Bike Ride

June 8

When we arrived in Hoi An, I think it was around 7:30am and we went straight to the hotel. We actually arrived in Denang and had to take an hour bus ride to the hotel. Denang was pretty cool looking. It is a city that is known for its bridges and there was a bright yellow dragon bridge that caught my eye. I wasnt able to get the best photo if it though. Our rooms weren't ready yet so we paid $3 (60,000 dong) to waste time and eat from their breakfast buffet. Seriously, I don't know how Asian people eat rice and noodles for breakfast. I guess it makes sense since a lot of them have to work in the fields but holy moly it's terrible.

The hotel was really nice. There was also a really nice pool in the front which I didn't end up using. After breakfast our rooms still weren't ready so we freshened up as much as we could in the bathroom. I basically out in contacts and applied some deodorant. I was sweating like a pig even just sitting there so nothing else seemed like it would make me feel any better. Matt wanted to get us to the tailors right away so they had enough time to measure us and get us in for a refitting and finalize the clothing.

Hoi An is famous for tailors and recreating any clothing you want that is tailor fit to you. A lot of girls had certain dresses they already wanted picked out. Of course I didn't because I didn't even know that tailors were popular in Hoi An. I wasn't sure if I was going to get anything or not. Silly me, ha.

Obviously I bought something. Not just 1 thing. Not just 2 things. Not even just 3 things. I bought 4 things. But okay, like I didn't see that coming. There was a cute skirt I saw the second I walked in. And then a nice black dress in a magazine. And then 2 Asian style shirts caught my eye later. I was actually only looking at 1 of the shirts but she wanted to make 2 and I got a "better deal". I wasn't too sure about any of them. It's really strange to get clothing when you haven't tried it on and have no idea what it will even look like. I was really nervous about the Asian style shirts because I couldn't try them on to see if the style would look okay on me. I had been able to try the skirt on and I was pretty confident in the dress because I thought the style was pretty classic and knew that the square neckline and shape of the dress was already a style that looked good on me.

Going to the tailor was an experience. First of all, there were 16 of us all trying to get tailor made clothing. They brought out a bunch of books of different styles of clothing for us to look through. Like stacks upon stacks. Also, they're all in your face trying to get you to buy something, or another thing if you already have something. They did give us free water and beer though so that was kind cool I guess. We also received lychees.

My 4 things came out to $150. I didn't try to haggle with them but some people did. I was still getting a good deal I though. Each thing was about 37$ and it would fit perfectly. Later, we found out there were many other cheap tailors. Matt had told us that he wasn't sure about the quality of the stitching at other places and people have had problems in the past so I was skeptical to go to other shops. I think it probably would have been fine. Some other people went to a different tailor shop the night we were leaving and got dresses made in 2 hours for about half the price of the tailor Matt took us to. 2 hours! Who knew that was even possible.

I'm kinda bummed now that I didn't think about getting a nice jacket or something made. There were some really cute designs at other shops but it was so hot I don't think I was really thinking about wool jackets lol. I also now need to not gain or lose any weight. At least if I lose weight I can get the clothing taken in.

I still left the tailor shop feeling completely unsure about my decisions and I didn't have enough money with me to pay the deposit so I payed for everything upfront on my credit card. Matt reassured me that if I didn't like the clothing when I came back that they are really good about refunding the money. That still didn't completely ease my nerves. I was told to come back for a refitting at 5pm the next day.

After the tailor shop, Matt took us to see where we were going to do our cooking class the next day. The original place didn't have a menu that everyone was happy with so Matt went out while we were at the tailor to find a new place. The menu was good and everyone agreed on it so we ended up doing the cooking class there. I think it was called The Green Mango.

