Vietnam Day 7 & 7.5

Our last full day in Vietnam & a one final adventure the morning before our flight home:

After a rough night of sleeping on the floor in the aisle of a bus on a plastic mattress- well (a) we were just about ready for this adventure to be over- and (b) we arrived in Nha Trang at 6AM. Phew.

Nha Trang is a beach town and we only were staying for the day. That night we were catching a sleeper train to Saigon & the airport. So, we had no hotel to check in to nor were there any famous sites that we wanted to see. All we wanted was to relax on the beach for the day. We just hoped the sun would show itself for the first time that trip.

With no where else to go and our only goal to lay on the beach, we literally followed our noses to that salty ocean (or China Sea) smell.

There were some locals doing morning radio exercises before it got too hot.

Our breakfast view

Instead of radio exercises, some people opted for a morning dip in the sea. But then they would wear these really funny looking flotation devices around their midriffs. 

Gasp! Were we really gonna get that lucky on our last day?! Was the sun going to cooperate?!
We were able to watch the sunrise at least!

Waiting for the world to wake up.

If our plan was to go swimming, we would definitely want to be able to shower before we got on the plane tomorrow. So we decided to check out a few different hotels and see if they would let us maybe rent a room for just the day, at half price?, or maybe just stash our stuff and use their shower?

The first 2 hotels turned us down but then we spied across the street a gleaming beacon of hope- a hostel! Sure enough, the woman at the check in counter showed us where we could stash our stuff and said we could totally use the shower.  I could even charge the camera and phone when we came back to shower.  Score!We did just that and changed into our bathing suits.

We set back out for the beach and on the way grabbed a pork sandwich (finally! It was what we had tried to order back in Dong Hoi but, if you recall, I had instead been served that mystery sponge) from a street vendor. Tasty!

We were on the beach for maybe a half hour- just enough time for one dip and then the rain from yesterday caught up with us and it positively poured. We got drenched!

Some beach day. At least the bags were staying dry back at the hostel!

Well, what did we want to do now? We hadn't made a rainy day plan for this place.

We went back to the hostel, showered and got in to dry clothes. It was a good thing this was our last day now that we had all these wet (and heavy!) clothes in our bags. We referenced the guide book and found a few more things to do in this town.

Walked passed this scooter. Those are eggs on the back of it!

Let's get massages! So we found a place recommended in the guide book and went all out for the 50 minute, full body massage. For $10. And it included a free drink at the bar next door. Can't beat that! 

Feeling nice and relaxed after the massage, we enjoyed our free mojito and LIIT. Never mind that it was still only 10 AM.

Nick think's I'm really attractive.

It was a good thing we were so relaxed because we noticed that the rain had completely cleared up by now and it was looking like it might be good beach weather again. Did we really want to go back to the hostel, change again, go back to the beach, and then have to shower again?

You betcha! That's why we were in Nha Trang, after all!

We stopped at a convenience store for some beach snacks and stumbled across this gem:

Instead of super sized, they are SUPPER sized!! Too funny!

The beach was awesome!! It never got especially sunny but the clouds were thin enough (and our skin pale enough!) that we were able to catch some rays and waves. We even ran into the Irish girl from our night bus and made plans to meet up at this microbrewery just down the beach later.

Starting to feel the sun burn, we did indeed head back to the hostel to shower and change for the THIRD time that day and then set out to meet our new friends.

The little lounge area by the showers were we spent several hours that day.

The Vietnamese microbrewery "Louisiane"

New friends at dinner!

After dinner and drinks (not necessarily in that order), we headed back to the hostel for the last time to get out bags and catch a ride to the train station.

The train (of course) was running late but it did eventually show up, we did eventually figure out how to read the ticket to figure out what car we were supposed to be in, and found our beds. Definitely a little higher class than the sleeper bus, eh? Comfy too! I slept great with the gentle rocking of the train.

