Hoi An (28th March 2011)

Hoi An market

Last night the receptionist in the hotel tried to sell me a tourist bus ticket to Hoi An for £3.00 but leaving at 11am. Ideally I wanted to get there earlier so got up at silly o’clock (again!) and headed out to find the local bus. There to try and get me to go on the back of his bike was a moto driver who was intent on getting my business but seeing as the journey is around 35km I really didn’t fancy it with all my gear so eventually he gave up and helped me out on where to get the local bus. 10 minutes later the bus arrived and I was on my way next though I had to barter over the bus ticket! The bus was just a local one and travelling, in my opinion, very fast without ever really stopping, people were jumping off and on at every opportunity. But back to the cost – so the LP said it was supposed to be about 10,000 dong so when I thought the lady said 16,000 I thought ‘oh that’s ok, a bit of inflation!’ but oh no, she wanted 60,000!! Well there was no way she was getting that so after 10 minutes of bartering or rather me saying I wasn’t going to pay that much, she finally let me stay on board for 20,000 still double what it should have been but cheaper than she was originally after. Bartering for bus tickets, now that’s a first.

Getting to Hoi AN only took about 40 minutes and then it was just a short moto ride, with all my bags, to the hotel I thought I had decided on. Now this is one lovely hotel and there seem to be a few Westerners milling around, what there doesn’t seem to be though is any sign of the town. The LP says this hotel is on the edge of the old town but I’m not seeing any signs of life. The receptionist, on seeing me arrive, came running out to meet me and was so keen to have me stay there that he even reduced the cost of the room by several dollars. So even bartering for a room is doable! Shame I didn’t know that at the start of the trip! It appears town was only a five minute cycle away and the hotel was so nice that I decided on staying and getting some exercise. ;-)

Village life

Hoi An is really lovely, very pretty and very picturesque and very French in appearance.

For the rest of the day I just made good use of the free bike hire checking out the local villages as well as two of the main temples in town.

The temples of Hoi An and my form of transport parked outside