We got picked up at the hotel this morning at 8.15 by our driver who was called Le Hoa. He took us out of town the way we'd come in, through the pine forests, but then took a country route towards the coast. We drove through some very extensive forests, some of it dense tangled broadleaf jungle, so we started to forgive Vietnam a little bit. There were some picturesque little paddy fields in the flat areas, and we got Le to stop several times for photos and looking at birds. We found he was very good at spotting birds in the trees for us as he was driving along, once he'd realised that's what we're interested in. There were lots of bee-eaters around, and blue-tailed bee-eater was a new one for us. There were several of them swooping around over some paddy fields. Healthy numbers of egrets in the paddies too. We saw striated swallows from a viewpoint, only the second bird of that restless family we've identified, and one of the fish eagles with a shining white rump soaring overhead. There were some rather rustic villages where litters of piglets roamed the streets, but as usual the other sort of litter was what dominated the scenery.

After several hours we descended from the plateau and it became hot. Le had bought us some vegetable rolls for our lunch, included in the price of the journey I suppose. After eating it I spent half the afternoon dozing off. They were growing a lot of cactus plantations, for the "dragon fruits" which are scaly red fruit with lots of little black seeds inside a white water-melon-ish flesh.

Although we were travelling the coastal road, we never saw the sea until we'd almost arrived at Ho Coc. The hotel here, hotel Ven Ven, is nice for the £12 or so per night we're paying, but sadly Ho Coc itself is a big disappointment. A huge new expensive resort has swallowed up all the beach to the north of us and the rest of the beach is partitioned between smaller and grubbier resorts and restaurants. And the whole area is obliterated by a thick crust of litter.

We've got a chalet type room in a wooded garden of sorts, and the hotel has very recently expanded and built a very smart looking new block, but God knows who's going to stay here, because we're the only guests tonight. The place is across the road from the sea, and I'm not sure if we've got any legal access to the beach. We just brazened it out and walked straight through the gates of the nearest resort to get to the beach, but it wasn't nice at all. There were hundreds of weekending Vietnamese in the sea, mostly teenagers. They go in the sea fully clothed. A threesome of young girls all insisted on having their photos taken posing with me. Am I famous over here? Wearing my backpack, binoculars and hiking trousers I wasn't looking my most glam. They didn't want Robbie's picture because Vietnamese people don't think she's exotic. A lot of people have been talking to her in Vietnamese refusing to believe she is English.

We rolled up our trouser legs Yorkshire-style and had a quick paddle. It's bearably warm, but the water consisting as it does of about 50% plastic solids, I wasn't too tempted to swim. The beachfront properties become increasingly littered and sordid as you head southwards, and about a mile on they're building a massive tower block right on the seafront, which resembles a nuclear power station. But who in their right mind is going to want to come here? We chose Ho Coc as our beachside location at the end of the holiday because it has a protected forest inland of it for several miles, so we'll investigate that tomorrow. What I've seen so far of the forest though, it looks charred and belittered, so I'm not holding out too much hope.

Poor Robbie is battling disappointment. We ate at the restaurant here this evening. She ordered the only two vegetable dishes they have on the menu, and they both turned out to be the same leaf stir-fried, one flavoured with ginger and one with "fermented bean curd" which we'd assumed meant tofu, but no, it's just some yeasty sauce. I had carrot in the salad with my slightly under-cooked fish, but after lengthy discussions with the management it appears that vegetarians aren't allowed to have carrot with their wilted leaves, because that's not on the menu. Did I mention we're the only people staying here tonight...?

I hope we'll feel more positive in the clear fresh light of morning.