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Published: March 20th 2007
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Took the overnight train up to Danang for Hoi An. The trains are narrow gauge and noticably skinnier and bouncier than the broad gauge cars in India. The sleeper design is similar though, 4 person cabins with upper and lower bunks. Similar to India, you have a neatly folded bundle of bed linen waiting on your bunk, however we found out later to our dismay that in Vietnam this seems to be just a re-fold from the previous person. Overall our impressions is that the train is a bit grubby, with sub-airline grade lukewarm boxed meals. The main attraction is of course the scenery, and it was great to wake up to misty hills and spend the morning passing rice paddies, houses and jungle. Pretty flat on this leg however.
In Danang we piled out and walked a block and a half away from the train station determined to elude the taxi vermin - emerging from the station laden with luggage you see eyes light up in the surrounding 20 drivers who begin talking over each other with bids... A block away we shed the most persistant and caught the local bus to Hoi An paying 40000 dong -
way too much but happy to make our getaway.
The local bus is always interesting; your luggage piled hastily next to the bag oozing fish blood, the new passengers hurried aboard who give you a raised eyebrow, and the efficient conductor organizing luggage, squeezing extra people into seats and shouting out the door. Unfortunately, this bus stopped at the station outside of town, still too far to walk. The bus conductors and a swarm of motorcycle drivers tried to convince us to go on motorcycle, but we weren't having it. Strangely, Vietnam lacks the level of transport between motorcycle and taxi - the tuk-tuks, auto-rickshaws, songthews, motorcycle chariots, etc that are cheap short-range transport in all other countries we've been to so far. I managed to find a taxi out on the main road and get him to pick up our gear and make the short hop into Hoi An proper. Victory! Time to shower.
Hoi An has a ton of tailors and the thing to do here is have clothes made. Tentatively we sought out one and had a shirt made for Farah as a test run. It seemed ok when we received it the next day,
so we had some more done, and a coat too. I've never had that done before, so it was sort of fun, but takes some skill to visualize how a particular fabric will look when finished. Farah had a coat made as well. I regret not going all out and getting a suit or something made - as low as $60 US. If you needed a few suits it would almost be worth the airfare to go get them made here.
Great food, the local dish is Cao lai, a sort of noodle bowl with pork and some herbs. Also Chinese dumplings, baguettes, pho and lots of mangoes. Had some interesting grilled veg patties from a street vendor, a combo of coconut, ginger and some kind of mashed root vegetable.
Sights - we checked out the Japanese covered bridge; quaint with a temple in the middle, monkey statues on one end and dogs on the other, and a group of locals fishing fruitlessly in front. Also, some of the Chinese community halls and some local music. Good looking town but quite heavily touristy. We mailed the clothes and a bunch of other accumulated stuff home to lighten the
load - hopefully it makes it!
Sitting in a coffee shop we saw one young guy broadside two girls on a bicycle and send them flying. They were scuffed and the bicycle tire bent, and a crowd formed. The motorcycle driver looked sheepish while the people helped clean up the poor girls, and then took their bicycle away for them to have it repaired I'm guessing. Most of the intersections appear to be four way yields, so somehow I didn't find the accident surprising!
I left the window open a crack and we returned to our room to find an enormous spider sitting on the wall - the biggest one I've ever seen 'in the wild'. We called the staff, and one guy tried to grab it with his bare hand! I've never seen anything so brave! But to our horror it was as fast as it was big and it shot around the wall where another staff member corralled it with a towel. (But... was there more than one spider lurking?!) I was sad that the picture I took doesn't do it justice, it was huge!
Taking the train again up to Hanoi.
Pictures to
come...
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