We arrived back in Saigon at another unreasonably early hour: 4 AM. Why don't they just have the trains leave a few hours later so they get in at a more decent hour? Oh well, we were almost done with this country.

We didn't have to be to the airport until 9ish so we had to make one last big decision: did we want to just go straight to the airport and wait for 5 hours or do a little more exploring of this crazy city?

Even though it sounded so appetizing to just head to the airport and be done, we remembered how little there was to do at the Saigon airport and figured time would probably pass more quickly if we walked around some.

We were tired. We were getting a little crabby. The walk from the train station to the city center was absolutely disgusting - smelly and filthy- and reminded us of all the reasons we wanted to just cut and run to the airport. But we stuck with it and were, actually, greatly rewarded

Walked passed this woman who is straight up carrying a basket of fire.

Nick was able to take photos of a lot of the propaganda that was all over Saigon and that we hadn't had the chance to photograph yet.

And then we stumbled upon this absolutely gorgeous, well maintained, clean and pristine park! Wow! We parked it on a bench for a few minutes and an amazing scene unfolded before us.

It was time for morning exercises, Saigon! There were people doing an up beat dance class, others doing slow tai chi, and still others playing badminton! Someone had brought a radio to blast the dance music and others were setting up tons of badminton nets!

So, we said, let's try it out!! I just hopped in to the dance class.

And Nick asked to join a game of badminton.

And the people were really nice and welcoming! It was a supremely positive experience to end our trip on. Even after the fiasco with the sleeper bus, we were back on really good terms with this place. Like I said, a rollercoaster.

After we had our fill of exercise (and it was getting humid again), we continued on our walk. We were now looking for a place to eat breakfast.

Chicken on a leash in a park. Where was his owner? Why was he kept in the park?

We found this gorgeous place but they weren't opening for quite some time and we would soon have to head to the airport.

We ended up just eating at a local coffee shop. Rather uneventful but it was full of Vietnamese people so it's where the locals ate, right?

Finally, I try to capture a lesson we had learned our very first night here: how to cross the street. You just have to walk into traffic and keep moving at a steady pace so they can go around you. It's terrifying to see cars and motorbikes coming right at you though!

But it was now time to head to the airport. Nick haggled a price one last time and we headed for the international terminal. It was a good thing we told him which terminal to go right away because as soon as the cab got moving Nick and I passed out, we were so tired. And it was only about a 10 minute ride!

We got out of the cab, gave Vietnam one last look, and headed into the airport. 

And honestly, we were so glad to be going home. It had been an extremely busy week of putting ourselves outside of our comfort zones and trying new things. Of our 7 nights in Vietnam, we only stayed in 3 hotels. The rest of the time we were in motion on a bus, boat or train. We also utilized almost every form of transportation available in Vietnam: airplanes, taxis, mini buses, vans, coach buses, boats, kayaks, private car, sleeper bus, sleeper train, regular trains, and cyclos. Really, the only one we missed were the motorbikes! But that just was not an option. We had tried food from very unsavory looking places and been constantly hassled as tourists.

We couldn't wait to go home. If anything, we were head over heels for Japan now, and so glad that we were stationed there and not Vietnam. Japan is such an amazing and unique country. 

Was it a good trip? Overall, yes, it was a positive experience. We wanted adventure and we sure got it! And we knew we were getting ourselves in to some of this craziness but we definitely learned a LOT about how to do it better next time. (For example, give yourselves at least 10 days to try and tour the whole country. Or just stick to one area at a time. If we were going back, we'd skip Hue and do Hoi An instead. We'd also try to get in a tour of the Mekong River Delta.) But, it was what it was. We met some really awesome people, too!

Will we go back? No time to! The reason we did the whole country in 7 days was to cross it off the list. There are just so many other places yet to see!

Stay tuned for our next adventure!

Vietnam Day 6

Day 6:

Hue (pronounced  like "way") --> (Hoi An) --> Nha Trang: 400 miles of Vietnam in 1 day

We woke up feeling so refreshed. How novel to have slept and woke up in the same spot!

