Hoi An 4/18/13 - 4/22/13

So after figuring out that our night bus only went from Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang, we had the fortunate (sarcasm) opportunity to spend all day and await another night bus.  We managed to move around between 2 restaurants, 3 coffee shops, and 1 hotel lobby during the 12 hour "layover".  Nha Trang is actually the largest and most well-known resort town in Vietnam.  It was definitely much more built up and urban than other beach destinations we had visited in the past, so we didn't feel like we were missing out by not spending any longer there.

Finally, we got our night sleeper bus (second night in a row) to Hoi An, but it was definitely lacking in quality and a more "lively" ride than the night before.  There was an old Vietnamese guy in the back whose cell phone was as loud as a bell tower, and then he proceeded to talk on it at a decibel level of a Van Halen concert.  At first, slightly amusing, but by the third and fourth time around midnight, not so much.  The two girls laying next to him on the three-seater row (all seats connected....talk about an awkward situation for strangers to lay next to each other) were so annoyed and were not scared of telling him to shut up.

Another side note is that the bus driver can make or break a bus trip.  At this point of our travels all of this particular driver's honking and fast curves around mountainous roads was scary, unpleasant, and definitely did not make our bus trip much fun.

Hoi An is perhaps most famous for inexpensive custom tailored clothing.  The only hard part is working your way through the gauntlet of shops (over 400 of them) and land in one you feel confident about.  Our first day, we made our way around to some of the different tailors we had researched and Matt eventually decided to get a suit and got his measurements taken.  Kristin found a certain style of dress that she wanted to have made for the wedding in which we excitedly decided to return home for.

After two days of fittings, we finally got the finishing touches on our suit and dress.  Matt's suit ended up good enough and he was looking sexy for $70.  Kristin's dress turned out nice as well, a custom made/ fit dress for $30!

Picture from friend's wedding in our new digs.

The following days were a mix of relaxing and thoroughly exploring the streets, shops, and market of Hoi An buying a few souvenir items and such (it was finally okay to buy a few things because we had less than a week left).  Hoi An is a popular tourist attraction in Vietnam thanks to the town's history, traditional architecture that has remained remarkably untouched, textiles, and ceramics.

Hoi An has a beautiful landscape at night with numerous colorful lanterns, lights, and signs.  It was very festive and we enjoyed the fun atmosphere.

A really cool part about Hoi An was the cheap beer by the glass.  5000 Dong was roughly $0.25 for a beer! We think what happens is that stores, shops, bars, etc. buy beer in bulk from a distributor and sell off the product before it goes bad.  Either way, we enjoyed the cheap beer!!

After a relaxing time in Hoi An, we boarded an overnight train to take us to our last stop on the trip, Hanoi.  We enjoyed some beautiful scenery riding along the water's edge and through the mountain side.