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Published: February 22nd 2013
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Greetings from Southeast Asia. After 3 flights and 27+ hours of travel time, Matt and I have arrived safely and enjoyed our first full day in Hoi An, Vietnam. (Our trip starts here because of the Light Festival that takes place tomorrow night, when the historic part of the city will shut off all electricity and only be lit by lantern lights. Iam quite excited!)
Our trip, despite being very well planned out, started with a hitch. The cold symptoms I started to feel on Monday did not subside. Even with the best medicine, and lots of it, there was no getting around my congestion. Luckily Matt and I were 99% packed and my symptoms were not getting worse. With our Super Shuttle arriving perfectly on time, we were off to the airport (Tuesday night). We boarded our plane and settled in for the 14 hours flight. Surprisingly we slept nearly 8 hours and the rest flew by (get it? get it? insert cheesy laughter here). This flight landed in Taipei, Taiwan (at 5am on Thursday since we crossed the international day line). Here we had a 4 hour layover. Of course we immediately see that we are not in
Kansas anymore. Hello Kitty was everywhere (and Waldo got into the action)! Our 9am flight out of Taipei to Ho Chi Minh City was 3 hours, and really tested my sinus pressure. I was still not getting any worse though (crosses fingers, toes, eyes, etc). This flight landed and we were really not in Kansas anymore. The heat and humidy just washed over us, which is not unlike the summer weather in Savannah. With just a 2.5 hour layover we happily boarded our third and last fight, and this one was just a blur. After endless rounds of medicine and my body unclear as to what was the present time zone, I resolved to sleeping on this short 1.5 hour flight to Da Nang. We had arranged to be picked up from the Da Nang airport through a service and I always get such joy when there is someone waiting for me with my name on a sign outside of departues (this has only happened maybe twice before in my life-Matt take notes, lol.) Our driver pointed out a few things on our 20 minute ride to Hoi An, including an American airport used during the war, now abandoned. We
were zigzagging around motorbikes the entire time. Needless to say, I was happy, or at least felt safer, to be a car.
We arrived in at our hotel (around 4pm on Thursday, or 1-4am Thursday morning in the States) and (Mom and Jodi you will appreciate this, think of Aqua Calientes) the manager said the person in our room was sick and staying an extra night, so please take this other (lower grade) room for the night instead. This happen to be the ONE night of the three at this hotel that I added via email and not through HostelWorld. So note to self (and others reading this 😊 ), ALWAYS put down a deposit for every night. Luckily, it turns on that the room was pretty nice (but we'd soon find out noisy since it was on the first floor). We cleaned ourselves up a bit, asked for dinner suggestions and had our first meal abroad. I'm glad we started in Vietnam because Pho (noodle soup) hit the spot for this sick girl.
Absolutely exhaused, we went back to the hotel and hit the hay, hoping to sleep until at least 6am (since we were going to
bed at 6pm, and well, would hate to get up too early). Matt and I are both overachievers so we definitely slept until 7am.
We had nothing planned for today so we walked the town and my shopaholic side came out. Hoi An is known for their affordable tailored garments so I decided on a pattern and material and my custom made dress will be ready tomorrow (depending on how the second fitting goes!). We went to the Market for am amazing and adventurous lunch and really started to understand the currency here ($1=21,000 Dong so today I took out 2MILLION DONG!!..or $100) We also bought a Visitors Pass, allowing us access to some of the oldest houses and temples in Hoi An. And whats a vacation without an afternoon nap? Happily by this time I started to taper off my medicine and we ventured out again for a brief cultural variety show. It is now very clear why Hoi An is nicknamed the Lantern town as the streets are lined with hanging lanterns. It is lovely. We had an even more delicious dinner on the waterfront (where I continue my juice drink consumption) and wandered down the busy
streets full of motor bikes, bikes and tuk tuks (men who will bike you around while you sit). Tomorrow we are going on a bike tour of a local Fishing Village and then enjoying the Light Festival. We might visit the Marble Mountain near Da Nang on Sunday before catching our train for Hue (pronounced hu-way).
Many adventures are in store! For now, its off to bed!
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