Hello,

I had a h3llish 12 hour bus ride last night, worst in a long time. If you’re on an overnight sleeper bus, be sure to get a good seat. I got on a filled bus, my friend Matt and I were ushered to the back aka the dungeon.

The “dungeon” is the bottom part of the last row of the bus. Instead of 3 people per row, it’s 5. I had the “isle” seat so it was the width of the isle. I’m a thin guy, I couldn’t even put my arms next to me so I tried to sleep like I was in a coffin. If these are the only seats left, REFUSE and take one tomorrow even if you have to pay, it’s just not worth it. I will chalk it up as a “character building experience”.

Matt got the pure middle, his seat would not recline and he didn’t have enough leg room to stretch his legs, he’s been on the road 11 months, he claimed in a British accent “worst bus ride of my life”. To make matters worse, I had this Vietnamese guy who kept getting black berry messages on max volume saying “New Slave Message”. Not sure what to make of that but I am sure that is what it said.

Furthermore, the AC didn’t get there so I lay there in a coffin, next to that “creepy guy” with pearls of sweat running down my face. Also the road is so bumpy, I almost got airborne numerous times.

Got in exhausted and found a sweet hotel. It is $15US a night for 2 people. It comes with free breakfast and access to this pool which is it’s sister hotel about 50m down the road. Our hotel looks incredibly similar it’s like “Something II”, this one with pool is “Something III”.  Check out the photo below, can you see why I’m in no hurry to go home, seriously?! Ironically, I probably won’t use the pool just like I typically stop going in the ocean after being near a beach for ~3-4 days.

Hoi An is awesome and incredibly picturesque though. It actually quite reminds me of Luang Prabang. Anything you want, you can have made here, ANYTHING. I went for a leisurely jaunt and ran into some other foreigners and ended up meeting some cool shop keepers. They gave me ice coffee, oj and we hung out for an hour or so.

After that, went for another and ended up at the river. Trying to speak Vietnamese, I ordered 3 sugar cane drinks instead of one, flew through the first, sipped the second and thrashed the third. All 3 drinks cost me $0.75us.

Napped and hit the streets for dinner later. Went to a Seafood garden and had a great meal for ~$4us. After that ran into these 2 women. They are doing fliers, I overhear them asking a guy if he’s going out. I quip from the balcony “I like to party”. Then they come over. Matt says “I know them from Cambodia”. They look up at me saying “Hey, we met you in Bangkok”. At first I didn’t remember them but when I saw them later, I did, vaguely. Then they looked at Matt and said, hey we remember you.

It’s a small, small small, small world. The more you travel, smaller it becomes. I can’t imagine how many people you’ll run into if you tour the whole thing, meeting multitudes of acquaintances along the way.

After that we were retiring when we ran into a commercial dancer from Italy. She was on our bus, I did the old “Hey, were you on our bus” and we started chatting. She invited us for a drink. Yeah, I’m getting boring so I had a Lipton Iced Tea, delicious.

After that we said farewell and bounced. Supposedly “Beach Club” is where the party is at but I’d rather just hang out on the beach and meet people at the beach tomorrow. It’s a 4km bike ride to get there, supposedly it’s “okay”.

I’m going to get a custom pair of shoes made. Perhaps some custom cargo shorts that I’ll start selling here and dare I say, perhaps a tuxedo and a top hat. As I said in the comments from last update, just very impractical for a guy traveling around the world.

If you come to these countries, don’t be a target. Don’t flash wealth, don’t look like you have something to steal. It’s a simple concept but many just can’t grasp it. Most people are great but it takes all kinds to make this merry go round called the world operate.

If you’re wandering around a small town / large city with an average wage of ~$60US a month, does it make sense to wear hundreds of dollars worth of clothing and accessories? Who are you trying to impress? I’ll let you answer that, Einstein.

Regards,

P.S:  My small grasp of Vietnamese is going a long way. People love hearing you speak to them in their language, it separates you from those who make no effort. Randoms become friends as do short impromptu mutual teaching efforts. It’s just way more fun when you speak in a foreign language, even if it’s minimal. More on this later.