Birthday Bash...Hanoi-style

So, it was the 6^th of November, and that meant one thing – it was my birthday! It was a bit weird to wake up on my birthday and be in a completely different country and miles away from my friends and family (apart from James of course, he was in the room with me). We hadn’t much planned for the day so we just munched down the continental breakfast (we had tried to go for the cereal but they were fresh out) and had a nice lazy start to the day.

Happy Birthday to meeee!!

It was gone 11:00am by the time we left the hotel and we were heading for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Unfortunately his body was not lining in state as it is removed for two months of the year for running repairs. It just so happened that this coincided with our visit so we just wandered round the building and took in the view – a huge open road that has no doubt seen some large processions head down it in the past. We were looking for the One Pillar Pagoda and we managed to find it after some old guy was trying to latch onto us and take us for a little tour…for a fee, of course.

Ho Chi Minh's resting place

The One Pillar Pagoda was a nice little sight, quite serene in the madness of Hanoi, but then again the whole area around the mausoleum was quite relaxed as it seems any peddlers or hawkers are removed immediately from the area if they stray in. Once we were done with that little treat it was time for lunch and we headed north to the large West Lake to see what kind of eateries we could find. It turns out that they were all rubbish. Most didn’t serve food, some only served seafood (and judging by the state of the lake it would have been like the fish out of the Simpsons with 3 eyes), some were massively over-priced and in one the waitress just threw some menus onto a table for us to look through. As we wandered on we came across a load of coffee shops and managed to find a place tha served food. Or so we thought. After ordering two helpings of fried rice with meat the waitress came back and pointed to the rice dishes on the menu and wrote “the end” on her little notepad. So we ordered a small Hawaiian pizza to share. When it arrived James was dumbstruck. There was no ham, and they had included peppers and a rather heavy layer of onions, James’s mortal enemy.

One Pillar Pagoda

After a disappointing lunch we headed back to the hotel and Skyped the folks, which was nice to see on my birthday in a foreign country. Once we were ready to leave the hotel we cracked open the gin/rose wine/beer that James had got me and drank…some of it. A tasty meal in Gecko’s round the corner, two large Tiger beers and we were ready to hit the town! We had ear-marked a few places that had got good reviews on trip advisor, but just couldn’t find the one we wanted – Le Pub. We walked round for ages, and there isn’t really much of a night scene in Hanoi, it is still very much in development. We grabbed a quick beer in an “Irish bar” as we were getting thirsty by then, but swiftly moved on as it wasn’t great and there was a very annoying local nearby shouting his head off all night.

Fancy a Tiger? 

We were searching for the “Khao San Road” of Hanoi and we eventually stumbled upon it – a crossroads with a number of bars at the epicentre. Our first choice was the Fat Cat Bar and we took two stools at the bar. Thankfully I was sitting next to a guy who loved nothing more than to chain smoke his Marlboro Black cigarettes, with the breeze/fans blowing the smoke right into my face. We only stayed for one, as we wanted to sample the rest of the bars in the area, so we crossed over and grabbed a couple of Larue beers. It was particularly a “tourist trap” as there were quite a few locals mixed in with the tourists, and there was generally a good atmosphere all round.

Fat Cat Bar......clearly!

Next up was a bar just down the way, but with a slightly more darker feel to it than the others. It felt safe, but almost had a kind of gothic feel to it. James asked a local if he knew where the Phuc Tan bar was as he had heard about it and fancied a visit, but the guy suggested that we weren’t ready for it and would need another 5 drinks before going there. That didn’t sound good. But we wouldn’t get the chance to enquire as to why as the police/army bundled into the bar and ordered everyone to drink up and leave. It was only midnight, and it seems that that is all you get in Hanoi, unless you hit places like Puku that stay open 24 hours, apparently.

Are we nearly done yet???

