Leaving Hoi An

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2006--Hoi An (Cont.)

I went out in the evening to find the family and their sidewalk restaurant and no one was there! I was so surprised and disappointed. Maybe they are only open during the daytime except during the Full Moon Festival night.

I went to a nearby restaurant recommended by my guidebook. I had visited with their hostess a couple of times and was feeling guilty that I hadn't eaten there yet. I ordered pork satay. I was surprised when it proved to be nothing like satay in Thailand. The only thing it had in common was the peanuts. Here, she bought me a bowl of rice and a plate with a banana leaf pocket on it. She removed the parts of the banana leaf except for the base. Inside was a big, retangular-shaped patty made from ground pork, peanuts, onions, and other ingredients. I was given a small bowl, so I knew to put a little rice in the bowl and put part of the satay on top of it. I then flavoried it with a little soy sauce and a little chile sauce. It was very tasty.

Friday, Sept. 8, 2006--Hoi Ann, My Son, and the bus to Nha Trang

I was up at 6 this morning, since I needed to catch a bus at 8. I had to bathe, pack, and checkout in advance of leaving on the bus, because I will be traveling tonight to another city.

They picked me up right on time at the hotel and took me to the tour bus office. But there, I was told I had been sold! Actually, what had happened is that they had overbooked by two people more than their buses could handle, and two people were not enough to pay for another bus and guide. So they called another travel agency who had empty seats on an almost-full bus and let them have our business. So I was off on a motorcycle to be delivered to the other agency for departure from there.

It's about an hour or more to get from Hoi An to My Son. My Son is a small village around the ruins of an old Cham religious site. It's the Vietnamese version of the ruins I have visited before in places like Sukothai in Thailand, Bagan in Myanmar, etc. But it is a much smaller area of ruins. I don't like tours, but this one wasn't too bad. We went directly there. They had us wait at a shop while the guide showed us where we would be walking on a map and then went to get out entry tickets. Then we had to go as a group into the ruins taking jeeps provided by the site to get us up in the hills. A dance and music performance had just started when we arrived, so we all sat under the thatched roof and watched it before entering the ruins. The dances and music are supposed to represent those of the Cham people. The customes were very nice, and the performers were good. It was much like watching Ballet Folklorio from Mexico City or the Filipino dance troup that tours the world all the time. (In other words, the dances were creative, but I'm not sure how authentic they are to what used to happen in the Cham culture.) We all walked up to the ruins as a group. After a few minutes of talking, the guide told us it was free time for us to roam on our own and that we should meet back at the bus at noon. I was very relieved. I just do not like being trapped with a group. I took some photos and looked around, but there really wasn't that much to see.

I was the first back at the restaurant where the bus was waiting. Two different guides who were waiting there for their tourists they had brought on motorcycles talked to me trying to convince me to hire them to take me around Vietnam for the remainder of my time here. I declined both. Then a woman in our group walked up and sat at the table in the restaurant with me. She layed her Rough Guide guidebook on the table, so I thought I would tease her. I said, "You're not in step with everyone else with that guidebook!" meaning that 90-95% of all tourists carry Lonely Planet guidebooks today. Then I smiled as I pulled my torn-out pages on the table and said, "I'm using Rough Guide, too." I asked her where she was from and was totally surprised when she said, "Denmark." I hadn't detected a Danish accent (but boy did she have a good one as we talked longer). I surprised her by asking her in Danish where she was from in Denmark. It had been totally unexpected since she had heard my American accent. She and I visited the rest of the time there and on the bus all the way back into town.

Her name is Frederica. She's a lawyer for the government, having finished law school about 3 years ago. I told her about my friend Helle to see if she might know her, but she didn't. As time passed, I gave her Helle's name and phone number, because I thought they might enjoy meeting. My guess is that they are near the same age. She wants to change her job in some way, so we talked about that. She said she had been thinking of taking some time off and working at a children's home, and I told her about St. Joseph's International Academy in India where I was last year. Then we spent most of the rest of our time talking about the around-the-world tickets. I get the impression she will work for a year or two saving money and then will buy an ATW ticket and travel for 6 months or a year with a stop in India to volunteer at the school.

When we got back to town, I went looking for the sidewalk restaurant operated by the family, and it still wasn't there. It was already 1:30 p.m., so maybe they close it by 1 or even earlier. I needed to eat, however, and I wanted to stop by the cyber cafe, so I walked down the street toward it. I came to a restaurant I had seen before and stopped to look at the menu. That reminded me that there is a local dish called cau lau that I still hadn't tried, so I ordered it. It is made with thick white noodles. When it came, I couldn't see the noodles. They were in the bottom of the bowl. Covering them on top were slices of beef, pieces of green lettuce, slices of onions, slices of garlic, and small pieces of very crispy croutons. The lady pointed to the soy sauce and the chile sauce to let me know that I should use them when eating it. Psquirted both sauces on top and then mixed everything in the bowl with my chopsticks. Then I started eating. UMMMM! It was such a good dish. In the bottom of the bowl there had been some of the juices from the meat to also flavor it all. Afterwards, she brought me a glass mug of hot tea and a small plate with sliced banana. After enjoying all of that, I got the bill: 55 cents U.S. This is a good place to eat. Why do Vietnamese restaurants always cost so much in the U.S.? I understand that they can't charge 55 cents, but they always seem to be at least $2-3 more than Mexican restaurants for lunch. It doesn't seem to make sense, since their dishes are so simple (but good).

Well, now I have to wait. It is 3 p.m. My bus for Nha Trang, a beach resort south of here, doesn't leave until 8 p.m. So I have 5 hours to pass. I will stay here in the cyber cafe for a while. And then I will sit in the lobby of my hotel until the bus comes tonight. I am reading a book, so I can pass the time with lots of reading, I guess.

By the way, here are two links to hotels so you can see where I am staying:

Hai Au Hotel, Hoi An (Where I have been staying this week here in Hoi An)

Perfume Grass Inn, Nha Trang (Where I will be staying for the next 3 nights)

I hope those links work.