a cabbie ended up letting us use his cell phone to get a hold of our hotel to see what was happening. a few phone calls later the hotel told us to use this driver. (keep in mind there were a few fake phone calls the driver placed to our hotel so iw asn't sure what was true). a little leary we agreed on a price (250 dong) and stepped into the cab.
when we got to the hotel the driver demanded 350 dong instead of the 250 we agreed to. 50 extra for the phone use and an additional 50 for no getting us there alive? i gave him 300 and said i would pay for phone (i was like whatever at this point) but that was it. he was NOT happy with that.
the hotel would not step in so i went inside and asked them what they would do. they told us to just go to our room and ignore him. when i waved roel over (he was waiting by the cab) the driver stood in front of him and pushed him back. the employees found this funny....us not so much. after some further coaching from the front desk i went down to the the guy and said he could have 20 more or he gets nothing. i was ready to rumble at this point if he pushed again. he took it, grumbled something and went off. welcome to hoi an!
ironically enough this ended up being our favourite stop so far in vietnam. a very charming town. heavily shaped by the french. narrow streets with some beautiful old buildings and multi level restaurants with balconies open to the streets. the only downside is that it was mid thirties or more everyday with very high humidity of course. luckily we found a new resort about a 10 min walk from the centre of town that had two less desirable rooms near the lobby for really cheap. beautiful pool area and amazing buffet breakfast included. this buffet was heaven sent. it gave us real clean food to start our day. invaluable.
another interesting thing to note is that this is the first place that didn't understand why we wanted one queen bed instead of two singles. they were very nice people and thought they were doing us a favour. eventually they put it together and had a good giggle and were perfectly fine with it. haha most places don't even think twice about us sharing a bed.
finding relief from the sun in the alley on a HOT day.
very relaxed dining along the river that ran through town. lined with restaurants and coloutful lights along each bank. this is the bridge that connects the two banks. it's still lit up from tet (vietnamese version of chinese new year).
hoi an is also the capitol of tailor made anything. we both designed shoes in the morning and picked them up at night for $15/pair. not the best quality but they're really cute and were a lot of fun to design. sorry, no pictures. you'll have to come and visit us to see them! roel also got swim shorts made in anticipation of our time on the beach in thailand.
we did a day trip to my son. it was an important site as far as the war was conerned (one of the areas the US made little progress in). lack of progress partly attributed to the fact they thought the VC were hiding in old ruins (they weren't). more importanly this sight is home to the most extensive remains of the cham empire (7 AD). they are now an ethnic minority that originally came from java (indonesia). the cham people were originally hindu (most now live in the mekong delta ..we were there already!.. and are buddhist).
much of the ruins are now in even further ruins due to the extensive bombimg during the war.
roel posing with a large linga. (very important male part in hindu worship)
we also went to the marble mountains for a morning trip before it got too warm for the day. aptly named, they are huge slabs of marble that used to be islands in the ocean - now mountains on land. beautiful hiking with marble steps carved from the mountain, amazing caves with giant religious carvings, pagodas and courtyards along the hike as well. at one point we even found a little hole at the end of a cave that led to a beautiful lookout point to the coast.
enough for hoi an. i have to catch up on my posts!!
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