Continued from Train to Hoi An.

RL and I both slept just ok last night. Fall asleep, wake up, fall sleep. Rinse and repeat.

When I checked our location on the gps upon waking, it showed that we are a bit more than halfway to our destination. I woke up at around 5:30am to the sounds of SCREAMING kids. Seriously, what kids wake up screaming at 5:30am?? Then it’s followed by sounds of the very loud talking Vietnamese families in the cabins all around us. Ugh…seriously, it’s so early.

Then after that, all these random people kept on opening our door. First the ticket lady, to take trash. Then she came back again to check ticket. Then vendors started boarding the train while we were stopped at a station and would open the door to ask if we wanted to buy something. This one vendor lady opened the door, and when we waved no thanks to her with our sleepy eyes, she thought that it would be amusing to yell, “Wake up, wake up!” No lady, it’s like 6am, let us sleep! Door lock back on.

Farming is back breaking work, and they still do it the back breaking way of the past here.

Tired, and a little hungry.

Vietnamese trains are not the nicest around, and we got the best cabin they have to offer. The mattress under the sheets seems like it hasn’t been cleaned in years. Gross. Speaking of mattresses, all the mattresses that we’ve slept on in Asia has been rock hard, with this train mattress taking the cake.

The country side through our really dirty window.

Caught up on some blogging while on the train. No wifi, but there is a power outlet though.

Along the track, there are numerous graveyards scattered everywhere. This is actually one of the biggest one that we passed by. It spanned multiple hills.

Most of the loud families have disembarked from the train at the station this morning, so RL is getting some quiet reading time.

Arrived in Danang station, and now we need to find a taxi to Hoi An. It’s just a little bit past noon. That’s a very long train ride, about 15 hours. The German couple in our shared compartment are headed to Hoi An as well, cool, so we can all split a taxi to save costs.

Found a van that would take all of us to Hoi An for 300,000 dong, not too bad. That’s about $14.

In less than 10 minutes, we’ve reached the coast, and it’s beautiful. The weather here is also the nicest that we’ve encountered so far on this trip. The temperature is actually quite delightful over here. We hadn’t really planned on it, but with such a nice beach and nice weather, I think we’ll do a beach day over here in Hoi An.

Along the coast to Hoi An, we passed by rows and rows of fancy beach side resorts.

Also places selling statues.

And the less fortunate people with shabby houses and no beach view.

Got dropped off at our hotel! We don’t feel quite as disgusting as our previous overnight train in Thailand since we took a shower before boarding the train last night. The cooler and less humid weather also helps.

The reception here is on it, they even remembered our names.

What $32 a night get you in Hoi An at a location that’s a short walk into the historic parts of Hoi An. This is the biggest bed, ever.

They even have a swimming pool here.

Since we plan on devoting tomorrow to chilling at the beach, today we’ll walk through the old town of Hoi An, an UNESCO site.

First some lunch!! We’ve barely had any food since last night. Both our own research and the front desk of our hotel recommended this place. It’s located down a nondescript alley.

It’s in the middle of the afternoon, so not too many customers.

We sat down, ordered some drinks and all of a sudden random food just comes out? Errr, what? It turns out that it’s a set menu. OK, cool.

Really thin, but surprisingly strong rice paper.

We weren’t exactly sure how we are supposed to eat it, then one of the waitress came by and showed us how.

You make a taco with it, then dip it into the sauce provided. This was REALLY GOOD!!

Our waitress brings out some more stuff, eggs with bean sprouts inside, and she wraps one for us.

The best one yet! And the food keeps on coming. We are so full already!

Then dessert!

Then pineapples. This is probably our favorite meal in Vietnam so far. Great new food and tasty.

Now walking around old town of Hoi An.

There are tailor shops here EVERYWHERE. I mean literally everywhere, literally several on every single block. They’ll make you a suit or a dress in like 12 hours.

Hahaha. I looked down this well long enough, that the other guy sitting on the ledge looked down too.

Sexy scissors.

So, this is supposed to be one of the most famous sights of Hoi An, the Japanese Bridge.

This is it…yup…that’s all. And it’s odd that the Vietnamese are celebrating a Japanese creation and that’s the symbol for the city. In fact, the bridge is even printed on the stamps that we got for our postcards.

See.

Sure, we’ll take a photo with it…I guess.

The business end is even less inspiring.

RL almost stepped on this guy.

Mannequins look better undressed.

So, Hoi An old town is just meh. Seriously, it’s just a bunch of tailor shops in a bunch of old houses. Definitely one of the lesser UNESCO sights that I’ve seen. The sights in Vietnam have been a little disappointing thus far.

Time to get more stamps and send out more postcards.

Back to our hotel to rest now. It’s been a long day. I laid on the bed and passed out immediately. I didn’t even know I was that tired.

Working on the blog. The wifi on our floor sucks, so we decided to come down to the restaurant portion of our hotel where the wifi works well.

OK, we’ll eat some food too. They called this wonton soup, it’s unlike any wonton soup I’ve ever seen.

Nice and quiet here. Not too many tourists here in Hoi An right now.

Can’t compare to our delicious lunch, but gets the job done.

Bed, then beach day tomorrow!! We are both very excited about the beach tomorrow…there is however one cloud in the sky. There’s 80% chance of rain tomorrow, but hopefully that just means that it’ll thunderstorm late in the afternoon or at night like the past few times it’s rained here.

To be continued at Hoi An Day 2.