After signing up for the class, we walked around the street shops for a bit. Matt said that Hoi An is a UNESCO world heritage sight so none of the buildings can be changed and the shop owners have to spend a certain amount of money a year making sure the shop looks exactly the way it did forever ago. The streets are definitely really cute but I didn't really notice any crazy architecture. It was actual buildings rather than just stalls so maybe that was why. I don't think it compares to some European cities that have their original architecture. I liked Hoi An at night the best I think.

We grabbed lunch at a small restaurant overlooking the river. The view wasn't spectacular. The river ran through the city so there weren't mountains or islands or beaches to look at. I got my lunch to go (or take away as British English calls it) because I wasn't hungry. I then went back to the hotel and rested for a few hours before we met to head to the beach.

We didn't just take any normal transportation to the beach. We each paid $1 to essentially almost die. No, just kidding. But that is what we joked about. We all rented our own bicycles! No helmets folks! Helmets are only required on motorbikes in Vietnam.

The bikes were pretty shitty but they got us from point a to point b. Anytime you put the brakes on it squealed and on some of the bikes only one of the brakes worked. Luckily, you could adjust the seats so I was able to lower the seat so I could actually touch the ground.

Matt was our guide for this little excursion. It was actually kinda scary. It was really cool to be like oh yeah we're biking to the beach with all the Vietnamese traffic! But there aren't really any rules so that made it a bit unsettling.

I think he said the ride was 4km? I think the worst parts were when we had to cross lanes (because even though there are 2 lanes there are so many motor bikes and bicycles filling in the space rather than the 2 lanes of cars so you end up having to cross like 4 or 5 lanes of motor bikes and you don't have side mirrors. We also didn't have bells on all of our bikes! When we first started we had to go across the street and then cross lanes of traffic to turn left because we had to stop off at an ATM. I couldn't really signal with my hand and we just went. Ha. It was crazy), and when we had to go over a bridge that was pretty small with the sidewalk part (I felt like I didn't have any room to really mess up because if I went a little off course than I would have gone over the side into the traffic. It was 4pm so there were a fair amount of people on the streets. I think the only reason we went on the sidewalk on the Bridge was so that we could stop and take pictures. There were some fishing traps in the water on one side and some boats and nice scenery with the light on the water on the other side.

To get to the beach we had to bike through the countryside. It was so cool. I ended up using one hand almost the whole time because I was taking pictures and video. There were rice patty fields and all the farmers were out in them working. It's beautiful. And for some reason the fact that they are working out there with the traditional pointy Vietnamese hats makes the photographs even that much cooler.

The cars, buses, trucks, and especially motorbikes get really close to you. I don't think riding with one hand at those times was the best idea. I felt like I kept swerving because I wasn't expecting the vehicles to come up so close to me!

When we got to the beach we parked our bikes in a parking area. It's not like our parking lots haha. It's a smaller area and the bikes and motorbikes are all pretty close to each other. I can't remember how much we had to pay but I don't think it was that much. Maybe 3,000 dong each? The people running the lot used chalk to mark in the seats and have Matt a ticket. They don't chain them or anything. Although, I don't know who would have wanted those bikes haha. But it didn't even look like they chained the motorbikes.

The beach area was lined with restaurants. Matt took us to a really nicely designed area. There was a bar and a lot of chairs and tables. There were also really cool areas to sit surrounding the area like on a swinging thing or in a little boat with a wooden awning, or in little areas on the side that were wooden and covered. The area was also covered in grass and there was a pool table! To get down to the beach you just had to walk down a few stairs.

The beach was sandy white and the water was cool! You don't even know how big of a deal that is! All the water we have seam in has been pretty warm or hot. It was great. So refreshing to be in cool water.

I ordered watermelon juice. I don't know why we don't have this more places in the states. It's incredibly refreshing. I think I gulped it down in a minute or two! Robby and Zara ordered a mixed bruschetta dish that looked amazing and I ended up getting Mars to split it with me. It was toasted pieces of baguette with tomato mix on one (fresh tomatoes and great seasonings), avocados on another, and I think roasted sweet peppers (red and yellow) on one.