So we had been carted out onto the street, still with beers in hand, and eager for maybe one last one before calling it a night. I didn’t fancy risking the wrath of the police/army with drinking beer in the street so I gulped it down and set the bottle in a corner, where someone would probably make good use of it. As the Phuc Tan bar was sort of in the area we took a trip over there to see what all the fuss was about. We had to cross the main road to get there and when had done so it looked like we had taken turn for the worse. Gone were the happy-go-lucky people hanging out by the bars and the street corners, this was an altogether more seedy area where not many non-locals ventured. After walking down a couple of streets I wasn’t liking the feel of the place so we turned on our heels and got the heck out of dodge!

There wasn’t time to get one last beer, and considering we had been chugging back large bottles rather than the usual small ones it was probably a good idea. So with that we made it back to the hotel and crashed out. A cracking birthday, and one that I’ll not forget in a hurry!

Visa Good, Visa Good! Indian Visa Good!

It was Monday morning again, and we were getting up early. Not to go to work, obviously, but to get to the train station in order to book our tickets to Nanning in China, and then to get to the Indian embassy to sort our visa out for visiting the country. It was of most importance to get the visa sorted as our flight back to the UK was from Mumbai, so no visa would mean no flight, and I want to have Christmas this year! We couldn’t organise the visa first as we needed to show our Chinese visa to the train station ticket office to prove that we were eligible to enter the country. And also, we would need to hand our passports over at the embassy and they would keep hold of them til our last day in Hanoi.

The “continental breakfast” laid on by the Hanoi Eclipse Hotel…..wasn’t. It looked nothing like the picture, and nothing like any continental breakfast I have ever had before. Two fried eggs, two fried slices of garlic sausage, a mound of salt next to the eggs and one massive warm, crispy bread roll. I couldn’t eat the garlic sausage, not for breakfast. And one of my eggs had touched the mound of salt so that was a strange experience in my mouth. But it was free so we munched as much as we dared and then got ready to hit the train station.

It’s not far to get from the hotel to the train station, maybe about 20 minutes walk/weave between the traffic. We were told to line up at ticket booth 7, but there was nobody there, just a “closed” sign, so we slumped onto the seats nearby and waited. After inspecting the huge fish tank and the cat that was curled up asleep in the wires of the floor buffer James realised that he had forgotten the passport photo for the Indian visa. So he had to dash back to the hotel while I waited on the seats for his return.

It had a cat-alytic converter! No good? Oh well...

In the time it took for him to return a girl had approached booth 7 and ushered me over to sort the tickets, but I made a “5 minutes” gesture as James had still not come back. She wandered off and I continued my wait. He returned after about 30 minutes waiting and we queued up at booth 7 again. We waited…and waited…and waited. Eventually another woman came over and began organising the tickets. We knew exactly what tickets and train we needed so when she tried to overcharge us (Foreigner Tax again…) James batted it back and the price somehow dropped to lower than what we had been advised by Seat 61 (our Bible on Asia travel – www.seat61.com) by 35,000 VND. That’s 10 Fresh Beers in Café 43!

Waiting...and waiting...and waiting

With our train tickets sorted we sped down to the embassy, hoping that we wouldn’t another manic charge to get through the front doors like we experienced at the Chinese embassy in Bangkok. It was all very civilised and relatively quiet when we got in. We took a seat and waited for the visa guy to come free. We were beaten to the office by a girl carrying about 20 applications so we thought that we would be in for a lengthy wait but I managed to get us in at the same time and the chap happily began thumbing through our applications once the girl had handed him hundreds of dollars and left. My heart skipped a beat when he claimed that I had some details missing from my previous visit to India, but then he saw it and gave it a “tick”. It was like being back at high school; sitting in the man with authority’s office whilst he checked the work I had handed in and ticked the relevant parts. Thankfully it was OK and he proceeded to do the same with James’s application. We paid him the visa fee and left in high spirits – hopefully that would be the last of the complicated visa applications as the one for Nepal we can organise at the border.

My hopes and dreams rest on this document

As we had had a relatively stressful start to the day we made our way back to the hotel and lazed around with a bite to eat. After that we wandered down to the citadel to have a mooch round. On the way we passed a statue to Lenin, with some kids skateboarding in front of him. He didn’t look very impressed with them…

Mad skills...

