Andre and Wendy: Quy Nhon to Hoi An

On the road again,this time by train.

Sad breakfast of noodles in a cup again as we were too lazy to get up and find some Pho before 6am.

Grab to the train station and we are early for our train. But we did experience another train arrival and the swarm of taxi drivers trying to get rides, it was very amusing to watch.

End of train exit amusement and see a little coffee shop outside the train station, time for one of those ice coffees.

Back to the train station and our train is only about 10 minutes late. Only a few tourists getting on with us. 3 sets of backpackers, how do they carry those huge packs? And what are they carrying? We have less 'stuff with us in our carry on suitcases than they have in those huge packs. We board , thankfully soft seats for a 5 hour journey, we weren't sure exactly what we had booked. Next we realize we will be facing backwards, urgh, lots of empty seats so may need to make a change.

We have 5 hours now to prepare ourselves for the taxi gauntlet I am sure we will face on arrival in Da Lang. 5 hours of listening to Vietnamese movies, kids shows, music etc, seems like head phones are not a big thing here.

Arrival at train station in Da Lang not as crazy as we thought it might be. We showed our hotel address in Hoi An to someone that approached us, he said 500K, we said grab is cheaper, OK 400K which is the same as grab. Off we go with the very popular cab guy from 'chap taxi' company, yes that is what his business card says that he gave me, pretty sure a one man show. He said 250k if we use him to go back to Da Lang.

Our hotel is very nice, just outside the old town in Hoi An. Very nice means we are buying our water and doing laundry off site.

The hotel has given us all kinds of tour recommendations. My Son being a unesco heritage site is of course what we have chosen. Pickup 730am, another early morning, but no Mr noodle things tomorrow for breakfast as breakfast is included here.

Off to explore Hoi An. First off dong are getting a little low. VP bank has worked great for us so off we go on the hunt. Some would find looking for a bank a waste of time, we have actually had lots of fun looking for them. We have explored many streets we never would have seen, it has been a bit like Jacques and Rollande geocaching. Well today we found the bank OK, but failed at getting any money. Machine was being fixed, it was basically in pieces on the street with security watching over it and someone from the bank outside telling us it was broken, maybe it will be fixed tomorrow. We tried about 5 different banks to take out 10million, but no luck, at this point we decided we better just take out 5 somewhere or our bank might freeze our card for trying at so many places. So we now have 5 million more in our wallets, and the first time it was not all given to us in 500k bills.

Back to the river and wow, the tourists. Decided to partake in happy hour, buy 2 get one free. This seems to be happy hour everywhere here in Hoi An, what happened to buy one get one free? We sat upstairs at a little restaurant bar with a nice view of the boats floating by and all the lanterns. I read somewhere that it isn't very busy here now, I'd hate to see it if it was busy.

A great supper at Com Linh restaurant, my new favorite is green mango salad. This Vietnamese restaurant has prices more accustomed to what we have been paying up to now. Tomorrow we were recommended a place in the market, will see how that goes.

Walked along the water back to the hotel, I think we were supposed to pay something to enter the old town, at least we saw a ticket booth when we exited?

Stopped to pick up some beer and water on the way back to the room. First time we have seen a sign at the cash for 3% markup if you want to pay by credit card.

Back to the hotel, worst wifi yet at one of the most expensive places we have stayed. They better not have empty platters at breakfast tomorrow....

Today's Pictures:

At the train station 20 taxi yelling at passengers, very funny