Well, the train has to this point been a favorite mode of transportation for us in Asia. It is usually the most comfortable, it is continuous, there is food and drink available, you can walk around, and when it is for 14 hours… you can catch some sleep.
Unfortunately the train books up quickly here in Vietnam. Travel agents buy up all the tickets and then sell them back to you at really high rates, and that is if you can find one with some left. We managed to find some soft seat (think like a greyhound bus seat, but smaller, Asian sized) tickets and that is what we used. We had planned on sleeping over the night, but there are nothing but warnings when traveling with locals on buses and trains because of the amount of things which are stolen. Jen fell asleep pretty quickly and Amy eventually got some sleep around 4:00am. I think I was waking up every 15 minutes for most of the night just to look around and see how things were. The lights were never off, and the ride wasn’t the smoothest ever, so it was fairly easy to keep this pattern going.
Eventually we rolled in to Danang, Vietnam’s 4th largest city (1 million people.) Our goal was to rent scooters and ride down to Hoi An ourselves. We left Amy with the bags and Jen and I set off in the heat to try and find somewhere to rent them, but after a kilometer or so with no luck we went back to get Amy and find a new way down to Hoi An. The cheapest option was the local bus. We had no idea what it was, and even less of an idea where it was exactly, but we headed off in what we figured was the suggested direction of the guidebook. When we got to the spot, a man came up and asked us where we were from (Canada… ahhh Quebec *french french french french*) when telling him we were headed for the bus to Hoi An, he took us to where we needed to go.
Now we have been scammed so many times (or attempts made at least) that we are a very skeptical group. I didn’t have a horrible feeling from him, but we just kept waiting for it to happen. Eventually he saw us off and it was all fine, he was just being nice (I got to use some of my French with him which was fun.) We regretted not offering him some money after we realized that it was all just to help us, but the opportunity was gone. Up rolls the local bus and it is a dash on to the stairs as it just keeps rolling by. The system is, listen for the continuous horn, wave when you want it, run like hell to get on it, and grab something when you make it in. It was about 30 – 45 minutes of this and then we got to Hoi An.
A German girl named Mascha got off as well, and she joined us on the hunt for a guest house. After finding one, showering, and dropping off laundry, we headed off to find some food. They have “fresh beer” which is made daily and disposed of at night if there is any left. It costs about 20 cents a glass and it is very tasty. We had a set menu at a place by the river and everything we were brought tasted fantastic. The restaurant was empty when we arrived, but through the magic of having tourists sitting at at table in your place of business, soon after there were 7 other tables filled.
The evening was spent shopping with Amy (custom tailoring is huge in Hoi An) and topped off with a massage. The goal tomorrow is to rent the scooters we wanted earlier and check out the My Son ruins.
