We head South

After several hours delay and a couple of free cans of Coke we found ourselves on the last bus of the night from Hue (pronounced: way) airport into town. It was about 22:45 and there were a few back-packers on the bus. We couldn't help but over hear as a Scandinavian group were chatting with a hotelier who had just packed his eldest on a plane to uni, teary Mum by his side. In their jovial conversation they apologised for not coming with him to his hotel but they already had a booking elsewhere. He waved his hand and smiled as he told them that he couldn't have put them up anyway, his hotel like every other one in town was fully booked. This wasn't what we wanted to hear, given that we had planned to arrive in town and find something when we got there, expecting this to have been tea-time.


We quickly butted into the conversation and the chap phoned his first hotel and then his second and managed to find something for us. It was basically the room that they don't rent except in emergencies but to be honest it wasn't too bad. The bathroom didn't have a ceiling, or very much hot water but it was great considering our earlier terror. In the end we stayed a second night having moved to a better room but the third day we had to shift out because it was full again, a trip across the road solved this problem though.


It was while we were in his hotel, that the girl at the front desk pulled one of the most amazing attempts at ripping us off we saw in Vietnam. Their internet in the foyer had big prices painted all over the windows but when we finished and tried to settle the bill it was nearly twice what it should have been, the rate she quoted being different to what the windows advertised. I turned to point to the windows only to discover that in the time we were online, they had removed the prices and were already applying the new rate to our time spent. She did relent, but not before giving it a good try.


As for Hue itself. It was a nice little town, formerly a Citadel and still with the original city walls surrounding the old town inside. We enjoyed the architecture and the greenery, and got a bit of heat-stroke as we meandered the lanes and roads. It was also reassuring to notice a shift in the general demeanor of the population. It seemed that we were no longer quite as despised as previously, though we were still viewed largely as walking wallets. Things seemed to be improving and we wondered if this would continue as we got the bus to Hoi-An (not to be confused with Hanoi), our next stop on the road south.


The bus was a fairly pleasant ordeal with a pit stop at a holiday resort/road side service station combination thing. For a service station it was quite nice, as a resort it looked utterly grim. Actually it looked quite nice, but that was probably the problem for anyone who might have looked at it online and booked because up close it was dire. It was bang at the beach but there was nothing else a million miles near it, and for food, you would have to eat at the same sub-standard road side diner place for every meal. We counted our lucky stars not to have fallen into that rip-off and also counted the mysterious absence of flies or insects of any kind which was especially unusual and eerie. Back on the bus and we got a trip through their new 6.3Km tunnel which was all shining and lights still working, just as well as it took ten minutes to drive the length of it.

After our last little fright, we made sure we had booked ahead for Hoi-An. The bus didn't stop at the bus station but instead outside a hotel that was in cahoots with the operator, so that all the passengers would stumble in there and book rooms, and for anyone who wasn't so easily coerced, there was a troop of girls waiting to drag you in. We had done our research though so we were well prepared for this, with our pick up waiting at that hotel to take us to ours. Our pick up turned out to be two guys with scooters. We climbed on the back of the bikes, bags and all and enjoyed a quick spin through the back streets and footpaths of Hoi-An before toppling into our really quite nice hotel.


The room was decent with a fruit bowl and everything (lacking only a bath full of hot water) and the free breakfast was also good, though you had to be stern that you wanted what was promised at booking, not what they wanted to give you instead. But best of all, it had a pool, and sitting at the side of the pool, our Australian friends from Ha-Long Bay. We spent another enjoyable evening by the pool with Ben and Jo doing our best to keep up with the beers and then when one of the many power cuts that plagued the hotel descended the whole place into darkness, we did the only appropriate thing and all jumped in the water.


Hoi-An itself is known for it textiles, with countless shops dragging you in if you come within 20 metres, to try and fit you out with a new wardrobe, from tailored shoes through to heavy winter jackets (bear in mind it's 35.C here) . For two back-packers with not a lot of space in our already heavy bags, it was not too difficult to decline the offers, which we agreed would be great if you were there for a fortnight's break. Aside from what was inside the shops, there was plenty to be enjoyed on the outside too. The narrow streets and winding alleys serviced an ancient town which had not changed much in the centuries with maybe only the addition of very heavily laden power lines trailing along at neck height to mark any change to the townscape. The shops too, are still selling the same kind of things that they have traditionally sold for as long as people can remember, albeit a little more contemporaneous in their style.

Three days in Hoi-An and it was time to catch the train to our final destination in Vietnam, Ho-Chi-Min City. The pleasantry and goodwill of the people had continued to improve as we had come south, Hoi-An now being the most polite so far. Would this continue as we reached the country's premier or would the city dwelling nature return to greet us once more?