aaand... We're Back!

You may have heard the rumors, and now I'll confirm them - we are back in the States! We flew in very late on March 22 into Redmond, and we spent a nice couple of days with my mom in Bend. Then, we dug through our storage boxes (hurray for clothing options!) and put together Devlin's big gray diesel van as our new camper van.

We're in Eugene now, but we float with the wind. Drop us a line if you'd like to see us!

Hoi An, Vietnam

After our experiences on the singing night bus, we decided to take the train up to Hoi An, Vietnam. It was another overnight trip - we caught the train at 8:30pm and settled into the bunks in our small cabin. A much more pleasant journey than the bus! It was still pretty basic - thin mattresses, a window that didn't quite close (until Devlin messed with it), and a pretty sketchy toilet down the hall... but it was still a step up from the bus. No cockroaches and less noise, just the click-clack rattle of the train passing over the tracks.

Hoi An does not have a train station. To get there, we arrived at the train station in Danang and barged past the taxi drivers, who wanted $25+ for a ride. We found a mini bus driver, Mr. Dong, who would take $15; we learned from him that the taxis were forced to charge a higher rate because of their company rules. Mr. Dong dropped us off in Hoi An, and after an hour of walking around and asking for room prices, we found a $20 room at the Hop Yen Hotel on Ba Trieu road.

We spent a lovely week in the town. Hoi An stretches along the Thu Bon river, and it is also only a 3 km bike ride to the beach. It's a UNESCO town, with many historically-preserved buildings and streets, and it had a sweet laid-back character that was a breath of fresh air after the bustle of Nha Trang and our days of hectic travel.

Hoi An is known for being a city of tailors and lantern-makers, and it does not disappoint. The town went from under 100 tailors a couple decades ago, to a bustling 600+. Tailors line every street, with occasional souvenir shops squished in between them, and above them hang myriad strings of lanterns.

Inside the Hoi An cloth market - a warehouse filled
with bolts of cloth and tailors competing for
tourist business

The first couple of nights we were there was the end of the Chinese New Year holiday week, and the town was full of people celebrating. We saw a game of Vietnamese bingo - Ba Choi - being played with exuberance on the parts of both players and performers, and a game of "hit the pot". Gorgeous light sculptures lined one side of the river, all reflecting the theme of the new Year of the Snake, and the outgoing year of the Dragon.

We spent the rest of our time in Hoi An relaxing and enjoying the place. We biked a couple times to the beach, Devlin ate beef papaya salad every day, and we bartered hard for good prices on our souvenirs. And we ate some truly delicious Indian food at Ganesh, the only Indian place in town.

At the end of our time there, it was also time to part ways with our travel friend, Lynnea, who was heading back home to Oregon. We called up Mr. Dong for our ride to the airport in Danang, and up we flew to Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam. We camped out in the airport to wait for our evening flight to Bangkok, Thailand, and said our goodbyes to Lynnea, who was spending a day in the capitol. And then, off we flew to Thailand and our final destination, Chiang Mai!

Diving Nha Trang

We spent two days in Nha Trang. The place was pretty packed with the Chinese New Year holiday, and lodging rates were hugely inflated. But, we managed to have one fabulous day of scuba diving. Nha Trang is one of the main hotspots in Vietnam for diving – the protected marine reserve of Hon Mun is a 45 minute boat ride away, and its waters are filled with micro life: tiny nutabranchs, numerous fish, and brilliantly-colored coral.

The cable car to the big island,
Hon Tre, closest to Nha Trang

If you throw a rock in Nha Trang, chances are you will hit a dive shop. There are hundreds of them in the city, and it was at first confusing to choose one. We first found Rainbow Divers, an outfit with very good marketing: the outside of their building says they are “National Geographic recommended,” and they seemed to be a well-organized outfit. But their prices were a bit hard to swallow: they wanted $75 per person for two boat dives. Other places we saw in town were charging $40.

After some internet research, I learned about a place called Sailing Club Divers. We’d passed their place, but I hadn’t considered it – being called a “club” made them sound exclusive and expensive. But, we learned it would only be about $45 for two dives, including a bus to the harbor, the boat trip out, and lunch. And all equipment included. Their instructors are top-notch and all of them spoke very good English and new the dive sites pretty well.

The floating lobster village

Our bus left a little later than other outfits we’d talked to – the owner of Sailing Club Divers said he leaves late, so that when the boat arrives at a site, they can choose the emptiest place, and not be surrounded by other dive outfits. The boat ride out was scenic and beautiful – we passed a couple other islands, as well as a whole floating lobster village. 

On the boat, we were introduced to our personal dive attendant and shown our gear. There were about 15 guests total: a French guy who was getting his Advanced certification, a Dutch girl new to diving (she’d gotten certified in Thailand), another German diver, and us. The rest were scuba diving: a Cambodian family with three cute young sons, a group of 20-something girls, and the Dutch girl’s friend.

The dive crew and equipment in the back of the boat

It was very different to be waited on throughout the trip. In Oregon, we’re used to setting up our own gear, checking everything, and then hoisting it on our backs to either clamber over big slick rocks, or down 20’ tall cliffs to get to our dive sites. On the boat, everything was taken care of for us – we were helped on with our gear, and helped off with it – all we had to do was get it on, step off the boat into the water, and then enjoy the dive.

