The Lost Lonely Planet

Bags packed and ready for the bus to Danang, which is south of Hue. We order breakfast in plenty of time to be ready for an 8AM pickup, however, the bus arrives twenty minutes early and the driver seems eager for us to get on and go. We're rushing around, trying to pay for the hotel and getting our breakfast changed to a takeaway. We throw on our bags and get seats. We're first on the bus.

We need to research Danang in our Lonely Planet guidebook before we get there. That's when I realise that in the rush of getting onto the bus, I left it on the reception desk. This is not good at all. Our Lonely Planet is our only way of knowing anything about anything here, and we now have no idea what to do or where to go in Danang. It's our lifeline and it's gone because of me. Having always moaned at Rachelle for nearly losing things all the time, I fear I have become a hypocrite. Damn.

Thankfully, when we arrived in Danang (after almost missing our stop) a lady asks if she can help, and she points us in the direction of guesthouses and hotels. We have no idea if we're in the right area at all, because Danang is large; the fourth largest city in Vietnam. Without our Lonely Planet, we have little choice but to find a place to stay on our own. After lots of walking, we find a hotel and haggle down the price to 275,000 Dong per night.

We both want to go to a Museum we read about in our Lonely Planet guide before I lost it, but we can't remember what it is called. Walking around the streets in Danang is uncomfortable because everyone stares at us like we are aliens. They aren't subtle about it. People don't speak English very well here either, but we ask someone where a Museum is in hope it's the right one. It's not the right one. As the 'Museum of Danag' is free entry, we quickly look around part of it before deciding we really need to find a copy of the Lonely Planet in a bookstore. Doing this blind, so to speak, isn't working.

We walk far and for hours around Danang city and only find two book shops. One has no English books what-so-ever and the other only has the Cambodia Lonely Planet. Not helpful. We don't see any other tourists and the staring continues. After a while it's time to give up and Rachelle suggests spending some money in an internet cafe to research things, and that's what we do.

It's too late to do anything like Museums at this point, but we are ready to go to the Museum of Cham tomorrow, now that we know it's name. We spend the rest of the night walking down Danang's streets to where we think some places to go are. The Lonely Planet website suggested Christie's Cool Spot bar and restaurant, but when we got there it was overpriced. The site also suggested the Han Markets, but the stalls were closing when we found it. It also suggested the cathedral, which we saw the outside of, but that didn't take up much time. The day seemed against us so we walked down the river, stopping for a drink and again for food, before returning to our hotel room. So far, Danang not so good. I blame Rachelle for wanting to come here.