Day 109 Woops

21/06/13
I went for breakfast and returned to the hotel for 08.00 and I only had to wait a short time before a minivan pulled up outside. It took us 500m round the corner where we had to wait an hour for a coach to turn up. When it did it turned out to be a sleeper bus even though we were only going a couple of hours down the road. An hour into the journey our driver overtook a car (one of hundreds) and appeared not to see the oncoming lorry until it was too late. We swapped wing mirrors and a little paint but no major damage. This was because our driver had swerved away from the lorry, into the car, the car was slightly worse off. Both the bus and the car had massive scratches down the whole length of their bodies and the car had also lost a mirror and all the panels down one side were dented. Hopefully this will be my first and last bus incident and thankfully nobody was injured, although it did add an hour onto the journey. We stopped for lunch shortly afterwards and I spent an hour chatting to a retired prison officer from Essex and like many conversations you have whilst travelling you never find out the other persons name. When we arrived there was the normal scrum for the motorbike drivers to get your custom, one guy latched himself onto me and after halving his first price and offering to take me to a $5 a night hostel I got on. After driving round for well over half an hour the cheapest place he had taken me was $15 a night, I was less than impressed that he had lied to me, it was evident that if there were cheaper places then he didn't know about them and if he did he certainly wasn't going to take me to them. I think all the rooms were slightly more expensive anyway as there is a 6 day cultural festival in Hoi An so I ended up going for one of the $15 a night places and I will admit it was a good choice because the room was worth much more than $15, even in Vietnam. There is wifi, AC, double bed, en suite with bath and shower and a plasma TV (which I almost certainly won't use) but in all honestly I would much rather a dorm room or a single room with fan for a couple of dollars and to spend the money elsewhere. Such as on 2 pairs of tailor made shoes, not 100% sure how they're going to fit in my bag... In the evening it was the start of the festivities and it was truly incredible. There was thousands of people spread right along the river front, on both sides. The main attraction was on the far bank where there were dozens of stalls, each one representing a different ethnic group in Vietnam. There were also stalls for each ASEAN country (Asian version of the EU, comprising of Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam). There was also a huge stage where different ethnic groups performed traditional dances in tradition dress, watched by dignities and other VIPs. My favourite part was simply watching the hundreds of paper lanterns floating down the river, I wish my camera gave justice to the moment. My least favourite part was when I went for a drink in one of the many restaurants that line the river. The waiter hugged me all the way to my seat then when he came to take my order he stroked my arm and kept giving me weird looks. I think it is the first time a gay man has hit on me and I sincerely hope it is the last!!

Hoi An by day.

Lanterns on the river

Hoi An by night