Hoi An

After two peaceful days cruising Halong Bay, it was back into the bedlam of travel. We booked a 14-hour, overnight train ride that took us to the smaller town of Hoi An, a fishing village in central Vietnam that has ended up on the tourist circuit.

The journey wasn’t all that bad. O.K., so the train was noisy, the food was pretty bad (sticky white rice with lukewarm, scary-looking green vegetables for lunch), and the beds weren’t all that clean (we discovered in the morning that they simply re-folded and re-used the sheets), but we were at least prepared with our own sleeping liners and snacks. And we got some sleep. Moreover, the early morning views of rural Vietnam were priceless – people were up early in the morning, plowing the fields with oxen, wading through rice paddies, and pedaling bicycles on red-dirt roads or along the narrow lanes that separate the rice fields.

We found Hoi An to be an agreeable place to hang out for a few days. The town was a bit more touristy yet much more laid back than Hanoi. We spent time walking around the streets, shopping and taking pictures. Here is a photo from the local produce market...





Our highlight for Hoi An, though, came on the second day in town, when we took a cooking class at one of the restaurants that overlooks the riverfront. For just $4 we were able to select any three items on the menu and learn how to cook them. So we made (and ate) shrimp spring rolls, sour soup with pineapple and shrimp, and fish fillets sauteed in ginger and onion. We’ll see whether we can actually repeat the results back home. ;-)

Actually, an even better part of the experience was getting to know the instructor a bit. She was a 20-year-old Vietnamese woman (San) who spoke pretty good English. Her personality was infectious, and she was always laughing or even singing. We went back to the same restaurant for dinner and talked with her until the restaurant was closed. We were even more impressed by her personality when she told us that she worked from 8 am to 10 pm, seven days a week. And her wages for a 98-hour week? About $30 for the month, some of which she sent home to help support her family. As Lisa said, it kind of changes your perspective when you feel overworked and underpaid.

When the evening was over, she offered us a ride back to our hotel on her motorbike. We had initially vowed to stay off these things in Vietnam, as we had seen how the traffic patterns worked and the fact that no one ever wore a helmet. But she was so excited about giving us a ride that it was hard to turn her down. And it was only a mile or so to the hotel. So Lisa got on the back of San’s bike, and I got on a bike with another restaurant employee, and off we went - speeding through the streets of Southeast Asia without a helmet. Obviously, it was perfectly fine and we were back at our hotel safe and sound in no time, plotting the next stop on our Vietnamese journey.