We had now officially finished our tour and were about to embark on our first journey ourselves. We'd opted for the sleeper bus option from Ho Chi Minh to Dalat, a less touristy town in the mountains. This would not only save wasting any days travelling but would also save valuable money on a night's accommodation. The journey was due to take 8 hours and we were booked on the 11pm bus, it was now 7pm, so we found a restaurant near the bus station and set ourselves in for an evening of eating and drinking in order to keep our seats. We met up with our new travelling companion, Sophie, who we had recruited to embark on this next stage of the adventure. Unfortunately she had been unwell all day, poisoned by some Vietnamese food/water, so we gave her a pile of pills that we hoped would perk her up for the journey.

It was time to catch the bus, we were in the right place, with our tickets and all our luggage, as were about 100 other people, and buses arriving and leaving every few minutes with no explanation as to which bus to get on. We met several other westerners equally as confused as us, also trying to get on the 11pm bus to Dalat, we had assumed we were on the same one. After 30 minutes of mayhem, we finally struck gold, a bus driver nodded instead of shaking his head when we showed him our ticket. We bustled ourselves and our baggage on, found our seats/beds and started settling ourselves in for the night. A little anxious at first as we were being thrown around with the crazy driving, we managed to finally get to sleep. It turned out the driver had decided to drive twice as fast and therefore arrive in Dalat twice as quick, meaning our 4:30am toilet stop was actually our destination.

Arriving in Dalat, in the middle of the night, with no where to stay, we got the shuttle bus to the hotel for the following night. Unfortunately on arrival it was all bolted up, shutters closed, as were all the guest houses and shops in the surrounding area. We decided to take a walk to find any hotel or restaurant that may have been open. We found one with lights on, the door was open, we entered into the dining room, where there was evidence of some kind of Mafia style party the night before, beer cans strewn around a table and the remains of a card game. There was a man asleep behind the desk. We woke him up. We asked if we could have a coffee or maybe just wait as our hotel was shut, we're not sure if he understood, but he said no. We finally found a coffee shop, not what we wanted but it was a seat in an otherwise deserted and dark street. We managed to wake up the owner and get into our hotel shortly after 6am, he directed us to a room and told us to sleep, such a relief.

After our early morning nap and shower, we went to explore Dalat. It's a flourishing town that is the number one honeymoon destination for Vietnamese nationals. We went to crazy house, one of the few tourist attractions, a house and guest house built like giant flowing tree structures with hidden rooms and gardens. Described in the lonely planet as 'think Gaudi on acid'. We very nearly booked in for the night.

The next day was time to set off on our or rural Vietnamese adventure. We were keen to see the less touristy side and experience real Vietnam, so we decided to do this via their main transport method...motorbike. Our nerves about potentially having to ride a motorbike ourselves were eased when three motorbikes with our three 'easy riders' pulled up to our guesthouse. Before we knew it, our helmets were on and we were off.

We were whisked through stunning countryside, past paddy fields and through remote villages. We stopped en route to see fields of coffee trees and sample weasel poo coffee. Poor Sophie could barely sniff the coffee due to her dodgy bowels. We were also shown around a silk factory and shown how they acquire the silk from the silk worms. We were even given some silkworms to eat, a very tasty snack. Again Sophie couldn't face the free samples! Fortunately part of the trip involved no eating as we walked down to a large waterfall, known as elephant falls, and saw the temple with a giant smiling Buddha (called Happy Buddha).

After a long day on the bikes, we pulled into Lak Lake, a very rural Vietnamese town, unsurprisingly next to a large lake. We stayed in a long house on stilts with various animals wandering around beneath, mostly pigs and dogs with the odd chicken. There was no toilet. We ate at the local restaurant/cafe/shop and we were 'forced' to try the local rice wine. Think bad sake. The easy rider guides were really getting into the swing of things too, so three bottles of rice wine later, we all decided to set off, across a paddy field, in hunt of a karaoke bar. This was sadly a fruitless journey. We went to bed a little merry at the very respectable hour of 10pm. Unsurprisingly Greg awoke shortly after with a 'migraine', known to most of us as a hangover. This was followed by extreme, sudden onset nausea, at which point he vomited out of the window, then Claire threw him out of the house to continue his escapades. The pigs devoured their midnight snack that arrived from the floor above.

The following day, feeling a little tired after the midnight antics, we set off again, swerving past the elephants and water buffalo in the road. We stopped in mushroom village, which is (unsurprisingly) filled with mushroom farms, and learnt how these are produced. We then zoomed off to a rice wine farm where we saw the poison from the night before being manufactured...not what Greg needed. We discovered that they fed the fermented rice which is left over after the process to their pigs. This meant that the farm was also filled with very drunk pigs. Bizarre! Finally we stopped off to see the cinnamon trees before arriving back in Dalat after a fantastic two days of what can only be described as the real Vietnam.

We had one last meal with a much improved Sophie (the clenched bum motorcycle riding had obviously done the trick!) before bidding her farewell as she hopped onto a night bus back to Ho Chi Minh.