Although Raphael was not on the same time crunch as Nick and I, he had decided to only stay 1 night in Hue, too. He bought a ticket for the same bus that Nick and I were catching at 2pm. We spent the morning touring some of historic sites. Hue is in central Vietnam so it is close to the former DMZ (although we didn't go) but it's history extends much farther back than that.

How did we want to get around? We contemplated renting motorbikes because traffic here seemed to be much calmer than in Saigon and Hanoi. However, we only had about 4 hours and we wanted to go to at least 3 different sites before we caught the bus. In order to save time, we hired a car with A/C to bring us around. This turned out to be a wonderful decision because it was about 98% humidity and the traffic was not quite as calm as we had seen the night before:

Our first stop was the Tomb of Tu Duc who was the 4th emperor of Vietnam. It was a beautiful park!

It was especially beautiful because all the trees were blooming and dropping these gorgeous flowers everywhere!

See all those flowers all over the pavement?

There lies Tu Duc.

Our next stop was Thien Mu Pagoda, the symbol of Hue.

Raphael decided it would be awesome to photo bomb these ladies...

and they loved it! Too funny

Our third and final stop was the Old Citadel which took a beating during the Battle of Hue in the Vietnam War.

Big...umm...cannon ;)

This is the outer wall of the citadel and flying on top is an absolutely GINORMOUS Vietnamese flag, you know, just in case you forgot what country you were in... There's nothing to show the scale of it in this photo, which is too bad, because it was impressively large (that's what she said). (Gah! Sorry, don't know why my mind is in the gutter today!)

Overall, the citadel was a pretty disappointing site :(  It had been highly recommended to us but it was expensive to get in to and then there was nothing really to see. It was under re-construction so there was either super-fakey-Disneyland-style-plaster reconstructions of how they imagined the buildings would look or just old ruins (see below). The inner citadel was still standing at the turn of the 20th century but because Hue was in South Vietnam, it was not at all preserved when the Communist government took over at the end of the Vietnam war.

We had intended to spend a lot of time at the citadel but since it was such a boring disappointment we had time for a tasty Vietnamese fusion lunch for $7!

This was just one of our entrees. It's rice and shrimp steamed in bamboo (?) leaves. The rice was of the  of porridge mush specialty. At first bite, I found it rather bland and gummy. But then I had a second one and I liked that one much better. In fact, it was good!

Then it was time to catch our bus! It was another sleeper bus. There were no buses that went the whole way from Hue to Nha Trang (our next destination) and so we would have to change buses in Hoi An. OK, no problem. We picked out seats and settled in while we waited for the bus to fill up.

The back of this bus slept 5 across the back! Whoa! But there was also no bathroom...


Raphael was only going to Da Nang which was a few stops before Hoi An. It would be sad to say good-bye because he had been so much fun to travel with but alas, all good things must come to and end.

In this instance, it actually happened much more quickly than we had anticipated.

A few minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, the guy that had checked our tickets when we got on approached Nick and I specifically, saying "You change buses now."

What? Why? We had only just got on? Why us? The bus isn't even full!

We were quite confused but the man had said this with a tone of urgency in his voice so there was no time for questions! I guess we would have to trust him. We had no reason not to, right?

We grabbed our stuff, said a hasty good-bye to Raphael and got off the bus. The man walked us over to a different bus stop, handed us some sort of receipt/new ticket and left.

Wait! Aren't you going to explain why we had to leave the bus? What are we waiting for now? This ticket only says Hoi An on it but we are going all the way to Nha Trang, is this right?

Oh yes, yes, he assured us. Everything is fine. (I realize writing this now that he probably didn't even understand our questions and just said 'yes' to appease us.)

Anyways, we were to wait for another bus that would be arriving shortly.

Maybe the first bus had to make many stops and we wouldn't make it in time for our transfer in Hoi An? We crossed our fingers and waited.

