Long Journey to Great Rewards
Holy crap, what a journey! Today, we traveled for about 12 straight hours. It began with a long four hour drive from Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh City airport. Upon arrival, we discovered that our flight was delayed two hours. Hmmmm…what to do at the Saigon airport (domestic terminal) for two hours? We spent some of it at the restaurant slurping down rice noodle soup and beef balls. The rest of the time was wasted browsing the one shop they had in the terminal that sold cheesy souvenirs and weird processed foods. We did meet a few interesting people at the airport. The first was Claire, an Irish gal who was heading to Hanoi for her last days of vacation. We also met a couple of Dutch guys who were REALLY tall. I never got their names, but I ended up seeing them a lot during the rest of the trip.
Once we boarded the plane we still didn’t leave the ground for another 30 minutes since the weather was deteriorating and planes were grounded. Finally, we got off the ground and the flight to Danang was a mere 55 minutes. But the journey was not yet over. We still had a 45 minute drive from Danang airport to Hoi An. By 4:30 pm we finally made it to Thuy Duong 3 Hotel – very nice place complete with a lovely pool. Hoi An was a great little town. I’m so glad I changed my plans and came here instead of Hue. The town was quaint and friendly. It was easy to navigate around, safe, and it had the right amount of bustle. Hoi An had a neighborhood feel missing in Saigon and there was an openness about the city that welcomed all its many visitors.
A quiet street in Hoi An, Vietnam.
Since our episode at the Shadow Bar in Saigon Lucy and I decided that shirts were required for our next meeting with JP. We knew he was going to be in town the following day and wanted to surprise him with our “Oî Troî Oî” shirts. We found a lady who sold us black tank-tops for $1.50 and convinced a woman who owned a clothing shop to embroider the phrase on the shirts for $2.00. They were laughing so hard when we told them what we wanted sewn on the shirt. I guess they found our antics amusing for a totally different reason.
Once we boarded the plane we still didn’t leave the ground for another 30 minutes since the weather was deteriorating and planes were grounded. Finally, we got off the ground and the flight to Danang was a mere 55 minutes. But the journey was not yet over. We still had a 45 minute drive from Danang airport to Hoi An. By 4:30 pm we finally made it to Thuy Duong 3 Hotel – very nice place complete with a lovely pool. Hoi An was a great little town. I’m so glad I changed my plans and came here instead of Hue. The town was quaint and friendly. It was easy to navigate around, safe, and it had the right amount of bustle. Hoi An had a neighborhood feel missing in Saigon and there was an openness about the city that welcomed all its many visitors.
A quiet street in Hoi An, Vietnam.
Since our episode at the Shadow Bar in Saigon Lucy and I decided that shirts were required for our next meeting with JP. We knew he was going to be in town the following day and wanted to surprise him with our “Oî Troî Oî” shirts. We found a lady who sold us black tank-tops for $1.50 and convinced a woman who owned a clothing shop to embroider the phrase on the shirts for $2.00. They were laughing so hard when we told them what we wanted sewn on the shirt. I guess they found our antics amusing for a totally different reason.
posted by SnowPixie at 7:00 PM
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