19 hours, two 'toilets', and one fish

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4th/5th (Hoi An)



All in all, it wasn't that bad - no horror stories at least. Our total journey time was 19 hours, though we picked up a different bus in Nha Trang so it felt like we could separate the first leg from the much longer second one. The first bus, 40 minutes late, stopped for lunch at the Hanh Cafe tour office in Mui Ne without telling anyone - so we, after a cautious walk around, bought some cornettos (with Taylor Swift's face on them!) and then returned to the now-sweltering bus with the rest of the passengers, as it seemed that they would hop in and drive off at any moment.



Across the road from our impromptu sauna was a seafood restaurant, with a couple of large fish in murky tanks with too little water. If this was meant to be enticing, it ost definitely wasn't. One of the fish had managed to jump out and was lying on the pavement, motionless and slowly baking in the sun, whilst the other was gasping for air and in obvious distress. After careful inspection we saw that the escapee was actually flicking its tail around, and occasionally flopped into a different position - meaning the poor thing was alive. Chris, being the legend that he is, ran over in his socks, picked it up (it flapped around a bit but gave up very quickly) and put it back in the water! It expressed its gratitude by attempting to jump out again, however we drove off before we could see how the lukewarm fish ended up. No doubt it's currently exacting revenge through food poisoning, as 'waste not want not' seems to be the rule of thumb in restaurants here. Grim!



This first part of the journey was quite enjoyable - lots of gorgeous countryside and mountains, again that luscious green colour, and countless herds of big brown and grey cattle being shepherded by picturesque men and women in those conical hats. Apart from the incessant and unnecessarily heavy-handed beeping of the driver, they were perfect napping conditions and we managed to get some great pictures. The main downside were the service station toilets, i.e. holes in the ground, with no toilet paper, soap, no water to flush with, and plenty of smell. Surprisingly I've had worse public toilet experiences in France, but let's not go there...



Unfortunately, the second half of the journey was not so comfortable. Thanks to the late running, and the fact that the first bus kept stopping to let people/the staff run into the trees for a wee, what was meant to be an hour's stop over in Nha Trang was actually 15 minutes. Neither of us had eaten much all day, so we managed to grab some little things from various street vendors before being ushered onto our next bus (note to self and ambitious sandwich makers - soy sauce + egg in a baguette is glorious, but bread integrity is a essential). Now, I don't know what it is about foreigners, but it seems the concept of 'inside voice' does not exist - maybe it needs to be renamed to 'shut up everyone around you is sleeping' voice - but what further baffles me is the need to keep your phone on full brightness and full volume. Does everyone in the vicinity need to see AND hear your conversation with that person on messenger? Do we really need to hear the first 10 seconds of every video you scroll past on Facebook? The whole 10 minutes of the phonecall you seem to be receiving every half hour, on the half hour? Do these things need to happen at 4am? And why don't earplugs block out noise?!

One last gripe before I reach my (and your) moaning quota. The bus conductors had three light settings - full lights, blue/red lights, off. And they liked to switch between them at their convenience... most convenient being the brightest setting.



An experience, yes, but for Hanoi we are taking the train!



We arrived here in Hoi An at 7am, bleary-eyed, confused, bombarded with taxi/hotel/tour/tailoring requests, and unable to check into our hostel until 12pm. Luckily, both a tourist information centre and a well-ventilated coffee shop were en route, so we picked up a map, had a coffee, and collapsed for a couple of hours. Who knew laying down would be so tiring?



After Chris has caught up on some sleep (he didn't sleep at all on the bus) we are going for an explore, to have a paddle in the sea, and hopefully for some banging street food. It looks real nice and chilled out here, with lots of faded French buildings dotted around - best charge the camera!

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