Where am I?

I left my hotel yesterday morning around 8 a.m. with some bad info from a French woman who told me the bus station was about a 5-10 minute walk from there. 30-40 minutes later, with all my gear on and sweating like a sow, I got there. Begin the chaos. When you get to bus stations in Vietnam, the touts swarm, each one trying to figure out where you're going and get you to use their bus service. I was hoping to go to Ben Tre, the little town where they make the coconut candy, but had a hard time finding a bus that went directly there, so I bought a ticket to My Tho, a town about 30 kilometers from Ben Tre. Well... I ended up in Ho Chi Minh City. I had sort of imagined this scenario in my head and told myself if this happened I would just continue on to Dalat. Well, there were no obvious signs saying where I was and I couldn't find anyone who spoke enough English, or understood my sign language of pointing to my map, my feet, and the surrounding city with a look of question on my face. They all knew I wanted to go to Ben Tre, but the ticket cost the same as the price I had just paid, which didn't seem right. So finally one of the guards came up and said, "Vous parlez français, oui?" Oui, fortunately, but it turned out he also spoke pretty good English. In any case, we established that I was in HCMC and that now I wanted to get to Dalat. But buses to Dalat leave from the south station, and I was at the north station. He told me which bus I needed to catch and I was on my way. It was about a 40-minute ride to the other station, during which I met an Australian-Vietnamese guy who spoke perfect English.

There are a lot of French-speaking tourists traveling through Asia. I'm not sure what it is, but I've been mistaken for one on several occasions. Maybe it's the short hair. I guess I don't look like a typical American tourist, which is fine by me. And I guess I should start trying to use French first as opposed to English because I haven't really had much luck finding many Vietnamese people who speak English. In any case, I'm here, having arrived close to midnight last night. I found a great hotel room and I'm hoping to park it here for a few days, until I'm ready for the next leg of the journey, which promises to be even longer.