Hoi An is a delightful old city mid way up the Vietnam coast.
It’s old town is mostly pedestrians only at its centre with a maze of small shops, stalls and markets. Just the place to have shoes and clothes made to order in a few hours and roam around haggling over anything that takes your fancy.
It’s also where we spent New Years Eve 2013 and New Years Day, and the Vietnamese do like to partéé (see this video if you can’t wait til it appears further down).
But to get there from Ho Chi Minh involved an overnight train trip by sleeper, although sleeping was far more difficult than we expected.
It looked OK at first glance but our compartment comprised 4 rudimentary bunks only, and none too clean either, but no seats at all. We shared this luxury travel with Mark and Mollie but “overnight” turned out to be 17 hours, pretty much non-stop with no edible food available and the a/c barely working. Some said the 3rd class compartments were far worse than ours, with multiple locals per bunk and it wasn’t hard to believe.
Fortunately we had prior warning of the food situation and visited a bakery for supplies before we boarded the train and grabbed some fruit and drinks from a stall on the station platform.
As the train rattled and banged its way north, so violently that sleep was almost impossible, we all thought the carriages must come off the rails at any time soon.
Our luxury accommodation for the 4 of us for 17 hours:
Squeezy but beer helped:
A glimpse of our train as we turned a bend in the track:
Most of the journey was at night so we couldn’t see much of the countryside, but after daybreak we did see the rural environment rolling by, mostly paddy fields and toiling farm workers:
A cemetery flashes by:
Graves in the middle of a rice paddy:
Nearing Da Nang:
A magnificent steam loco in Da Nang station:
At Da Nang finally, where the huge US air base was located and is now used by the Vietnamese, we boarded a bus for the hour long journey across the Dragon Bridge and down past China Beach (a Surfers look-alike, named by American troops) to Hoi An to our hotel.
The American airbase at Da Nang, now used as a storage facility:
China Beach Da Nang:
China Beach with a huge white statue of a female Buddha in the hazy distance:
No swimming allowed as the surf was too rough (many rural Vietnamese don’t learn to swim and drownings are all too frequent):
The Van Loi Hotel was the best one we had in Vietnam and our room overlooked the (very cold) pool, so we were hopeful a good night’s sleep after the tiring train ride:
But sleeping could come later, first we had to visit the Old Town and check out possible venues for the New Year’s Eve party:
A bonding beer on the old bridge:
Later Mark returned to the old town on his bike to collect Prue who was walking around alone, and carried her back on the pillion seat, much to the amusement of the local population. Sadly no photos survive of that event.
In the evening we retuned to the old town for dinner and to celebrate the New Year by floating lighted candles down the river.
Delicious Dragon Fruit:
Getting in the New Years Eve spirit:
Children made and sold the candle floaties:
The city was starting to rock with music and light shows as midnight approached and we enjoyed a few beers in the local bars:
We retreated to the rooftop floor of our Hotel where the best free feasting and partéé-ing was happening.
We danced and drank and waited for the New Years Eve firework display. And we waited and waited but it never happened, not everything works like clockwork in Vietnam.
However it didn’t spoil the rooftop party one bit and Mark started off a Conga Line. Watch this amateurish 3 minute video (we’d had a few drinks by midnight):
The next day we did our excellent Bike Tour of Hoi An (including Mark having a buffalo ride) which we all considered the highlight of our trip (with the sleeper train being the lowlight).
Later that day we re-visited the old town for a better look around and took in a bit of traditional culture at the Dance and Music Centre, before heading out for a DIY Cooking class for dinner:
And we watched (and ultimately purchased) an embroidered silk picture being made, which took 15 days to complete:
We trudged over the old Bridge built by early Japanese traders:
And wandered through the colourful streetscapes. It was a very peaceful and pleasant place and not that many foreign tourists:
That evening we had a special treat, we did a DIY Cooking Class in Vietnamese cooking. See the next episode in our travels.
The next day we boarded our bus for a 4 hour journey further north to Hué, the former capital of Vietnam.
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