Hoi An & Dong Hoi

We were dropped in Da Nang in the morning and from there had to make our own way to Hoi An. Thankfully, there was a local bus leaving from across the bus station. We, along with every other westerner that had been dumped there, hopped on the bus and settled ourself in for the ride. Once we got to Hoi An, Beryl asked one of the tuk tuk drivers that were pestering us to use their phone.  She called the hotel and they kindly came and collected us from the bus station.  We had read in reviews that there was a pool which was one of the reasons we decided to go with that place but when we saw it we knew instantly that we wouldn't be using it. It was right in the middle of the reception area and the water was freezing cold. We had booked into a dorm room, but what they gave us was a private room with two double beds for the four of us, lovely surprise! 

Hoi An is one of the prettiest places we've been to. It's so picturesque. There is a lovely river running through the small town and lanterns hanging everywhere. After having some breakfast we went for a walk down the the river and across the bridge. 

We went for lunch at Madam Banh Mi's sandwich place.  She is world renouned for making the best Vietnamese banh mis.  They really were quite delicious and cheap too! While we were walking around the town some ladies carrying baskets of fruit on their shoulders stopped and asked if we wanted to take their picture.  Once we had taken their picture they then asked if we wanted to try on their hats and to try carrying the fruit, we duly did.  This was then followed by them asking if we would like to buy some fruit.  Of course we would, these ladies have been so kind, why not, let's get some bananas we thought.  $6!! Six dollars she wanted for 5 tiny little bananas! We were well and truly duped.  We bought them, and then ended up not eating the ridiculously expensive bananas.

We went for dinner with a girl Beryl had previously met and some people from her hostel.  There was 11 of us in total, we went to a wee restaurant that we had seen that day while walking around.  The food was mediocre at best and the local beer, although very very cheap, tasted watered down.  After dinner we went to a bar called Tiger Tiger where they kindly set up some tables for us across the road so that we could sit outside and watch the fireworks when they came.  The fireworks were amazing! They set off so many at the same time and the display went on for about half an hour! They were so close that my neck was getting so sore looking at them by the end.  We stayed out until the early hours of the morning celebrating our second new year. 

We had a bit of a lazy day.  We went back to Madam Banh Mi's for lunch which was delicious again, and after spending quite some time trying to book a bus out of Hoi An, we finally spoke to someone sensible in Tourist Information who told us that the couple of days after Tët would be cheap on the train in the direction we wanted to go in.  Unfortunately this meant making a trip to Da Nang the following day to get tickets from the train station.  We had a very mediocre dinner at a street food place.  It was very very busy and so we thought it must be good but,unfortunately not, the food was bland and not particularly cheap either.  Not sure what the appeal is there.  We went for some beautiful cocktails at a restaurant overlooking the river.  I opted for a white wine sangria which was one of the nicest cocktails I've ever had, just delicious.  

The next morning we got up early and caught the local bus to Da Nang so we could book our train to Dong Hoi.  The station had been shut over Tët and so it was ridiculously busy when we were there,  but we finally managed to get our really cheap tickets and headed back to Hoi An for lunch.  Kay, Jess and Beryl decided to hire some bicycles and tour around Hoi An for a while, I wasn't feeling very well and so decided to just stay at home and nap for the rest of the day.  It wasn't long before beryl was back in the room though as it turns out, whoever coined the phrase 'it's like riding a bike' has clearly never met beryl.  We decided to take a walk to the beach instead.  It wasn't meant to be that far away but ended up taking us about an hour to walk.

We went to what they were calling a food court for dinner.  Spoke to a French family who advised us to have some savoury pancakes which were amazing! We shared one between us and then since it was so delicious we ordered lots more food. Went to an ice-cream parlour, which had 57 different flavours, for dessert.  I think my favourite flavour was Cointreau or maybe mint....they were all pretty good in all fairness.  

We woke early the next morning to pack and check out of our accommodation. We wanted to go to a restaurant we'd read about but they had been shut over Tët and so we tried one last time to see if they were open but, alas, it was not to be unfortunately. Back to madam Bahn Mi's to get some sandwiches before getting our taxi to Da Nang.  It was only myself, Kay and Jess getting the train to Dong Hoi.  Beryl had decided to rent a bike and driver to take her to Hue and she was going to meet us in Dong Hoi the following morning.  

A couple of hours into our train journey, we felt a thud and then the train came to a stop.  All the Vietnamese passengers were up looking out the windows.  Eventually the nosiness took over and Kay got up to look also.  I'm glad I stayed put because what she saw, was a man being pull out from under our carriage.  The train was about ten carriages long and we were third from the end so the poor man had been ran over by 7 carriages.  The Vietnamese didn't seem very fazed by the whole thing, I don't know I'd this is maybe a regular occurrence or what.  All the westeners, by comparison, seemed pretty shell shocked.  It wasn't long before the train was moving again though and we arrived in Dong Hoi around 9pm. We got a taxi to our accommodation and once we'd checked in, had some dinner and treated ourselves to a nice cocktail after our traumatic journey.  We spoke to the nice, if somewhat stressed, lady running the place about our options for seeing the caves the next morning.  She told us we could either book a tour, around $50 each, or hire bikes and do it ourselves.  She seemed to think it would cost roughly the same to do it ourselves but were only going to take 2 bikes between the four of us and so it was working out quite a bit cheaper, that and it would be more fun on bikes.

Beryl arrived in Dong Hoi at some ridiculous hour of the morning and slept on a couch at our hostel.  We had breakfast and waited for our bikes to arrive but our scatterbrained hostess had forgotten to book our bikes the night before and so all that was left were semi-automatics.  None of us had ridden bikes with gears and so we were panicking a bit in the morning but the guy gave us a quick lesson around the block and off we set to see the longest and largest caves the world.  I drove for about 20 miles and then switched with Kay for a bit as my hands were getting a bit sore.  Once we arrived at the place where you get the boat into the longest cave we met some German guys who asked if we would like to share the cost of a boat with them. The boat took us down the river and then into the cave. It was really cool, they let us off inside the cave so that we could have a walk around.  We then walked out of the cave and met the boat so they could take us back up the river to where we started.  After having some lunch we realised that because of the bike fiasco in the morning along with the first cave taking longer than we thought to do, we now didn't have time to see paradise cave too.  It was ok though, we really enjoyed our day out on the bikes anyway.  

Our accomodation in Dong Hoi had the potential to be really good but they were so short staffed with it being Tët, that the service was appalling.  We waited well over an hour for our dinner to arrive and we were starting to get a bit tetchy as our night bus to Hanoi was due to arrive any minute.

Thankfully, our dinner did eventually arrive and so did our bus to Hanoi.