At the citadel we cautiously entered the grounds as it said that the place was closed on Mondays, but there were other people there too so we took a chance and went for it. It was nice and peaceful in there without the hustle and bustle of the traffic that surrounded the place. There was also what looked to be a Miss Vietnam photo-shoot going on, from what we could gather. We had to pick and choose our moments for exploring the citadel as around each and every corner there were pretty girls getting their photos taken, so we tried valiantly not to be in the back of their pictures.

Hanoi Citadel

We left the citadel and wandered back to the hotel via the huge cathedral that sits near the citadel. It was mighty big, but closed, so we could only see it from the outside, which was a shame but it was still well worth finding. Once back at the hotel I did a quick search on somewhere good to eat, but nothing really came up. There seems to be a huge gap between the local street eateries and the top-end foreigner-friendly places, so we have struggled to find places in the middle. We managed to find Puku, which was right outside a massive Karaoke bar (something that they seem to love over here) and had a reasonably nice meal with a bottle of Hanoi beer. It was the last meal that I would have before my birthday, and it was a shame it wasn’t better, but I was hoping to find a top-notch place for the following day so we could celebrate.

James contemplates going to the Karaoke bar

Hello Hanoi!

Well, we had no mice and no other bunkmates to accompany us on our journey to Hanoi, but James did have another little cockroach climb up his leg, but that wasn’t going to put a crimp on a successful journey. By the time we had risen it was coming up to 9:00am and we had had numerous interruptions from people opening our cabin door, looking in and then leaving us alone. It wouldn’t be all that bad but as we had no curtains the light from the corridor would blaze across our eyelids and wake us up each time. Nevertheless, we were near our last stop in Vietnam and we had got some half-decent sleep after all.

Just arrived in Hanoi

We were accosted by the usual rabble of taxi drivers all trying to get our business, but on this leg of the trip we were only a short walk from our hotel so we shouldered our bags and followed the map on my phone. First impressions of Hanoi were that it was pretty much the same as Ho Chi Minh City; full of motorbikes and street vendors. We were early to our hotel so we waited while our Deluxe win room was being made up. We had upgraded from Standard to Superior, and then again from Superior to Deluxe as the price difference was minimal and we would need a good room if staying for 5 nights. As it still came in at under a tenner each per night we were happy with it. We had a balcony at one end of the room that looked out over the streets below, and a couple of caged birds on the balcony next-door, that may become a nuisance if they don’t shut up later into the night.

The Deluxe Twin... 

As it was lunch-time we took a wander through the local streets, but were unable to find anywhere decent to grab a bite. We are still playing it pretty safe when it comes to street food as we can’t afford to get wiped out (pardon the pun) for a couple of days. Eventually we found somewhere and chowed down. We took an afternoon nap afterwards as the train sleep hadn’t been of great quality, and did some research into Hanoi to see what was around.

That night we ventured out into the streets and found the lake where everything seems to happen around. The restaurant we found certainly had the biggest menu we had come across on our travels. It contained: rabbit, squid, eel, frog, tortoise, and cock testicles. We avoided this minefields and plumped for the usual kinda stuff, as the restaurant didn’t seem classy enough to pull any of those dishes off. On the way home I managed to add another beer to the increasing list that we have sampled from around the world – Zorok. It was ok. Cheap and cheerful, and did a job, but probably wouldn’t drink it out of choice.

The lake by night...

Back To Da Nang......Dang!

So we were packed and ready to go. Well, almost. As James had had his suit measured up but not yet tweaked he needed to get down to Huang Kim’s and get it sorted and posted back to Blighty. He would head down at half 10 to be there for 11:00am ready for the alterations. I stayed in the hotel room and lazed around watching some football on the telly box, waiting for his return and check-out at noon.

At 11:00am precisely the power to the room cut off. I thought that maybe it was check-out time, but when I checked with reception it seemed that the whole hotel had been cut off. When the door to the hotel room swung open I saw a red-faced James, for more than one reason. He had been fast-walking back to the hotel, but also, the power-cut had hit the entire town and therefore the tailors had not been able to alter his suit. He was not happy. The alterations were needed so they couldn’t just send it home, and we toyed with the idea of taking it to Hanoi to get it fixed, but in the end he had to make another journey down there to see if the power had come back on and agree a plan of action. But that would have to wait, as we would have to check out of the hotel first.

