Before I can actually tell you about our visit in Hoi An I have to mention the bus ride to get there. We knew that the total ride from Hanoi to Hoi an would take us 16 hours from which 12 were in a sleeping bus.
After our last walk in Hanoi, a minivan picked us up and brought us to the main bus stop. There we spend another our waiting for the actual bus right next to a main road. I spend my time there counting „almost accidents“ (around 21). Moreover I discovered the underlying traffic rule in Vietnam. At first it seemed that the bigger vehicles have priority but NO.... it is those vehicles with the loudest horn. Therefore you see a looootttt of cars with a customized horn !!!!!
Okay anyway finally we managed to get into the sleeping bus, which was totally crowed! For those of you who had not yet the pleasure of experiencing one of those.... imagine:
In such a bus there are three lines of bunk beds. Two next to the window and one in the middle. Sleeping is supposed to mean, that you can ly down... well maybe if your are vieatnamese but an average European person, doesn t fit there.
As we were the last to enter the bus we got the worst beds. Upper bed (you feel every curve twice as hard), right under the general air condition (= freezing cold) and next to the toilet (a rough breeze of sh...).
Within the first 10 minutes of that bus ride, an English girl right behind us found cockroaches. She made a huge fuss and that s why Fabi enjoyed it even more teasing her :-)
Roads in Vietnam are not the best with lots of holes and bumps. This turned out to be an issue as we discovered that our bus had absolutely no damper (german: Stoßdämpfer). So the moment you just managed to doze of for a while, the bus passed a bump and we slammed our faces into the really hard mattress. Those slaps (around every 10 minutes) made it quite impossible to sleep....
So just to summarize the bus ride: 12 h, stinky toilet smell, VERY cold air condition right above us, cockroaches and around 72 slaps by your mattress
Okay anyway finally we arrived in Hue where we changed immediately to the sitting-bus. FINALLY after 4 hours we arrived in Hoi An. After 6 days in a dormitory of 16 people in Hanoi, we treated ourselves with a double room!!!! Privacy is just NICE!
While I was still busy with checking in, Fabian had already rented a Scooter. So off we went for the beach.
Basically we were alone on the beach--- maybe it was slightly to windy for beach action but after freezing for 2,5 weeks, we were just ready for some beach. We enjoyed some wonderful lunch right AT the beach (seafood with rice).
Our map mentioned „MY SON“ but we had no clue what it actually was... (could not read the lonely planet in the bus) but we anyway decided to go there. It took us 2 hours plain driving to get there and we had to buy petrol 3 times as Fabian would not buy a little more... cause otherwise we would return more petrol then we had gotten!!!!!! ... we are talking about 30 cents more or less!!!!!
Once in a while i really got nervous, as I could already see us... pushing a scooter in the very outskirts of Vietnam!!! But fortunately.... didn t happen.
Well finally we arrived there , „MY SON“ (pronounced me son (engl.)) turned out to be tempers!!!!!! Apparently we were 20 minutes to late so we could only see the museum but not the temples, as they were closed... better to say the rest of them (very old and almost rotten) were closed.
So back to town!!! As we didn t sleep the night before we went early to be to be fresh for tomorrow. After the breakfast we had 6 hours to kill until our bus to Nha Trang left. What to do..... hmmmm
It turned out (not mentioned in Lonely Planet) that Hoi An has a lovely old town with a really „back to the roots“ market next to a river bank. So we walked up an down, a little off road to see how people live.
By that time it was around 1 pm (lunch time) and we could hear Karaoke!! We passed an entrance and we could see 3 grown up men (difficult to say how old they were, but around 30-40) sitting on the floor singing karaoke and drinking beer. When they saw us... they invited us to join them.... of course we did!!!
Thanks God they didn t have any English songs, cause otherwise we would have to sing as well. They continued singing while puring lots of beer into our glasses. 3 glasses later we decided to leave... otherwise who knows....
Lunch: first Cao Lao which is supposed to be the specialty of Hoi An... I am not convinced.. some noodles with salad and small pieces of pork. This was definitely not enough so we went for some grilled meat on sticks. There is a special technique to prepare them.
- take rice paper
- put rice noodle inside
- put cucumber and salad on the rice noodels
- put the stick with meat in the middel and wrap it with the rice paper
- pull out the stick, so that only the meat is left
Fabi had around 10 of those... but really delicious. Please check out the furniture of those street kitchens. TINY chairs and very small tables.. it is like having lunch in kindergarten, except that you don t fit them anymore
After that we went for a boat tour on the river. A one hour boat tour for just the two of our cost us 6 euros!!! it was soooo nice and relaxing... just perfect.
Cobra with scorpio in whiskey
Finally we went bacḱ to the hotel to get our stuff and hop on another bus which was supposed to be a sitting bus (12 h!!!) cause all the sleeping buses were full. Fabi = absolutely not amused
Anyway if you ever have the chance to go to Vietnam, you need to visit Hoi An. It is just lovely!!! And the people there are very friendly and not so westernized like in Hanoi.
Kisses from Hoi An
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