We arrive in Da Nang, after having sat on the tarmac for an hour, due some official looking people in black vehicles blocking our planes path. My guide here for a day is Hue and he is waiting for me. We head to Hoi An which is another world heritage site, and it is teaming with Australians.
After dinner I set out to find the famous lanterns of Hoi An, and the night markets.
I ran into two Aussies I met on the plane for the second time, I saw them again the first time at Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. I also ran into a German couple again at the night markets, after meeting them for on the boat at Halong Bay. A busker playing his version of a digeridoo for booze money, also Australian. A lass that invited me into Moes Tavern for a drink, working there to cover her accommodation was Australian, she promised me that my free drink was not an ethanol colada. It wasn’t. I came across a few interesting bar names along the river bank, Mr Bean Bar was a tourist favourite.
Hoi An is spectacular by night, and although it’s crowded the atmosphere is not spoiled by this. I walked quite far in the cool evening, and the sight of paper lanterns floating in the river was magical.
The next day I set out for old town again, to see the Japanese Bridge and the usual tourist traps in the day light. 
After lunch at a Vietnamese/Mexican restaurant (now those guys know how to chilli), I found myself wandering the alleys and ‘Little Japan’.
I decided to take a rickshaw back to the hotel and get a massage before tomorrow’s flight. Hands down the best massage I’ve ever had, although I wasn’t expecting the lady to hop up on the table and sit/climb all over me, but damn she was good. I must have chilled out after that massage for a good two hours. Even with music playing from the town loud speakers.
The music finally stopped sometime near midnight and cranked up again at 5am. A funeral procession was passing by, my inner photographer wanted to take pictures, but the people looked so gutted I just couldn’t.
I’m finding the huge level of consumerism in Vietnam disturbing. These guys are/were communists right? Everyone is either selling or buying. Everyone’s house has a shop front. Rubbish drifts up against buildings everywhere, even out in the rice paddies near Hanoi there was rubbish. And then they buy stuff to burn for Tet in mass quantities. I get a sense that minimalism is not that popular here. 
Off to Da Nang today to fly to Saigon. I enjoyed wandering the streets of Hoi An, if I ever come back to Vietnam I’d visit this spot again. I’ve attached a slide show of some of my pictures of old town Hoi An for you all. C.
Living Learning Exploring 
Leave a comment