After leaving Mui Ne, we flew up to Danang, where we stayed in a roach motel (literally, Kate had one on the floor next to her side of the bed in the morning) and got the hell out of dodge as soon as possible, taking a taxi down the 26km of China Beach (where the GIs got R&R during the war) to Hoi An. I decided to count how many times our driver honked his horn during the 45 minute drive. After 14 honks in the first minute, I decided, fuck that. Honking is HUGE in Vietnam; if you weren't able to block out the sound you might go crazy.
Hoi An is a really quaint little fishing village with narrow streets and a bustling market. It used to be a big trading city, but since the river silted up in the 19th Century shippers went elsewhere and the town was frozen in time, not modernizing whatsoever. We stayed in an old Chinese-style house that has been converted into a 6 room hotel (I'm pictured below on the John, if I can manage to post pics). Our first morning waking up there we arose at 5:30 to go check out the market as it came to life. No other tourists were awake so it was pretty neat. Usually hounded by locals to buy things, we were actually completely ignored; we were just getting in there way--one old man actually hit Kate on the arm, shoeing her out of his path. And the aromas were amazing: a blend of fruit, sweat, raw meat, flowers, fire smoke, cigarettes, and cooking vegetables, which we smelled at once separately and mixed together.
Hoi An is also known for its good but cheap tailors. It's a place a boy like me can go pretend to be a man. I got two tailored suits and a shirt made for me overnight, and then a nice shave - all for, relatively, next to nothing. You can have anything made for you--just show them a picture in a magazine, tell them color and size, and their extended families (or whomever) whizzes off to make it for you then and there. They also sell a ton of worthless crap in the town too, and perhaps our favorite quote of the trip thus far was when we were passing a woman on our way to dinner. She sounded so sad and desperate, pleading with us: "Buy something!" She had apparently given up trying to guess our tastes, not pointing us to this knick-knack or that, just commanding us to buy something, anything. We have since been repeating this in an Asian accent ad nauseum.
We also rented bikes for the day and headed out the 4km to the beach. Quite nice - it seems the weather has been favoring us, as it's always sunny when we're on the ocean, yet pleasantly cloudy when we're in the cities. When we were parking our bikes at the beach a funny thing happened. Kate watched as a cockroach climbed up the pants of the man who was taking our bikes. Boy did he freak out! (Can you blame him?) Everyone around, including us, thought it was hysterical as the man unbuckled his pants and starting shaking epiliptically (word?).
Pics, baby:
the suits look great! obvi, i'm still lobbying for more kate pictures. the trip looks iiiiincredible. definitely post more. it was a long couple of days.
ReplyDeletephew! the wait is OVER! Duncan, you look like you are 45 in your shaving picture. Is your beard greying?! I'd like to voice my opinion for more Duncan pictures!!! Cant get enough!
ReplyDeleteMatt, you may not know this since you can't grow but four chin hairs, but that is called "shaving cream," it helps to moisten the manly bristles in order to cut them off. You'll see someday, my friend.
ReplyDeletenever heard of it. is this an asian thing?
ReplyDelete