Given our transport experiences in recent weeks, we took a while deciding on how best to head south. Despite the cheap price, ‘Open style’ buses seem to get a hard time amongst travellers. They took the rather boring highway, stopping in Danang at various hotels ( from which they get commission) to pick up extra seat fillers. We settled on getting the soft seat train; mixing it with the locals as the train snakes along the coast and up through a mountain pass. As with the previous train, an hour was spent waiting for a late train. Our seats though were on the left side; giving us a great view as we cruised (sometimes at walking pace) along the coast, directly above beautiful coves. It was great to mix with local travellers; children running up and down the aisle, food service carts rushing through the carriage, not a tourist in sight. The best camera point for photos outside however was the toilet window, a difficult vantage point given the frequent puddles and sticky walls.
It was a great experience; getting off the well travelled path.
We arrived at Danang train station over an hour late, meaning our transfer car was long gone. I managed to borrow a phone from a nice Vietnamese guy and called the agent we booked through who promptly reorganised things – back on track.
Danang is a massive city on the coast, originally the main staging base during the Vietnam war for the US military. There is a massive growth of industry and tourism here; the famous China Beach now covered in massive resorts with names such as ‘White dove hotel’ and ‘Four you 4U hotel’.
Our diver had typical Top Gun sun glasses on, whilst his car was decked out with plastic on the roof and seats in an effort to preserve it in mint condition. We have definitely got use to driving here. It’s as if round-a-bouts go the other way; you enter and everyone coming around gives way. It’s also nearly a requirement to spend half the time on the other side of the road. One thing familiar to me from living in Singapore is ‘jolty drivers’. The accelerator is not something to be stroked like a Persian cat; pick a speed and stick to it. Despite the apparent chaos, everyone drives at reasonable speeds; we have yet to see a accident – fingers crossed.
We finally made it to Hoi An, a whole hour ahead of the open bus we would have taken. That evening we bumped into some friends from our cruise in Halong bay who had taken the bus; we had made a good choice – the bus had turned into a seven hour epic with no aircon.

Hoi An is a delightful town on the Thu Bon river, with ‘800 historical buildings’ in the old town that have been protected under UNESCO. I had visited Hoi An many years ago with my family, so it was nice to see the small alley ways, beautiful French-Vietnamese old houses and enjoy the cafes on the river again. It’s a fascinating place.

By now we had been travelling for 4 months, covered huge distances, and at times not had a day where we simply relaxed and did visit anywhere. It seems like a waste – time off from work, you’re on ‘holiday’ in a new country – and all you want to do is have a break . Those who have travelled for extended periods know however that ‘travel fatigue’ is a massive risk if you continually push things – we had developed it. It was a difficult situation too, as I was having constantly having to contact New Zealand about a work contract that I had been promised verbally that took a long time to materialise on paper.
John Simpson, the celebrated BBC corespondent in a book about his travels stated that
…. ‘serious travel is never rarely comfortable, and is rarely accompanied by champagne; unless, that is, you have bought your own. Serious travelling is difficult, and the enjoyment is in direct proportion to the degree of difficulty. By which I mean, it only starts to be really enjoyable once its over.’
In the end, we decided that spending a few extra days in one place was time well spent ! Hoi an was definitely a place you could do this. Bring it on 🙂