I made a fatal error navigating us to Hoi An, and forgot to check exactly where the bus departed from. I assumed it would be the main bus station in Nha Trang, but after a 5am start and 90m taxi there, the only buses we could find were sleeper ones, leaving at 7pm.
We hurried around town in our cab, jumped into an internet cafe to see if we could locate the bus. Somehow on this google search no such morning bus came up - but several websites listed 7pm incorrectly as 7am. I suppose this is what happened, as no other travellers had heard of a morning bus to Hoi An! We checked into a nice budget hotel for the day and napped and went for little walks and nibbled chocolates until the 7 P.M. sleeper bus was ready.
The sleeper bus, I thought, was brilliantly comfortable and a great way to enjoy travelling. The plush seats reclined right back and Matt and I had the whole back row to ourselves. A far cry from any of the travel I've done in India. We got to Hoi An at dawn, and allowed ourselves to be whisked off to a nice hotel by a snappy young female tout. I told her I was very impressed with her businesswoman skills - and I was. Much of the tourist trade seems to be run by enterprising young women with a great grasp of various languages, they work effectively, efficiently and with confidence and smiles. It's good fun to be their customer.
Hoi An is gorgeous. It's the place I have most fallen in love with on our travels - at night it lights up with millions of coloured silk lanters, they glitter along the riverbank and seduce you in to cafes and pagodas.
Our hotel was very comfortable and a great deal, $15 a night with a nice pool and elegant French architecture. At their beauty salon we indulged in massages and for me, a facial and manicure. The facial was incredible, over an hour long and I came out glowing, Matt said. I think I might make this part of my routine in Hanoi!
Soon after arriving we were swept up in the cloth market by a collective of the aforementioned enterprising young women, and before we knew it we were flipping through a catalogue and picking sumptious materials for our tailored outfits. We went along with it because it was something we'd planned on doing - although retrospect showed us that we could have been more cautious in choosing our tailors. Matt got a full suit, shirt and tie - the suit came out fantastically, he looks incredible in it! But the shirt and tie were very poorly made. I got three (I know, I know) dresses.... I'm not very happy with any of them sadly! The work isn't very good, and I went for three fittings to get it right. Two of them will be okay for work, but the other I think I'll take to another tailor at some point and change it into something else. A girl at the hotel showed me a dress she had made somewhere else and it was brilliant - and all of her own design, so I might try there next time (and just get one the first time!) Also within the cloth market are shoemakers, so Matt got a handsome shiny pair for his suit and I got 2 pairs of heels. They came out brilliantly, and I designed one of the pairs myself - sky blue, with cream-and-red-polka-dot silk material for the ties and heels. They are SO cool. Love love love.
We hired a scooter another day and visited My Son - site of some extraordinary Champa ruins. It was a long drive out and on the return journey I started to feel quite unwell. Annoyingly over the weekend I came down with glandular fever, so we left town early for Da Nang to visit the international hospital and get a blood test, just to confirm it was nothing serious, which is wasn't. A couple of days later I was right as rain again and so now, here we are, spending the last days of our journey in Da Nang.
Love, E.
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