While we were hanging out Courtney noticed that the sky was different colors in one spot. We were all trying to take pictures of it. It was green and pink and yellow. Then, we went down on the beach and realized there was a whole area of he sky where this was happening. It was crazy. There were more colors like purple and blue too. I got some great photos of it on my camera too. We were all mesmerized by it. I don't know what the northern lights look like but someone said it was kind of like that. It was really cool to see.

For some reason, when we headed back one of the groups really seemed to want to head back to the hotel right away. I think they really wanted to get back quicker so they had some time to change before going to dinner and get all dressed up. Some of the girls wear make up still and brought cute, classy dresses. So they wanted to get all dolled up. They left maybe 5 minutes before we did because they were in such a rush.

It kinda sucked for me that that happened because someone ended up taking my bike. It doesn't seem like it would be a big deal but the seat was adjusted for my height and the smallest bike that was left was still not good news for me. I could barely touch my feet to the ground when I was on my tip toes. I was kind of annoyed because it made stopping at lights (that may be the only rule that exists) very difficult. If there was a curb I could go close to it and put my one leg on the curb. It was really difficult to start peddling again too. The funniest part was that we got back maybe 10 minutes before them still. We basically rode in a line behind Matt. Andy was in front of me and he almost wiped out a few times. I was so nervous for him.

It's kind of a bummer because the group is a lot more divided now. We don't always do everything together and people aren't all good friends. There are a lot of people I don't really know too much about and haven't really said too much to. I think it's even more divided than my group in India and Nepal were. Even though there was a clear division in that group I still talked to everyone and hung out with everyone a fair amount.

We regrouped half an hour later for dinner at 8pm and we walked down to the river front again which was only about a 15 or 20 minute walk from the hotel. As I mentioned earlier, the streets of Hoi An at night are so beautiful. It has a really homey, small town feel. The streets have lanterns strung across them from building to building. It's very nice.

The restaurant had traditional Hoi An food and I wanted to try that. There were 4 dishes that were the Hoi An specialties and I tried 3 of them. There were 2 noodle dishes but Matt recommended one of them so I got that one, and so did Mars (we were sharing the other 2 dishes). So we didn't get to try the other noodle dish but it actually looked really good. The description made it sound like it was just noodles and vegetables in a prawn broth. It actually had prawns in it though and it looked great. It was called mi quang noodles. The noodle dish we had was called cau lau noodles (mi cau lau). It was doughy noodles with pork char siu stock, pork slices and vegetables. We also split the white rose dish and the wontons. The white rose (Banh hao Banh vac) was a Hoi An style dressing with pork core and crispy onion dressing. They were steamed and small. We also shared the wontons (hoanh thanh chien). These weren't wontons like at home. it was the same coating but it was flat and had everything layered on top of it. It was the fried crispy wonton goodness with crabmeat, onion, and tomato salad on top of it. They tasted great. it was actually shreds of crab meat instead of the crab meat and cream cheese we have at home. The food was amazing. It's so flavorful. Vietnamese food has by far been the best food so far.

After dinner I headed back to the hotel to rest and sleep but some people went out. I had to be up early to go abseiling in the morning and i didn't want to take the risk of ruining that experience with a hangover. The next day it sounded crazy. They basically went to a place where you paid $5/100,000 dong for drinks and you could order whatever you wanted the whole night without paying anything else. I think it was probably good I didn't go. Matt told us the next morning that he was concerned about charley so he had stayed out to make sure she was safe. I'm sure people probably had a lot to drink. That's crazy cheap!

Random comment:
People seem like likely to haggle with you in Vietnam than they have been in the other countries. For example, if you try to bargain down they don't go much lower most often than their original price. Leanne tried to bargain for a bracelet and once the lady said no she put the bracelet back on the key ring and walked away without even giving Leanne the chance to say she still wanted the bracelet. It was strange.