View from the top of the hotel.....I was bored waiting

Due to the lack of power there was a small queue of people also wanting to check out. There was no power so there was no way to pay by credit card, and everything had reverted back to pen and paper. We didn’t want to pay in cash, as it cost us extra to withdraw from the ATMs, but that was our only option. We paid nearly 2 million Dong and got the heck out of there. We returned to Treats for lunch, and James left me after we finished to pay another visit to Huang Kim’s and see what the status was with his suit. I sat and read my book while I waited for him to return. He returned about 30 minutes later, still with no suit, and still with no alterations done. The power was still not back so they still couldn’t do any work. This time James was a little more agitated, as time was dragging on and we had arranged a relatively cheap taxi ride back to Da Nang with the restaurant, rather than negotiate the dodgy foreigner-unfriendly local bus again. The taxi was due at 2:00pm and our train was at 4:50pm so we didn’t want to wait much longer.

The streets of Hoi An 

James took one last trip down to the tailor as I remained in Treats, reading my book and watching the world go by. He said he would be quick, but time was dragging. The taxi driver arrived and tried to raise the price from 200,000 VND to 300,000 VND, but I managed to get him back down to 220,000 VND, only a small increase, and considering he was having to wait til James got back I think it was a fair deal. It was about 45 minutes before he returned, having got the measurements taken and left it with them to alter and post back home. So we were ready to leave Hoi An and get back to Da Nang for our train.

It didn’t take us long in the taxi to get back to Da Nang and I think we were both glad we made the extra effort to get down to Hoi An as Da Nang doesn’t seem to have much – it is essentially just a stop-off point to get to Hoi An in the south and Hue in the north. As we clambered aboard our train (across the railway tracks mind, the door was on the wrong side to the platform…) we found our cabin and hoped that we wouldn’t have any other bunk-mates for the 18 hour journey.

Da Nang train station

The first bunk-mate we met was a little cockroach scuttling across the floor, but we soon chucked him outside to fend for himself. The train seemed a little older and dirtier than the previous one we had got but as we left the station there was nobody else to accompany us on the way. Hopefully that would stay the same throughout and that nobody would be joining us in the middle of the night a little further down the line. And that there wasn’t another mouse scuttling around under the bunks.

Getting Lost

I had one thing on the agenda for the morning, and that was to head back to the tailor and get my suit tweaked, if it needed it. Well, I had a second item on the agenda but I wasn’t sure whether or not it would actually happen due to the continual rain and cloud that had followed us to Hoi An. I wanted to see the beach on the east coast of Hoi An, as Chloe and Laura (off of the train from Surat Thani to Bangkok) had been there and it had looked amazing. Also, the Top Gear boys had taken their travel-weary bikes down to the beach and met some locals down there, so I fancied doing the same. But if the weather stayed like it was I would more than likely skip it and just bum around the town.

Before I set off we did some research into India, as we would need to complete our online visa application before the day was through. We planned a vague route, but it will probably change once we get nearer to crossing the border, and once we have worked out just what we will be doing in Nepal. We waited for a break in the weather and then I began the long walk down to the tailor, agreeing to meet James at Treats for lunch at 1:00pm. It turns out that the suit didn’t need tweaking at all and it fit me like a glove, so we arranged a postie to come to the shop and send it on its way back to England. It had taken slightly longer than anticipated so I was a little late getting to lunch, but we had a beer and a burger (something we haven’t had since the US) and it hit the spot perfectly.

There's the beer, the burger's gone already!

After lunch James wandered back into the markets again to find another shirt and I went back to the hotel to grab a bike and hit the beach. Unfortunately the weather was still pretty miserable, but I wanted to see the beach so I just went and bloody did it anyway! The bikes were free and I also took with me the big golf umbrella that I balanced across the handlebars. This stayed there for only a few minutes as it very nearly came straight off and tangled in me spokes, so I sheathed it down my back between my bag and my coat, in a He-Man style (cartoon from the 80’s for all you non-UK readers). I hadn’t ridden a bike for a number of years, but getting back on a bike is very much like……riding a bike. But this was in Vietnam. And I would have to ride on the other side of the road to what I am used to. And it was Vietnam. There was a heck of a lot of traffic on the roads and none of it made any sense!