The next bus did indeed arrive soon, except we were the last pick-up for this bus which meant the bus eas already full except for 2 beds and they were not next to each other. Nick sat on the bottom bunk of the 5-sleeper and I sat on the top bunk of it. Between 3 sweaty strangers and a really stinky hippie. And about 500 ants. (Ok, maybe only 50 and they were very preoccupied with some chip crumbs to notice me but still, who wants to share a 3 hour bus ride with ants?) This bus was disgusting.

And then it started to rain. Hard. And the roof leaked. Badly.

It was a very unpleasant ride.

At one point, the bus did make a bathroom stop but the toilets there were indescribably gross. It was a western style toilet but it would have been better if it was just a squatty potty. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.

3.5 miserable hours (for me anyways, Nick slept the whole time) later we arrived in Hoi An. It was the last stop for the bus so everyone was getting off. Unlike when we had been dropped off in Dong Hoi, this was at some sort of bus depot and there were many sleeper buses loading and unloading.

It shouldn't be a problem to find our next bus, right?

Ha.

Right after getting our bags from under the bus, Nick approached our bus driver, showed him our tickets, and asked him where we could find this bus?

Not my company, he replied, and blew us off.

Nick remained calm and explained how, well, someone from his company had taken us off a different bus and put us on this bus so where can we make the connection?

He was no help at all.

Tried to find a bus schedule? There were none.
Tried to match the logo from our tickets to one of the other buses in the lot? No match.

So Nick patiently asked a few different people and finally, someone helped us, kinda. She made a phone call and then pointed us in the direction of our company's office.

Oh, she said as we left, the bus already left.

What? Seriously? We've been in Hoi An for about 3 minutes, how could it have left?!

We picked up our pace and hustled over to the office. We miss counted and walked right past it the first time but we got there less than 10 minutes later.

There was no bus in sight which was concerning so we went right in and showed the woman working there our tickets.

Oh, the bus left already, sorry, she told us. We didn't have your names on our list to wait for you so it left at 5:30. There will be another one tomorrow at 6AM that you can take.

Umm NO we couldn't because we had to be in Nha Trang to catch a train the next night! I felt like screaming at her but my better half (love him so much!) kept cool and calmly explained our situation again while I kept my thoughts to myself.

The woman gave us this pitiful look but said there was nothing she could do about it.

(Oh Lord, I prayed, I'm bowing out of this one. It's in Your hands.)

Ok, fine, Nick said, refund our bus tickets and we will book a train ride tonight.

Refund? HA she laughed at the suggestion but then started making some phone calls. On 3 different phones. All at the same time.

And then, out of no where this man on a motorbike shows up and says, follow me!

Nick and I glance at each other and the woman. She beckons us to follow him so we grab our backpacks and get moving!

Was he gonna give us a ride on his scooter to catch up with the bus? Where was he gonna take us? Did he have spare helmets?

So much was happening at once! It had still been probably less than 20 minutes since we'd arrived in Hoi An!

This is exactly how I felt as we left the booking office.

But, no, he didn't give us a ride, he just scootered along as we ran behind  him for a few blocks until we turned the corner and a bus appeared out of nowhere! He boarded and struck some deal with the driver or something because several tense moments later he reappeared and beckoned us on to the bus.

Mickey mouse, what are you doing on the door of the bus?

There were no more seats on the bus but it was headed to Nha Trang and someone would be getting off in 3 hours so we could take their seat when they left. (Oh thank you, Jesus!) For now, there was floor space in the aisle only. He pulled out some mats for us to sit on.

Not ideal (or halfway safe) conditions but who cares, we were on our way to Nha Trang.

Our "seats." Did I mention how narrow these aisles were?

So we settled in. As it happened, no one got off in 3 hours or at all, for that matter. This is where we slept. What a night.

There were some friendly Aussies, Dutch girls and an Irish girl we chatted with for a while though.
But still what a night.