And enjoy we did. The visibility wasn’t as clear as usual – we only got 10’ – they usually get 15-20’, but it was still fantastic for us, since Oregon rarely gets better than 5’. There was a ton of life to see, and there was no little current, so we could drift along and enjoy ourselves. 

All in all, even though the life was small-sized, our dive in Nha Trang was a real treat, and our first time diving in tropical warm waters. We’ll be looking forward to planning some dive trips to Thailand, or other tropical places, in the next few years to enjoy more warm-water diving!

More Border Shenanigans & A Singing Night Bus

The gigantic Snake sculpture

To hasten our crossing into Vietnam, we spent one night in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.  It was the beginning of Chinese New Year, and that evening, we saw the Cambodians out celebrating. A big hilltop shrine was packed with people and offerings, and a gigantic bamboo Snake guarded the entrance, heralding the Year of the Snake. At the top of the shrine, the incense smoke was so thick that I could hardly breathe through its perfume. 

Inside the central shrine, towering stacks of lotus flowers surrounded the large Buddha. Outside, people lined up to offer food at smaller shrines. Behind the heads of the smaller Buddhas were electric circles of light, flashing neon blue, green, and red. The remains of offered food and flowers were pushed into large piles nearby, around corners. It had the feeling of Christmas – everyone dressed up and filled with a festive cheer.

Offerings at the smaller Buddha shrines

The next morning, we caught our bus to Vietnam. It was fairly uneventful, except for some border shenanigans: a week before, my passport had been soaked when my camelback reservoir failed, and so my paper departure card from Cambodia had also been soaked and fallen apart. This caused some fun stuff at the border – I was told on the bus that I’d be charged $5 – but instead, the border guard just questioned me, scowling, and then scolded me solidly, before shooing me into line to be digitally fingerprinted (a normal process at Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam borders). However, what was more fun was that the bus almost left without me – Devlin and Lynnea had to get them to stop and come get me, as with my interview delay, it took me three times as long to get done as everyone else.

First bowl of Pho!

Finally, around 3pm, we got to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). We had our first celebratory bowl of Pho and made plans. Our goal was to head north – we were mainly interested in getting to Hoi An, a beautiful historical town smack-dab in the center of the Vietnamese coastline. From HCMC, it would take 22 hours on the bus. To make that a more manageable and sane chunk to swallow, we decided to catch a night bus to Nha Trang, a coastal city 10 hours away. 

But, Chinese New Year rather got in the way. In Cambodia, the holiday is celebrated for a weekend or so at most, and then everything goes back to normal. But in Vietnam, the holiday lasts a solid week, and everyone is on holiday. As a result, all the prices are inflated – doubled or tripled – and night buses go from $12 to an astronomical $22-30 per person.  Everywhere we saw tourists fighting the holiday. A group of poor souls was trying to get to Cambodia, and they got insane quotes of $75 per person, in a taxi, because everything else was booked. Later we met a couple who’d paid $100 to get from Hanoi, the big city in the north, to Hoi An – normally $24 for two. 

Really? These were the top bunks

We showed up a little early, at 8pm, to get on our $22 night bus. We got in and took off our shoes besides the driver’s wheel, and stepped into a strange little world. Three rows of bunk beds were squished into the bus, with narrow aisles between them. The “beds” were thin mattresses at an inclined angle – they could recline to a point, but beyond that you would squish the feet of the person behind you.

We were initially assigned bunks on the top – a precarious situation, as there were barely any bars to keep you from tipping out, and absolutely no seat belts. Devlin was squished between two beds, with not nearly enough space for his legs. As bottom bunks were free, we quickly convinced the attendant to let us move down. We later learned that the bus people assign foreigners to the top bunks first, reserving the bottom for locals. A kind of “tourist tax”, you might say.

Down on the bottom bunks

As the bus filled up, we tried to get comfortable. Our small backpacks were tucked between our feet. Lynnea saw a cockroach, a small half-inch long one, and squashed it with a fierce blow from her iPhone. That would not be the first cockroach we saw that night. And then the bus began to move, and the singing began. The bus’ shocks were on the verge of going out, and so we were serenaded throughout the night with a symphony of squeaks. The bus really had quite an impressive range, from little tiny moving squeaks, to long-sustained sighs, to a deep bass bellow as we hit a larger pothole. And the “music” pierced straight through earplugs.

There were several stops : one at midnight, for a last-chance potty break (there was no toilet on the bus), and again at 2am, at the coastal city of Mui Ne, where we disgorged a few sleepy souls onto the dark streets, before on we rolled/squeaked down the road. 

Nha Trang on the beach

Amazingly, despite the music of the bus, the passing lights, and the occasional phantom feeling of a cockroach crawling on me, I was able to sleep. I tucked the provided blanket around my feet, mummy-like, and put on my sweater as armor to the tickle of cockroaches. We managed fitful sleep until our bus rolled into Nha Trang, at 6:15 am. Then out we tumbled, stiff and blinking, into the clear blue sky of our first morning in Vietnam.