On the bike 

I headed east along the main road, rain pouring into my face so I could only just see through my glasses. I was overtaken by most things, but I had the edge on most other cyclists who were just dallying around. I also got very used to ringing the bell when overtaking, so as to tell them that you are near them. I only hope I forget this habit when I get back to England and am driving in my car. It was only a few km to the beach, and I parked up, locked up and went for a wander.

Hoi An beach...in the rain

The rain was being intermittent by this point, but the beach still looked pretty good. The waves were crashing on the shore and the sea was actually quite warm as I walked through the surf. I had a laze on one of the sun-loungers there, under the wooden umbrellas, but it really wasn’t the kind of image you would imagine, especially with me still in my raincoat. After a good half hour I climbed back on the bike and headed south, to try and get to the end of the peninsula. It didn’t take too long, but it wasn’t really worth it to be honest. There was a lighthouse, and a few boats hanging around, but not much else. Apart from the odd playing card on the floor. Seriously, they are everywhere in Asia. If you ever lose a card you can probably find another one within 10 minutes.

The Lighthouse on the peninsula

Turning back to the main road I came across a smaller road that looked like it might go somewhere interesting. I cycled down it, getting a few looks from the locals as if to say I shouldn’t be there. Not in an aggressive way, more of a “why would you come down here” kind of way. I biked through lots of little huts and small houses and came to a little jetty area with a few more locals checking me out. As time was getting on, and I wasn’t entirely sure where I was or where I was heading, I turned back to the main road.

The local jetty

Unfortunately there was a school that I had to pass. Just as the kids were coming out, and their parents/brothers/sisters were picking them up in every mode of transport imaginable. So I had to fight my way through the melee, ringing my bell and trying not to scratch anyone’s scooter. I have learnt that young Vietnamese kids will enthusiastically shout “hello!” to you if you walk past them, and this was just a huge hot-pot of “hello” calls heading my way. I responded to as many as I could (I even gave one kid a high-five) and they loved it. So much in fact that one kid came running after me once I had breached the crowd and was accelerating away, so I turned, high-fived, gave a thumbs-up and powered off. I felt like a celebrity for all of 60 seconds.

I made it back through the rain and the traffic (even after a coach and two people on a motorbike had tried to wipe me out) and met James back at the ranch. After watching me get my suit made he had apparently been toying with the idea of getting one for himself, and he had gone down to the same place and asked for “same same, but different” to get a suit done for him. After a quick shower we worked on the India visa some more, but I encountered an “internal server error” when trying to upload my photo, so we went for dinner and would come back to it later. We ate at a little place over the river, and thankfully there was no rain in sight. It made the place look so much better, and there were even a few candles floating down the river in coloured paper boats. We sampled some more local fresh beer and then made our way back to finish the India visa and get packed. We would be leaving for Hanoi in the morning, and absolutely nothing could go wrong.

Hoi An by night

Can I Kick It?

It was good to wake up in a nice hotel room again. And especially one that had a balcony, let alone an actual window! There was a little noise drifting in from the construction of a house outside, but nothing that was massively annoying. Breakfast was pleasant, although it looked like we would need to be down before 9:00am to beat the rush. We didn’t have a huge amount of plans for the day so we tooled up and set out to wander round the Old Town area on Hoi An and see what the markets had to offer us.

As we walked along the uncongested streets of Hoi An we were pleased of the change of pace from that of Ho Chi Minh city where everything was just a mad rush to get anywhere. It was actually possible to cross the roads at your own pace and without fear that a careering motorbike was going to run you down from round the next corner. As we arrived in the Old Town we marvelled at the quaint shops and tailors that make up 95% of the buildings there. After watching the Vietnam episode of Top Gear I was half thinking about getting a suit tailor-made for me as it seemed like it was cheap and this was clearly the place to do so as there was tailor after tailor after tailor.

