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Published: August 26th 2012
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Our bus ride to take us from Nha Trang to Hoi An was the worst we had endured yet. 11 hours on a night sleeper bus situated yet again on the back seat with Mark and 3 others. Hot and sweaty, trying to sleep with 4 bags on our legs. We both got about 1 hour sleep each. We arrived in Hoi An at 6:30am with a shuttle bus greeting us to take us to our hotel. With check-in not available for another 5 hours we slept by the pool until that time.
Again, we were sharing a guesthouse with our friends Dennis & Nicole. We all hired bicycles for the day as we thought it the best way to explore our new home for the next 3 nights. We got to break our frisbee out for the first time in 2 months and swam until we were pruned. We had been hanging out for some good Aussie food so on our way home we stopped by the Dingo Deli for some meat pies, chips & gravy. Unfortunately my gravy was swapped for maple syrup somewhere in the mix. We made our way home riding through the back streets and
the rice paddies.
Today marked the long awaited first game of the State of Origin. The boys were tense, so waited for the game at the pub, whilst Nicole & I walked the markets and got $3.50 manicures... sorry for the loss boys. The pub we were at was owned by a QLD’er and packed with plenty of Aussie’s.
Mark here, the following day I was still smarting from the loss in the football, but I put that aside and Bree and I rehired the bikes and went back to the beach for a swim that was short lived thanks to some jellyfish and for a more in depth ride around the area before heading back to the hotel to relax in the pool, after speaking with the others we planned to head into town for a meal later that night
We took an early shuttle into town to have a decent look at the shopping side of things and grab some much needed clothing. Bree organised some handmade leather shoes to be picked up that night and I managed to grab a couple of singlets and 2 pairs of board shorts to keep me going.
Over the past couple of days there has been a fair bit of anticipation about a famous Chocolate Fudge Lava Cake with cinnamon ice cream, we found this magical shop and it was defiantly worth the wait, although sometimes the build up is a lot better than the actual event. It must be noted that we really rushed through dinner on this particular night just to arrive at this event (although I had the cheesecake).
The last thing we organised here was some washing to be done before leaving on a bus at 7.10am the following morning, arriving home from dinner we were informed our washing wasn’t complete and would be ready for us to pick up just after 7am the next day, sort of cutting it fine in our books. All worked out fine and with clean clothes in hand bright and early the next day we hopped onto yet another sleeper bus en route to Hue, luckily this was a choose your own seat situation and it was a comfortable 4.5 hour ride to our next stop. The scenery on our bus trip was the best we have experienced yet, with lakes cradled by mountains and fields
of rice paddies.
We have discovered the best way to see a new town is to hire bikes. So that we did. A short ride across the Perfume River took us to the local markets selling everything from garlic to flowers to stainless steel pots. We continued on our travels downstream and crossed to bridge to the gated, moted fortress that is the Imperial Citadel. The walls are 2m thick and 10km around. Much to mark’s excitement, this was the second fort that we have encountered on our travels.
We ended our last night in Hue with drinks on a floating bar on the Perfume River. The exuberant prices only allowed for one drink each. Following, was a bar more to our standards with buy three get one free cocktails and free buckets.
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