Hội An, Vietnam Day 14

Something you don't wake up in everyday, a bus! This is unlike anything Lucy and I have experienced before. This wasn't your ordinary bus journey, this was a sleeping bus with a toilet where the lights were dim and travellers had their own little cubicle with a reclined chair to sleep in. Given the fact we had a lot of space we were lucky enough to be able to sleep throughout most of the night and morning and when we weren't sleeping we were pretty content listening to music with our headphones in looking out the window. Due to being way behind schedule because of the rain the bus diver took it upon himself to make up for lost time and was driving at a ridiculous speed, to the point where we were bouncing off our seat over speed bumps and moving side to side on the roads - Lucy thinks she actually heard someone crying at one point because they were so terrified. We were told there would only be one break during the journey where we could grab something quick to eat before we set off again and I'm not going to lie we were expecting some sort of fast food restaurant or a coffee shop however the local lady at her little stand only had Pringles and Oreos to offer- Nutritious dinner!

Lucy and I were told we would reach Hoi An at 7am totalling a 13 hour trip from our starting point in Hanoi, however I can tell you it took us 20 hours with an extra bus ride in between which we had no idea about - luckily we had a comfy spot eh! We had an hour and a half wait in Hue which is still another 4 hours away from Hoi An. We thought we would make the most of this time as we did think about stopping and staying here in Hue for a couple of days when we first started planing our Vietnam travels and if I'm honest I'm quite glad we didn't decide to stay here as we were looking for nice beaches and a very relaxed environment which this place didn't really have. We had a quick lunch next to our pick up point (Check out meal 19 on our eat page!) and waited for the next bus to arrive- only 4 more hours to go!

We arrived in Hoi An early evening desperate to get to the hostel and shower after spending almost a full day on a grubby bus. As we jumped off at the bus stop on the side of the road multiple middle aged Vietnamese men were already in our ears annoyingly shouting "Where you go?" over and over. After mentioning we were going to the Sunflower Hotel this one man said it was over 3 kilometres away and would be 100,000 dong for both of us (expensive in Vietnam). He was very persistent with wanting to take us trying to grab our bags to put them on his moped before we walked away repeatedly saying no. Still standing at the bus stop Lucy decided to put the name of our hostel into Google Maps only for it to come up that it was in fact a three minute walk from where we were and that this guy would have probably driven us round for 10 minutes before dropping us literally next door to where we are now. So that was lesson 1 in Hội An - do not trust the moped taxis as they will without a doubt rip you off.

When we arrived at our hostel we were very impressed with how clean and spacious it was, we have a lovely private room to ourselves too. After freshening up we walked down to where we had been recommended to eat (after getting lost for about an hour we finally got there - check out Meal 20 for our thoughts on our first Hội An meal).

Overall our first impressions of Hoi An were great as it was so clean, the streets were covered in beautiful lanterns, the people seem a lot kinder and all in all the place had a fantastic vibe. We are so happy we chose Hội An to be the next part of our journey!