Today is a day of going with the flow and hoping to make those flights we booked what seems like months ago in Danang. Our flights leave for Hanoi from Hue, where we had originally hoped to visit, but having changed our plans to see more of Hoi An and not go to Hue at all, a more sensible place to fly from would actually be Danang. Regardless of this and believing it to be tempting fate to try to change our flights at a day’s notice in a place far from official Vietnam Airlines offices, we still need a bus to get us to Hue. Organising this causes us endless problems because each helpful tour agent’s first offer of help is to change the flights from Hue to Danang.
We end up on a bus which leaves at 8am, which we are assured, will make Hue airport for 1pm. Our flight is at 2.20pm. No-one seems particularly confident that it really will get there on time and given that it stops en-route at no less than four tourist sites (for only 15 minutes each, claims the travel agent proudly) and has at least a 4 hour drive to cover, neither are we.
First stop is to climb one of the Marble Mountains where we see some huge marble sculptures being hand crafted, presumably for the large Pagoda market because no one else would have the space for them. At Danang, the driver pulls over and asks for the two people who need Danang airport. We are the victims of our own complication and have to explain to a busful of incredulous travellers that we’ve chosen the more distant of two potential airports to try to reach on a bus which seems to have an average speed (if you include all the stops) of 5 mph.
When quizzed about whether he thinks we’ll make it, the driver looks annoyed and shrugs “don’t know”. This is not desperately encouraging but we sit back and go with the flow. There’s not a whole lot we can do to affect the outcome – even a taxi might be hard pressed to get there now.
The scenery is quite spectacular as we go over the “Hai Van Pass” although at the top there is a heavy mist which prevents any decent views. At the top itself we stop anyway to see these “views” and find only a bunch of miserable peddlers and toilet-attendants who eke out a horrible existence feeding off the occasional tourist dollar.
At lunchtime we stop for half an hour at Lang Co beach. On a hot day it would probably be lovely but on an overcast and muggy one when within an hour and half we may have missed an important flight, it’s not so great.
Just after 1pm, on a long straight road and with the rain now set in, we are a little nervous. Pam doesn’t reckon we’ll make it. I’m still confident we can – even if we get there only half an hour before the flight. Suddenly at 1.15pm we pull up at a petrol station and the driver virtually hauls us off pointing down a track to the right. “Airport,” he says gruffly, before closing the doors and almost driving over our packs in his hurry to leave us behind. We walk the remaining 500m in the rain with Vietnamese smiling at us from a variety of buses and bikes. No offers of a ride when we really need it. We make it with 20 minutes to spare.

Red trousers Vietnam-style

Fitting #1
On the way to our first “fitting” of the new clothes there is a downpour of biblical proportions – the first one we’ve been caught out in since we’ve been here. It is very, very wet but it cools things down nicely.
Pam’s dress is fantastic, I’m not convinced about two of my three pairs of trousers. That distilled description was definitely too vague and Vietnamese styling has slipped between the cracks of my careful specification. Everything needs some alterations anyway so we leave them behind again to be corrected. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with this, the clothes just get shipped back to whoever made them to have seams sewn in or panels let out.
Fittings #2 and #3
Up early today for another fitting. There are more things to correct, so we leave them again. It’s too hot for souvenir shopping so we rent a motorbike and head off to the beach, this time minimally dressed for swimming.
The beach is busier today with Vietnamese couples – all decked out in their Sunday best – who’re here for the festival. It is funny to watch them – they haven’t come to swim or sun bathe but to “cruise the beach”. The girls certainly aren’t sunbathing because they believe that pale skin is a sign of good breeding so do all they can to cover every single exposed piece. Those who do swim do so in their clothes, jeans and all. The general feel is like the “Ben Sherman” brigade back home on a Saturday night – these young Vietnamese have come to look good on the beach in their going-out clothes. They look most impractical and we feel underdressed in our swimwear.
The sea is warm and clear and the waves are powerful. We express our creative selves by building a sand-mermaid on the beach much to everyone’s apparent amazement. Most of the passing children are enthralled and apart from a few trouble-making teenagers who delight in “helping” us add larger breasts to her, they are patient and quietly enthusiastic. We celebrate our artistic success with some pork dumplings from a little stall.

