8/1 From Huè to Hoi An
Roberta takes a taxi to the airport, and I, along with an American, one for the train station. My seat is close to a very nice girl who gives me bread and cakes, I would exchange the favour with my usual cheese “vache qui rit”, but she does not seem to like it. The guides say that the train journey from Hue to Danang is nice and worthy, since it winds through beautiful landscapes. In the last stretch the railroad runs between the coast and the hills behind it, but I can’t say I am particularly impressed.
On the contrary, I am rather impressed by the smile and blue eyes of an Australian guy who looks like a young Mel Gibson (“A year of living dangerously”). He, along with his Hawaiian looking handsome friend, asks me to share a taxi to Hoi an. My share expense is about 120 thousand dong.. I have not seen them anymore, I practically met again everybody else (eventually almost all the foreigners follows the same route), but never again Mel and Keanu ! Sic 🙁
The Sunshine Hotel was booked from Italy, 19 Euro with Agoda for a brand new twin room, beautiful, huge, marble in the bathroom, nice balcony very convenient for my laundry. There is a kettle, new, tea, coffee and fresh bananas, regularly supplied every time they got consumed.
It also has a pool, which in any case I will not use much, and bicycles, which I strongly recommend to book in advance every day, because they are not enough for all guests. They are really useful, since the hotel is rather far from the city centre. After having admired the room for a while, I go downstairs. The receptionist sells me a tour to My Son, (6 USD) and then a night bus to Nha Trang (20 USD). She convinces me that it is absolutely necessary to book in advance this wonderful VIP bus, with comfortable fully reclining seats, she ensures, while she shows me pictures of toilets on board. After the soft sleeper, I hope finally to have a decent night trip!
After these formalities, I head finally donwtonw, hoping to meet the Spanish people met in Cat Ba, with whom I kept contact by email.
I can’t find them in the hotel where they told me they would have slept, because they just spent a few hours in Hoi An, and then changed their plans. They informed me by email, but unfortunately I did not read it in time.
For the first time since I arrived in Vietnam, I can see a sunset! And what a sunset! Right on the river in the city center!
Tonight is a special night, as it is the fourteenth day of the lunar month. The streets are packed with Vietnamese and western tourists. Engorgements at the pretty Japanese Bridge I saw depicted on all guides before leaving
Here I begin to see so many Italians, those who travel comfortably with a car driver. The local people rig up small incense altars on the streets to thank the gods, traditional music resonates everywhere in the streets, and the feeble and flickering light of hundreds of tealights, wrappend in colored paper, is reflected in the river. The part that saddens me a bit is that the sellers of candles are especially children, or old people
The American men with whom I shared the taxi to the Hué station had warned me about how charming this town is, saying that the only comparable contender is Luang Prabang, in Laos.
The streets are full of souvenir shops, which offer more or less the same things, at the usual prices, I am not interested in buying anything now, I want only to take pictures, especially at the colourful paper lanterns, hung everywhere. And then restaurants, bars, bakeries, tailors. Many historic buildings, assembly houses, rich merchants houses, some perfectly restored, others a little less.
I have dinner in a restaurant near the bridge, still wander at random without specific reference points, until I decide it’s time to go to bed.
8/2 Hoi An
Breakfast is plentiful. A bus brings me and other tourists to the ruins of My Son, built by the Cham, a Hindu ethnic group skilled in the brick manufacturing. Today for the first time the sun shines in a very bright sky.
The archaeological area is dotted with craters, because it was heavily bombed by the Americans. Before these, the French made raids, cutting the head of many statues, to carry them to the Louvre Museum. In a small museum Hindu deities are put close to unexploded ordnance, sad to say but unfortunately this is the recent history, so this combination is appropriate, although shocking, and does not clash at all.
Under the blazing sun it is atrociously hot. To go back I opt for the bus, while most of people prefer the river. When people ask the reason of my decision, I tell them I’m tired of boats. Since they have not been in Ninh Binh yet, and I wonder if they every will, they do not understand me.
Back to downtown, I have lunch at Viet Mon, 49 thousand dong a soup and then with 90 thousand dong I purchase the ticket which entitles to visit five buildings of the old town. The houses of the merchants have Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese features, all of them, without distinction, this is what explains the heirs to visitors, but some of them are much better than others. I loved the Tan Ky House, very pretty, while instead the Quan Thang House was rather unadorned. Very nice the Family Chapel. Extraordinary the Assembly Halls, I visit the Fujan Chinese Congregation and Chinese All Community. In one of these I had already been yesterday, but nobody asked me the ticket.
I have dinner in my hotel, okay food, curry chicken and rice, 80,000 dong.
I book a bicycle for the next day
8/3
The approach with the apparent lack of rules governing the traffic worries me a bit , as soon as I reach the city centre riding my bicycle. However, as a cyclist, I just have to understand that no one gives me way, and I have to be constantly alerted, and everything runs smoothly.
To tell the truth I find very problematic to turn left, but I solve brilliantly crossing at right angles.
The Cua Dai Beach is much closer than expected, at the intersection with the coastal road I turn at left, to the north, following the directions given by two Hungarians met yesterday at My Son; they suggest to go a bit further away. Near the big intersection, the beach, large, golden, and lined with palm trees, is quite crowded with chairs and umbrellas, but going far, I am sure it will be quiet. I pass Zero Sea Mile and Mama Ly, and paying 1 USD I take a bed and a beach umbrella in a stretch of empty beach. I think if you promise to the managers to have lunch with them the sunbeds are free, but I want to stay only a couple of hours. The sea has long waves, it immediately becomes deep, and the current is quite strong, it does not seem wise to swim far away, because I’m alone, there are no lifeguards, and above all because I am obliged to leave my money and backpack so I don’t trust to go too far away.
I refresh only a little with a dip, then I decide to walk further north, because there are no more tourists, but only boats aground, and fishermen mending their nets. They call me, but unfortunately we can’t communicate
At 13.00 big clouds obscure the sun, and I decide to go back. Nearby the river, downtown, the contrast between light and shadow is incredible. I snap some shots and go back to hotel, just before a downpour of biblical proportions rages
After a few hours the sun returns. I spend more for a milkshake (the Cargo Bar, 42 thousand dong) than for dinner, a soup at Bo Bo Cafe (38 thousand dong).
Bo Bo Cafe is one of the cheapest restaurants, and the food is good, so it is always very busy, however the service is a bit slow.
8/4
Today I have really nothing to do. So it might have been a day when I could already leave, but the fact is that I’m tired of running, and so I am glad to relax a bit. I’m sick of markets. I’ve seen so many that I no longer even want to take a pictures. Part of the Hoi An one is dedicated to the clothes making, as if the tailors who already teem in the city were not enough. Just stepped in I am immediately approached by girls offering me “dress? dress?”I actually just wanted to look at the fabrics, but I feel so hounded that I desist. I find out that at Faifoo Cafe smoothies cost only 30 thousand dong.
At 18:00 a taxi, paid by the company, a taxi brings me to the night bus stop