seemed like hours before they had serviced every room (except mine I hasten to add) but they did me a service, lack of sleep meant I could keep an eye on the cockroaches and the furry scampering of the local rat population that seemed to use my room as the main highway. All this for $4 a night - a bargain in entertainment!