Our next stop after Hue was Hoi An, of course thihis is perhaps the most famous scene from the Top Gear Vietnam Special. The route on Google maps said around 130KM and the journey ended up taking us 8 hours but it was seriously a great adventure. The first couple of hours the three of us drove through some villages as we didn't want to take the highway the whole way. The roads in some spots were close to non existent and luckily we had bought face masks as it was very dusty and smokey in places. Once we got onto the main highway, well this was pretty terrifying, huge container lorries zooming past honking their horns at a million decibels gave us a huge rush. Once we reached the Hai Van Pass we were very excited, for the next 22KM we would be ascending and descending the mountain true Top Gear style, we stopped where they would have stopped and took a few snaps, basically loving life. We had various other interesting sites before my bike broke down, right outside a mechanic (everyone in Vietnam is a mechanic), the shift had snapped again so I got the whole thing replaced for about $2.50 it took 3 minutes and the mechanics friends then filled my pockets with some sunflower seeds as a complementary gift before we were on our way again. Darkness had approcahed now and here we were at our destination in Hoi An, the town most known for tailer made suits.
Lex had checked out some places online and booked at the "Sunflower Hotel, which is basically a hostel, it was pretty good and had a pool, although it was freezing so we didnt bother with it. We stayed in the dorm so this is pretty much always the same basic bunks, the only thing was they only had three outlets for eight beds which was difficult. Dan and Lex wanted suits made so they spent a lot of time at the tailors, I already own a decent suit and because my budget is getting much tighter I didnt opt for one, instead whilst they did that I took Mike my bike for a scout around with another guy who was staying at our hostel. We drove through a small village where a drunk local put me on the phone to his daughter as a translator to talk to me which was very bizzare we then ended up at a section of the beach where we observed some local fishermen bringing in thier nets. I cant remember exactly the series of events because im very behind on my blog but on one of our days in Hoi An we drove to the Marble Mountain which was pretty cool, it was more of a big hill but was hot climbing the stairs to the top, there was a great view there. We then had a rather humorous time looking at all the marble statues in the shops, the same place they bought James May his one in the Top Gear special, some of the designs of these things were absolutely hilarious and some had very hefty price tags in the thousands of dollars, we started to annoy some of them when we pretended to be interested in buying a huge one and asking how we could get it on our bike. Following our visit we headed back via the beach where we took to the sand and sea, Dan fell off a couple times which was pretty funny, he wasnt hurt so it was all good. On another day we drove to My Son which is a marvellous place with old ruins, that were constructed without the aid of any morter and over time the bricks had now fused togeter from the weight. It was pretty impressive. The rest of our time in Hoi An we just spent wandering the markets and eating some delicious food in the local restaurants all of which were selling "fresh beer" for just 3000 dong (less than 10p) a glass of course we took full advantage of this its hit and miss on each days batch but it was definitely drinkable.
I now had a decision to make on my next movements south, Mike the bike was still having a bit of a hard time and I didn't fancy driving him the long distance to Nha Trang so I cheated a bit and chucked him on the night bus and off we went. Hoi An was a delightful quaint town, though somewhat touristy. There was no significant night life but we did find a couple good bars ignoring Vietnams rather strict closing times. Its definitely worth a visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment