Hoi An, The City of Lanterns

Travelling from Da Nang to Hoi An was the shortest destination change I’d had in all of my travels. There were no night buses, no quick flights, no nauseating minivans carting me 4 hours to the next destination. No. Just a simple taxi hail and a 30 minute drive and I had left the boring city of Da Nang behind. Alright then.

Entering Hoi An was like entering a completely new part of the country. The city of Hoi An is just heaving and moving with life in a way reminiscent of the country’s capital, Hanoi, but without the smells, rude people and thousands of motorbikes. The town itself is a designated UNESCO world heritage site. It’s an exceptionally well-preserved trading port dating from the 15th century. Its buildings and street plan reflect both indigenous and French influences. Rarely did I see a building higher than 4/5 floors in this seaside town. Along with its architecture, Hoi An is famous worldwide for the hundreds, probably over a thousand tailors. They line all streets of Hoi An with owners waiting patiently at the doors to welcome new prospective clients.

Research into hostels in the area navigated me toward the Tribee chain of hostels in Hoi An. They came highly rated for both cleanliness and social atmosphere. Each and every day the hostel held some kind of activity to get people out and socializing. From cycles around the old city, to free street food tours and pub crawls, the Tribee hostels did it all. The rooms were also quite smaller than normal hostels, with rooms hosting up to 4 or 5 people rather than the normal 8, 10 or 14 combination that I was used to. I booked for an initial 2 nights at Tribee Cotu for approximately €6.50 per night (later I would extend my stay at Tribee and end up staying in Hoi An for around 2 weeks).

Barbara, the Explorer

From check-in at Tribee I was swept up into the hostels social activities. I checked in at 2.30pm and by 3pm, I was on a bicycle riding with a group outside the city limits. We biked through gorgeous rice fields, and through other peaceful green areas. At one point we made a stop at small local factory where the owner taught us how to make rice paper. Upon returning to Tribee later that day, I showered, changed and headed out to the Hoi An night market. Unlike the markets in Hanoi, food, local trinkets and clothes with unique designs seemed to be what was on offer in Hoi An rather than the numerous stalls selling fake designer brands in Hanoi. I left the market with about 8 dresses. I was horrified.

Over the next couple of days, I employed the usual tactic I had been using for exploring during my travels which was; walking, walking and walking some more. I saw beautiful ancient houses, well preserved bridges and just, in general met a lot of friendly locals. I joined a 5am journey to explore the ruins of the My Son (pronounced Mee-sun) temples just outside of Hoi An. After day 3 I was running out of things to do, and started to cast my eyes downwards on the map of Vietnam. Where to next?

As I had been thinking that been thinking that, the dorm room opened, and in came a new roommate. I quickly darted my eyes to the left, knowing it was the only free bed. Up until now, I hadn’t really had an social interaction with anybody in the Tribee hostels, other than that first initial bike ride. I was being lazy in joining the social activities and I knew it.

“Hey.”

I looked back to the left, and cast my eyes upwards. Then up some more. Jesus, this guy was tall as hell (I’d later find out he was approx. 6 ft 5). And from there my social life in Tribee was sealed.

Barbara, the Party Animal?

That evening, spurred on by talking to Paul, my newest roommate, I joined the street food tour where I met more people. Drinks were had, dare Jenga was played and a great night out was had by me in Hoi An’s only nightclub that matters; Tiger Tiger. From hanging out with Paul, it just turned into a snowball effect, from it being just the two of us, we morphed into a large group of 3 Dutchmen (all three of which I’d meet again during my travels multiple times; Jun in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, Brahm in Ho Chi Minh and Bali and Paul in Chiang Mai in Thailand), two English (Laura and Elliot), one Irish (Yours Truly) and Caroline, an American girl that lived in Singapore.

For the next few days we partied non-stop, chilled and drank by the beach, made a new crab friend called Howard and I felt the comfort of having stable group of friends around me for the first time since meeting Theresa in Cambodia. As they say however, all good things have to come to an end. Slowly, slowly, one by one (or two as Jun and Brahm were travelling together, as were Laura and Elliot) the group disintegrated as people moved onwards to their next destination. Pretty soon it was just Paul and I again (though at this point he had checked into another room due to a system mess up).

Once again I found myself deliberating on my next steps. At this stage, Theresa had finally made it to Vietnam (we had promised to link up when we both arrived), however she was still further north. I had to decide whether I would wait, or meet her at some other point in Vietnam. I was tired and worn out from partying non-stop the past few days and all I wanted at that moment was to turn in and sleep. In addition to this, two younger English boys had checked into the room, and one of them smelled awful. I wanted out. Later as I lay deliberating, the door opened introducing the newest addition to the room. A quick glance confirmed to me that it was female. Hmm. A nice change. In my time so far at Tribee, for whatever reason, I had been lumped in with mostly male roommates. As she came over to the now vacant bed beside me, I saw her face screw up in disgust.

“Ugh, there’s an awful smell.”

It was said loudly enough for me to hear, but not so loud that the two lads would hear. I quickly cut my eyes to them, just to check and looked back at her smirking.

“I know.”

I extended my stay.

Later, as we left the room giggling I would find out her name was Hannah and that she was a Psychology teacher back in England. I remember that admission giving me a jolt. As I considered her denim shorts and tank, I was reminded that we all have lives at home but once we’re out here, we shed our jobs, professional clothes and responsibilities and become just another traveller passing through. For Hannah, summer holidays allowed her to spend months travelling whatever part of the world she wished to see. She introduced me to Frida, a German girl that she had been travelling with who was staying at another hostel, and for the following week we were pretty much glued to each other’s sides. Eventually (because I had stayed in Hoi An long enough) Theresa joined us. Through joining some of the nightly activities in Tribee, our group grew further (with Paul still included of course) and what followed were nights of partying, days of chilling on the beach and running around to different tailors getting clothes made. After a lot of coaxing, I eventually decided to see one of the tailors in Hoi An. The tailors in Hoi An are unlike anything I have ever seen. They can make massive amounts of clothes in such short periods of time. Refitting’s and changes can be done at short notice. In the end, I had gotten a few pairs of slacks, a dress, a top and skirt combo and a silk jumpsuit tailor made for less than €200.

While travelling, sometimes the people you meet can really influence your travel path. Rather than continuing downwards towards Ho Chi Minh, I decided to do something strange. I decided to go back upwards with Hannah and Frida. We met in Hoi An, but for all of us it would be our only convergence point. They were travelling upwards, and Theresa and I were travelling downwards toward Ho Chi Minh. I didn’t want Hoi An to possibly be the last time I saw these girls, so I made the decision to spend the extra time with them. And I don’t regret it one bit.

Barbara, Born to be Wild

They wanted to do the Top Gear Hai Van Pass motorcycle challenge. I had seen it on a few notice boards around the Tribee hostels. I wasn’t majorly enamoured with the idea. Spend long hours driving through mountain passes through central Vietnam? Nothing about the idea appealed to me. Not only that, I had already passed the stopping point, Hue, so I really didn’t bother entertaining the idea. Until the girls brought it up. The more I thought about it and they discussed it however, the more I wanted to do it. And so I did.

We bundled up our stuff and had them delivered straight to our stopping point in Hue. What was left was the four of us in our riding gear, sunglasses, sunscreen and our motorbikes (apart from Hannah, she had booked an easy rider/someone who would ride the motorbike while she sat on the back). I had my playlist set up and ready to go, with AC/DC’s Born to Be Wild at the top of the playlist.

The trail brought us upwards back to Da Nang, through the Hai Van Pass and all the way to Hue. Along the way we stopped to take pictures of the magnificent scenes before us. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was my reminder that, though Vietnam is a well-travelled place, there so much of it that’s undiscovered and untouched. Doing it on a motorbike made it that much better. We could stop whenever we wanted to take in the scenes and head off when we had our fill. We stopped for lunch once, and we stopped at a small local coffee place where the owner let us walk around her compound and showed us the boats that her and her family lived in.

Time to… Say Goodbye..

We arrived in Hue at around 6pm after riding for nearly 8 hours. We were dirty (dust flying into your face and body all day will do that to you), exhausted and hungry. After checking into our hostel and showering, we found food at a quiet local spot and just reminisced over the day, sharing pictures and laughs. For me, I was unsure of when or even if I’d see them again. I was possibly going to fly back to Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh because I was debating heading up further north to explore, but that wasn’t really confirmed at all. Theresa had already left, she had flown that evening from Hue to Ho Chi Minh and I’d be seeing her the next day as I would be making the same journey. Hannah and Frida were headed upwards towards Phong Nha early the next morning. We were too tired to go out drinking, so we made our way back to the hostel, and said our goodbyes from our bunks. They were gone before I woke up.

The next day I made my way to the airport and flew from Hue straight down to Ho Chi Minh. Nothing really in the south appealed to me. The only stop I would have considered was possibly Da Lat, but to get there I’d need to climb aboard a sleeper bus for 12 or so hours. It was a definite no. The other towns along the way, Nha Trang and Mui Ne were a hard pass from me. I heard nothing but bad things about Nha Trang, with the general consensus being that the beach town was very dirty and seedy. Mui Ne, though it didn’t have a bad reputation like Nha Trang was likened to Da Nang which also turned me off. The only thing left for me in the south was Ho Chi Minh, so I packed and made my way there.

Until next time..

Babs