Light on the water

Back in Hoi An, fitting session three is conclusive and we end up mostly happy with our purchases. Pam has got two very nice ball-style dresses; one of which I feel I practically designed since it has an embroidered dragon on the back and matching trim on the front at my suggestion. The trousers I ordered with the embroidered dragon in a style on display in the shop have turned out really well – but the less said about my three-quarter length beige efforts the better. It was only an experiment really.
Later we accumulate some souvenir crockery – Vietnamese bowls, spoons and chopsticks. Again we find the prices are extraordinarily inflexible. Either these prices have been dropped so low by the intense competition here that there’s little room for profit (seems likely given the way they behave) or else these people are so hardened to bargaining Westerners that they just refuse to budge on the price and find from experience that we’ll pay anyway. Whatever, the prices aren’t so bad to start with and we get an 8 piece and a 4 piece set for a total of £15. How can I complain?

Lantern light only

We are lucky enough to have arrived in Hoi An for the festival celebrating the anniversary of 2 September 1945 when Ho Chi Minh gave his Declaration of Independence. We’re not quite sure what, at that point, they were becoming independent from (possibly French colonial rule) but it sounds like a fine excuse to have a party every year. This time it falls on a full moon which has an added significance for the superstitious Vietnamese and the festivities are planned to last for several days. Already the preparations are in evidence with plenty of colourful lanterns being made in local shops and Vietnamese tourists arriving in large numbers.
Later the on-stage singing is dreadful – to my ears anyway – but the floating restaurant and beautiful candle lanterns strewn all over the river are fantastic. The atmosphere is electric and for our great pleasure, for one night only, they’ve stopped motor bike traffic down the main streets and banned fluorescent strip lights – only lanterns allowed. It makes a big difference to the feel of the place.
The pagodas are particularly atmospheric – the gaudiness of the Hindu offerings normally so grating is somehow tempered by the darkness, smoky air and crowds of people smiling.

Beautiful deserted beach

Our mission today is to purchase new wardrobes of tailor made clothes. The process is quite tricky – first choosing one of many shops to buy from, avoiding the commission-hungry touts, then choosing fabrics, styles from various catalogues or clothes on display and discussing designs in broken English. At the end of this long negotiation the shop-keepers write the full description (presumably to be passed on to the person who actually makes the clothes in some awful sweatshop nearby) using alarmingly few words in a messy notebook. I have a reasonable idea that the distilled description for my clothes reads something like “Western Trousers, 70s style”. At least that would explain the disappointing mismatch between what I thought I’d asked for and what I eventually get.
After all this to-ing and fro-ing comes the haggling. They are in a stronger position from the start since after all that decision making the last thing you need is to have to back out and go elsewhere. I feel like I have sweated blood for these clothes already and duty-bound to buy them. By pooling our purchases we think we’ll get a reasonable bulk discount but I’m surprised to find a great resistance on the part of the shopkeepers to dropping the prices lower. I expect the initial price to be at least double the “real” one but I have to cautiously accept the possibility that profits might really be slim. The average cost is about $12 per item but this is not as cheap as we’d like – even with all the competition. We have to return for a fitting tomorrow.
In the afternoon we find our way by bike to a deserted and beautiful beach about 3km from Hoi An. The South China Sea holds a certain mystery for me and it looks distant, misty and brooding here. We walk along the sand rather romantically and pause for a few “Robinson Crusoe” pictures.

Hoi An, Hindu temple

Hoi An is lovely. It is a small town where everything is laid out on a few main streets. Despite the constant attention from various cute teenage girls who beg “Please, you come to see my sister’s clothes shop?”, it is very relaxing. I should stress here that I would not normally find the attentions of cute teenage girls stressful, but the truth is Hoi An is the tailoring capital of the Asian world and clothes shops are big business. We change some money and have some of the local lunch speciality – “Cau Lau”, a mixture of noodles, croutons, fried pork and salad which is delicious.
We take a long afternoon nap to rejuvenate after the exhausting night and venture out in the slightly cooler night to Hoi An’s beautiful lantern lit streets. We try out the Yellow River Restaurant and enjoy the magical atmosphere of the town. We do the rounds of the sights and the late-opening clothes shops. Pam is keen for new clothes but cautious until we’ve explored all the options. Back at the hotel its only 11pm but the Vietnamese go to bed early and the guys who run the hotel are asleep in the lobby, on the marble floor…

