I took a sleeper bus from Ninh Binh to Hoi An. My cold had gotten worse that day so I was hoping to sleep soundly on the bus. I was told I’d arrive at 5 AM. Yeah, neither of those things happened.
I drifted in and out of a handful of fitful naps, they totaled maybe three hours. My stuffy nose was a faucet with a persistent slow drip. It forced me to take the extreme measure of plugging my nostril with tissue. At that point, what people think of your methods goes out the window, you do what works to get a break from nose maintenance duty.
——- pic from the bus of a dragon bridge in Da Nang on the way south to Hoi An——-
We of course made random stops throughout the night for undertermined periods of time, and we lurched around in our sleeper coffin during the abrupt decelerations and accelerations which always took place at the exact moment of entering a peaceful unconsciousness, longing for what dreams may come, cursing what horns may be honked.
At six AM, the bus stopped at an outdoor coffee shop/snack shop in Hue. The driver instructed everyone to get off the bus and wait in what turned out to be a makeshift bus depot. The bus to Hoi An was to arrive here at 9:00 AM. Of course, non of us had been told ahead of time about the layover.
—-Taken from bus window—Nothing to sell on this billboard in the water—-
So, for the next three hours, I sat in a plastic chair, at a dirty outdoor snack shop, wiping my nose every 12 seconds, exhausted, irritable, hungry, nothing to do and no energy to do it, and yet I was accepting of and content with my circumstances. This is what I signed up for, this is the trip, this is adventure, this makes the great times that much better, this is real. A rollercoaster without twist and turns and ups and downs is only a commuter rail.
The bus came, we went , I slept an hour, I arrived at my hostel at 1230, and went to bed in my four bed dorm room.
I’ve discovered that I do not like the smaller 4-6 bed dorm rooms with a shared bathroom. The manners of anonymity are lost in the smaller rooms. People treat it like it’s their room. They leave their shit in the bathroom, they hang out in the room and talk with their mate, or make calls to home, and it doesn’t matter if someone is trying to sleep. Ironically, the larger rooms give you more privacy.
In a hostel, the room is the SLEEPING room and that’s all it is. Traveler’s are on different hours. They may have stayed up all night partying, they may have turned in early because they have an early flight, or they may be sleeping off a cold. I’ve found that those norms slide down the slippery slope the smaller the room gets.
I was in a room with two young women. They were attractive. Normally, I’d be keen to engage with them, but all I wanted them to do was shut their freaking mouths and stop fussing with their bags, and turn out the light, and get off the phone, and go away. ...Okay, I was a little grumpy.
They turned out the light when they were ready for bed. One of them left at 6 AM. She must have had an early flight. The other was still sleeping when I went for breakfast at 07:00 AM
I went to the rooftop where the hostel’s breakfast was served. I had a toasted french roll (or two ...ok, three. ...Three and a half. They were good.) a scrambled egg, coffee, and juice. I went back to my room.
——My view from the rooftop breakfast——-
The young woman who remained in my room was now awake. We engaged in the typical “Where you from, where you going, how long, where were you before, where to, what do you do back home, what’s the square root of pi?” conversation.
During the conversation I didn’t learn her name, but I did learn that she was on holiday for six weeks and worked as a camera woman at a news station, and then she changed clothes in front of me.
We were having a nice conversation, “Oh you going to the Mekong Delta?’
She said, “Yeah, I hope to.” And that’s when she casually dropped her shorts.
I suppose different people live by different norms. I didn’t want to seem like the uptight American talking to the sophisticated European, so I played it off like a girl I just met 3 minutes ago drops her shorts in front of me everyday She was wearing panties, of course, but still...
She donned a fresh pair of shorts. I found myself forgiving her for having disturbed my slumber. We talked some more. “What’s in the Mekong Delta?”
She said, “You can schedule a tour, but I’m not sure if it is worth it.” She took off her shirt. Yeah, wearing a bra, a very nice bra, but still... I played it cool, kept eye contact, searched for something to search for in my backpack.
I was liking her more with every wardrobe change.
We agreed to explore old town together that morning. Lingering sickness be damned! I’m getting BETTER!
I was miserable. My battery power fell to critically low by the time we finished the five minute walk to old town. I wanted to see it, I wanted to see it with an attractive European camera woman who changed clothes in front of me, I could recover in the afternoon.
When visiting Old Town, it’s common for tourist, such as underwear girl and I to buy a five ticket pack for 100,000 VND that gets you into some of the sites. The sites are temples, museums, communal houses, and old merchant houses. I didn’t find any of them worth exploring, except for maybe the Hoi An Museum. I ended up throwing away the last of the five tickets.
—Art insides the Hoi An museum—-
—-Not art inside the Hoi An museum. A bomb dropped by a B-52——
I became quieter as the morning dragged on. Underwear girl asked my name. I learned her’s was Sabrina. We’d been walking for two hours, all I wanted to do was take a nap, even though it was an enjoyable time. I wanted to lie down in one of the Merchant house’s hard wooden bed exhibits and curl into a ball.
—-They’re not so much into soft mattresses in Vietnam——
It rained off and on for my entire stay in Hoi An. On my last day it poured rain the entire morning and afternoon. The streets next to the river flooded.
It was even worse after the typhoon three weeks ago. These are a few photos a local photographer took after the typhoon...