Beautiful Hoi An

On our arrival into Hoi An I had had a brief discussion with a man called Sun who had advised me to find his place in the indoor market and I would get a great suit at a great price. I was sceptical, but we had a look around anyway, but couldn’t find the place. From his business card that he had given me it should have been on the corner, but it absolutely wasn’t there. We walked by about 3 times and still couldn’t find it. After James had (finally) bought some apples and almost been hustled out of them by the sweet old lady seller we headed across the river onto the Hoi An islet. There wasn’t really much there to tell you about, apart from a few more shops, tailors, hotels and a dog poking its head out of a set of doors. So without much to keep us amused we headed back across the bridge and wandered round the market some more. We had been a bit trigger-happy in Thailand and Cambodia, due to the combination of cheap local beer and night markets, so we were keeping the wallet in the pocket unless we really wanted something.

"Apples and pears, 5 for a pound!"

A little further down the line we found a deserted area down by the river to have another gave of “licky-kicky” with the kicky-thing. We seemed to be getting a little better at it, but it would take a long time before we were as good as the guys in Saigon park.

Licky-kicky shuttelcock 

As we wandered past a tailor I poked my head inside and asked what kind of price I would be looking at for the cheapest suit plus shipping to the UK. I tried a couple more to get a vague ball-park figure in mind for when we (of if we) found Sun’s place in the market. Eventually we did find it, and it was a great little place, with lots and lots of tailors all under one roof and suit material as far as the eye could see in all shades and colours. She seemed to think I was definitely going to get a suit from her, so her happiness seemed to nose-dive slightly when I said I was looking at the cheapest of the cheap and quoted the price I had been given from the first place. She came down to $50 for the cheap suit, but it didn’t sit well with me so I made my excuses to mull it over. On the way back to the first place where I wanted to check the quality of the material I popped my head into another place nearby. It seemed nice inside and the girl showing me round was enthusiastic and gave good banter. On discussing prices she also didn’t like the idea of the cheap suit, so I managed to get a quality one done for only a little more than the cheap stuff. It took some doing, as it should have been well over $100 but I managed to get her down to $60. When we went to “the measuring area” she mumbled something to the owner, and I assumed she said how much we had agreed on as the owner screwed her face up in disgust. I think I got a good deal out of them.

"My what strong shoulders you have,sir."

Once the measurements had been taken, with James giggling away in the background, we set off back to the hotel to prepare for the evening meal and beers. As James went back to the Sunshine Hotel I made a slight diversion and headed into a local barber. Through the language barrier I accepted the 15,000 Dong price and settled into the cutting chair and handed them a photocopy of my passport to show what I usually had done. I was a little concerned when he took the clippers to the back of my head with just a comb as a guide – obviously my insistence that a Number 3 back and sides with a Number 5 on top hadn’t got through to him. But he carried on and did a good job, one that should see me through to my return to good ol’ Blighty. And then when I gave him a 20,000 Dong note he didn’t go to get me change, he just stood there, waiting to more. He said “50,000 Dong” and I suggested that he had said “15,000” instead. Reluctantly I handed over a 50,000 VND note and stormed off back to the hotel, cursing that I had been diddled just because I was a foreigner. It was only after about 5 minutes that I realised I had got my maths wrong. I had confused 30,000 VND to the pound with 3,000 VND to the pound, so actually it only cost me about £1.40, and I could live with that, no problem.

Wikitravel has been a good friend to us on our trip and it had pointed out a place called Café 43 as a reputable place to go and eat. It was just round the corner and we had checked it out on one of our forays into town and it looked good to us. We arrived and were greeted by the owner, who turned out to be a Manchester United fan (surprise surprise), who beamed at us and showed us to some seats. It was a small place, run out of their house basically, but all the reviews we had read about it said it was amazing food. 