There is a power cut on the train and it is late leaving. Inside it is very very hot and airless. Unfortunately we’re on the hard-sleeper this time so it is a broken and uncomfortable night’s kip.
We reverse auction for a taxi at Danang station at 8am Thursday. This goes awry badly and we end up with two motorbike taxis to take us to the Vietnam Airlines office where we need to book our internal flight to Hanoi later in the week. The bikes look more hair-raising than they are – with all our luggage in front of the driver – it’s a whole lot of fun bombing around the streets in a pair. We’re off to Hoi An and get a flight from Hue to give us plenty of time there. Our motorbike guys prove persistent in trying to take us the hour’s journey to Hoi An. Pam is not keen on doing this – not wishing to trust their driving – but after a couple of hours hassle after which we end up doing it anyway, we both agree it was probably the best way to get there: there don’t appear to be any local buses.
As part of this hassle we see an interesting thing: a sponsored cyclo. A bright shiny new cyclo, apparently worth $400, has been purchased for one particularly lucky cyclo driver by his American “Foster Father”. The American was in Vietnam during the war and has contributed as part of a scheme to empower impoverished cyclo drivers and presumably appease his own conscience in the process. He donated $700 and this particular driver has spent it well: he is significantly fatter than most and claims to have spent the excess on presents for his wife and children. We can’t help wondering why he didn’t go for two or three cheaper cyclos and hire them out to his mates but he seems happy with his mysterious benefactor and his shiny bike must be the envy of cyclo drivers all across the town.
The trip to Hoi An is not as bad as we expected despite the searing heat. We arrive around 12ish ready for a shower in our new hotel, the Sea Star which is very pleasant.

Spice markets, Nha Trang

Today is our last here and we want to see some of the local way of life. We take another bike out to the Bao Dai Villas which has a breakfast restaurant and nice views over the sea. Then we head for the Dam Market, the local shopping zone where it seems you can pick up pretty much anything you want – including a life-threatening illness. We are lucky enough to collect a guide – a little woman who is hoping we’ll buy some 70′s suits from her clothing shop and in return is prepared to show us around the market and legitimise taking plenty of photos of the denizens of it. The market is full of rice, beans, baskets, chillis, tomatoes, all kinds of vegetables, plastic bowls and buckets, chickens and ducks (tied down, laid on the floor and hyper-ventilating in the heat), meat and fish in all guises, tea, coffee and fruit. The chickens and ducks are used, rather cruelly, as life support machines for their own meat – cheaper than refrigeration but it wouldn’t generally meet with the approval of animal rights activists.
After we’ve escaped buying one of those nice suits, we take the road north again and detour to the Chong Peninsular. It is quite fun to see a more rural life as we go by. The motorbike is definitely the best way of seeing Nha Trang. Finally we end up on the beach at the Louisiana Cafe where an hour’s kip comes in handy especially since afterwards I am persuaded to be pummelled almost to death by an old crone who claims to be a masseur. Pam gets a pedicure from a similar woman and the whole experience is probably over-priced but still quite a laugh. No “naughty” extras this time.
Receive by email today, Pam’s sister Gillian’s first ultra-sound scan of her new baby. We’ve christened him Bernard and even though he’s only centimetres across is already clearly a baby…
We get a couple of cyclo drivers to take us to our sleeper train to Danang. This is a father and son team and we met the father last night coming home from an Ice Cream shop near the hotel. The father is 58, speaks very courteous English, has five children and says that before 1975 he was an air traffic controller for the South Vietnamese Air Force. According to the Lonely Planet, many cyclo drivers like him are denied official residency of Nha Trang and are forced to earn a tiny income from cyclo driving because they can’t get any other job. It doesn’t fully explain how this unhappy state of affairs arose but I guess they are the human “casualties” of the war. It’s a shame. Our man is wonderfully courteous in his goodbyes: he wishes us good luck on our journey ahead and best wishes and happiness to both of our families.