We had plans to meet a female friend of Sabrina’s for lunch at 1pm. They’d met the previous day and had eaten at a well known vegatarian restaurant. They made plans to return and try more dishes.
Lunchtime rolled around and we set off for Minh Hien Restaurant. It doubled as a used bookstore, but none of us saw anyone touching the books. I ordered vegetable soup. Sabrina had some kind of banana blossom noodle dish she’d been looking forward to trying. Sabrina’s friend from Brazil acted like I was someone who’d decided to tag along on a romantic date, kind of weird.
I ate my vegatable soup and wiped my nose. I needed a nap. I said goodby to them and thanked underwear girl for the company. I never saw her again after that.
—chicks—
After lunch I headed off to find my new hostel. The Tribee didn’t have a bed for me again so I had to switch. I’d booked a place called Leo Leo on Hostelworld that morning. Underwear girl was patiently waiting for me at the time so I did it in quite a hurry. Hostelworld’s map page takes forever to load, so I only had a general idea of the Leo Leo’s location.
So in the afternoon, I was confused by google maps. The directions took me to Old Town and I remembered it being away from Old Town. But it was the street address listed in Hostelworld, so I followed it.
I was right, it was wrong. I ended up alongside a giant wall to a temple in Old Town. Unless it was a magic door like in the Harry Potter Train station, this was not the place. I was so sick and tired I wanted to scream.
I gave it a go and ran full speed into the wall. No magic door opened, so I tried again. When I came to, there was still no magic door.
In my first Google Maps attempt, I’d entered the street address listed on Hostelworld. Now I tried the name, but if I typed Leo, Google auto filled the Little Leo Hostel. If I typed Leo Leo, it auto filled still the Little Leo Hostel. So I typed Leo Leo Hostel Ha Noi! There would be no mistake.
Google mapped me for a twenty minute walk in the direction from which I’d just came. This seemed more in line from my memory in the morning.
Google still took me to the Little Leo Hostel; it was destiny and I was pissed.
After the woman owner broke it to me that I was in the wrong place, her mom gave me a big glass of ginger tea. The owner, desperate for my American money, said that if I stay there she’ll give me a discount to cover my lost deposit on the Leo Leo. I was miserable, so I said sure, sign me up.
I stayed there two nights for five dollars a night. Breakfast was included. One of the choices was a delicious banana pancake.
I stayed in a four bed dorm. A young woman from Germany was in my room. She’d been there a month. She was volunteering five days a week at a place called Jack’s Cat Cafe. She’d come from Germany just to help out there. It was a coffee cafe that was also a sanctuary for 70 cats. She loved cats.
The hostel was low key and quiet. I was the only male guest in the hostel for those two nights. I felt like I was in a women’s dorm. I slept most of the afternoon on the first day. On the second day I ventured out to a restaurant another woman in my room had recommended. she’d taken a cooking class there. It was called Cafe 43, and it was the best meal I’ve had on my trip.
—-White Rose, part of the five course meal—-
At Cafe 43 they served what’s called Fresh Beer for 3,000 Dong a glass. That’s 13 cents a glass USD! But here’s the thing I learned about Fresh Beer; it’s an unregulated, unpasteurized beer made and delivered to restaurants daily in Vietnam and it’s only about 1.5% ABV, basically non-alcoholic beer, so not worth the space in your stomach.
After dinner, I walked around old town looking for something to do. The Tribee hostel had three locations in town. One of them had a bar downstairs. It was actually adjacent to the Leo Leo Hostel. I walked in to check it out. It was packed with backpackers. I ran into the German sisters I’d met on my Halong Bay cruise. We talked for about five minutes before I decided to head back to my hostel because I was still feeling like a walking, mucus filled, inflamed sinus.
On my last night in town I found the Leo Leo hostel and stayed there. I stayed in a six bed dorm room with the bathroom in the room. It was the nicest bathroom in all of Vietnam. It was tiled and actually had shower doors.
Also, on my last day and night in Hoi An I went to Old Town. During the day I tried an egg coffee at a fancy coffee shop. Egg coffee is a thing here. It was creamy and quite tasty.
At night I checked out the night market. It’s alongside the river. You can buy a romantic ride on the river in a Lantern boat if you choose. Women also sold lit candles in Chinese take-out containers that you could buy and then set afloat on the river.
Old town is known for it’s Colorful lantern lit streets and shops where you can buy tailored dresses, jumpsuits, and men’s suits. The tailor shops were everywhere. I would’ve bought one of the outlandish Men’s suits if I had money to burn and space in my bag. It would’ve been fun to get picked up from the airport in one of those suits upon my return back home after my trip.
I went to bed early again to kill off the last of my cold virus. I got up the next morning and had the hostel’s complimentary breakfast.
In Vietnam they have different standards as far as coffee drinking goes. They served me a luke warm pancake and the warmed up coffee that had been sitting around from the previous evening. In Trang An they served me cold coffee that had been sitting in the pot all day. They warmed it up for me by pouring the leftover coffee through the Mr. Coffee maker again. It wasn’t good, but that’s Vietnam and all its charm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, welcome to Vietnam.
!steemitworldmap 15.8817 lat 108.3302 long Hoi An, Old town and more, Vietnam, d3scr