Reviews from customers under the glass table-top

They weren’t wrong! The special chicken curry was delicious, and both food and drink were very cheap too, mainly as it was quite far from the river/tourists. One of the main reasons we had chosen to go there was to sample the “fresh beer” that they were offering. Fresh beer, as they call it, is basically a local beer that is produced somewhere nearby and they have a huge vat of it sitting in the courtyard. One draught fresh beer was coming in at 3,000 Dong……9p. So we just had to sample it. It was……interesting. James swears he had a bit of solid in his one, and the taste was kind of “grassy”, but at 9p it was OK by us! A couple of these before we left and we were happily walking back to the hotel for a night cap, hoping that the fresh beer we just had wouldn’t give us excruciating gut-rot.

Not bad for 9p a go!

How To Get To Hoi An

After a night of broken sleep I finally dragged myself out of my sleep-sheet and assessed the situation. The old lady had gone, I assumed she had got off at one of the stations along the way and not “gone” gone. I had heard a few announcements over the PA system, but some of them were only in Vietnamese, so we didn’t know exactly what they were telling us. It seemed like they gave a description of the station/town that we were approaching, which was a nice touch, but not at 5:00am in the morning!

Oooh........Vietnam

The train pulled into Da Nang just after noon, and only a few minutes late too. Now came the tricky bit. I had read that there is no train connection to Hoi An so we would need to either pay anything up to $15 for the cab ride there (3o minutes) or try and find a bus that would take us there, on which the fare seemed to vary depending on your negotiation skills. So we opted for option 2 and if all else failed we could still jump in a cab anyway. The hotel had also offered to pick us up, for 350,000 Dong (about £11.60) but we had politely declined. I followed the instructions I had saved onto my phone and we found the road where the buses left. There seemed to be no bus stop, just hail the bus when it went past. We were looking out for a big yellow bus with Xe Buyt written on the front that should take us all the way to Hoi An. It wasn’t long before one turned up and jumped on, at the back, just like in the good ol’ days. It was pretty crowded and very shoddy, but we grabbed two seats at the back and kept an eye on our luggage. More and more people got on and the two guys running the show were shouting out instructions and banter for most of the journey. The girl sitting next to James said the fare was about 18,000 Dong, which was very manageable (it’s about 30,000 to the pound). Then she said that she had heard them saying it would be double as we are foreigners. OK, we had prepared ourselves for this. But then the thin, slightly scary one said it would be 40,000 Dong. Still a small price, but it was the principle of it all that made James try and barter with the guy claiming, whilst smiling, that our dad was Vietnamese so we should pay less. It didn’t work, and we paid the 40,000 Dong.

Chubby guy running the bus scam

We arrived at the bus station just outside of town and set off in the general direction of the hotel, with me trying to locate it on my phone via GPS, a photo from Google Maps and the directions from Booking.com. After a brief chat with a guy called Sun (apparently) we managed to find it and check in. It looked great inside and we were thankful to be back in a nice hotel with a window, and hopefully no cockroaches!

The Sunshine Hotel pool!

The weather had been threatening to thunderstorm all day but it hadn’t yet happened. Just as we were looking to leave the hotel and have a wander it finally hit us and put us back in the room. I had scouted out some places to eat that night, but it looked like we would be dining in the hotel from what we could gather from the worsening weather outside. But there was a let-up in the shower and we ventured out, with our raincoats, of course!

We had heard that Hoi An was beautiful, and boy was it! Down in the Old Town, by the river, the buildings are a grubby yellow colour with dark brown beams and roofs, from the French colonial era. Being the “home of lanterns” there were hundreds of them scattered through the streets and across the river. It was great to see at night with all of them lit up and dancing in the breeze. We found a nice eatery down by the river and watched the people scurrying around in the on-off rain. 80% of them had the multi-coloured ponchos on and we toyed with the idea of buying some ourselves as they seemed to go further down the leg than our raincoats, but we had sent all the hawkers away already and none were making an appearance, so we kept the money for a dessert.

Hoi An - the home of lanterns

We had to time our walk back to the hotel well as the rain was still pouring, and when we saw the window of opportunity we went for it! It was a good call as we hardly got wet on the way back, and even had time to stop off at a local shop to pick up a couple of cans of cheap beer (30p a go) and some snacks for later.