At breakfast, Londoner Mark asked where we had decided to go. I told him we had opted for the local bus to stop off in Quy Nhon. See I’ve learned most people head straight north to Hoi An. Even the backpackers who found Doc Let were skipping anything in between. Our Lonely Planet Vietnam book and additional online research, as well as a helpful Siem Reap store clerk who is a Vietnam native, led us to believe Quy Nhon had lovely beaches, a nice town and was not yet infiltrated by international tourism (rather only domestic). Mark exclaimed how glad he was to hear we were doing something different (they had just come from Hoi An). And he was also “thrilled to know someone who’s trying the local buses” as he said they considered it “but decided against it” (as he gestured to his lovely wife Nix, thus silently assessing blame) and “wants to hear all about it”. That should give you an idea of what we’re in for. Just another adventure to add to the list.

Our taxi driver picked us up at 9am to take us to the local Doc Let “bus stop” which apparently is the town’s lone gas station on the main highway 1 that runs north/south along the Vietnam coast. After about a 10 minute wait and 2 buses passed, our driver waves down a bus bearing a sign in the window “to Hanoi”. Our taxi driver, who speaks no English but was told in Vietnamese by our hotel manager what to do/say, jumps on the bus to tell the bus driver where we’re going and negotiate price. 150k dong each (USD $6). We confirmed the location with the bus driver (who also speaks no English) by pointing to Quy Nhon on our map and he nodded. So we’re good.
There were 3 other local guys on the bus in addition to the driver. Two guys seemed to be traveling with extremely large stereo speakers and they got off the bus with them about 10 minutes after we boarded. So we were left with only the bus driver, a local who I later deduced was his friend (they had similarly sized backpacks placed together at the front of the bus), and a shitload of fruits and veggies (primarily papayas & greens from what I could tell) that were in plastic wrapped boxes piled up in the back of the bus and the aisle, rendering the bulk of the bus unusable. I can only assume the bus driver, instead of picking up actual passengers (but for us), conspires with his friend to use his bus route to conduct some sort of fresh produce shipping business. Oddly all of the seats were covered in plastic, perhaps to guard against exploding fruit? However, the bus looked fairly new, so perhaps the bus driver was like one of those old people who insist on using plastic couch covers to guard from dust. I was just hoping this produce was bound for a stop north of Quy Nhon although part of me would’ve enjoyed seeing it periodically doled out to random street vendors. So the 4 of us headed north.
With no bathroom. That’s another thing. We were told the bus ride would be 5-6 hours so surely there’d be an onboard toilet? Negative. I immediately went into camel mode, eschewing any water (we had come with a lot bc we were prepared unlike we were for the Cambodia boat trip), in hopes of making it the whole trip as I have a terrible travel bladder. At the same time, I refused to acknowledge my predicament should I be unable to hold it. Positive thoughts. So I wasted away the time taking in the lovely scenery, from quaint little fishing villages with various sized wooden boats to bright blue-green seascapes with deserted white sandy beaches and lush mountainous islands, writing this blog post, and trying to keep my mind off my bladder, all the while our crazy bus driver is madly honking his horn to move any vehicle out of his way and wildly passing semi trucks on blind curves of winding steep 2-lane coastal roads. What a trip (literally & figuratively).
As if it couldn’t get any better, after about 3.5 hours, the bus driver abruptly pulled over at what certainly didn’t look like a bus station. More like the Vietnamese version of a truck stop diner as there were semi-trucks pulled over everywhere haphazardly parked. We were unsure what was happening. The bus driver was gesturing for us to leave the bus. We weren’t about to do that, unless we were certain they were also getting off. So we followed them off the bus. The place was a small outdoor restaurant jammed with locals eating lunch but we were still uncertain of the purpose and length of our stop. So we quickly went in search of the outdoor toilet behind the resto and decided upon return, we’d take the lead from our driver & fellow passenger. The passenger gestured us over to a table where he already had a plate and was eating. Then the restaurant manager ushered us back to the kitchen where he had heaping plates of sticky rice waiting for us and pointed excitedly to various types of meats and seafood. We picked out some meats (not a clue what we ate), he piled them on and led us back to the table with our food, where we sat as a foursome enjoying lunch. AMAZING.
Based on my rough math of speed and km signs posted along the way, I had already surmised the 5-6 hour estimate seemed quite excessive as long as we kept up roughly the same pace. Before lunch, I had estimated only another 45 minutes. Somehow over lunch and a lot of map pointing and gesturing, we managed to convince the bus driver to drop us off near a bunch of hotels instead of the Quy Nhon bus station. That happened a mere 30 minutes later. We walked into a hotel on the beach, asked if they had available rooms (they did) & selected one with an ocean view and two beds ($50 including breakfast). On the empty beach by 2:30 (we literally were the only ones on the massive stretch). We both fully agreed this was already one of our favorite travel days.