Merry Christmas
Monday, December 29th, 2008It was a dark and rainy night. And then it was a rainy morning followed by a rainy afternoon and then it kept raining and its still raining. That was Christmas in Hoi An followed by Da Nang, and now in Hue. Rain made Christmas kind of poopy.
Christmas wasn’t a huge event, a few of the retail stores and tourist places started to put up some Christmas decorations about two weeks before the actual day versus I guess Halloween in the US. The city put up a few streets worth of lights and Heineken sponsored all these cool two story high Christmas trees made up of lit up beer bottles. Some kids went the extra mile and donned Santa suits which looked pretty cute as they were transported around on mopeds. Beyond that a pretty low holiday season.
Hoi An was a bit of R&R as it is probably one of the more tourist heavy locations in Vietnam. Usually what that means is you have very western facilities and a good range of cheap good accommodations. Riding in on the Minsk is pretty high profile as they are noisy and generate a nice trail of smoke. Anything with a suspension is out of the ordinary and when the moto taxi guys see it they all come over to check it out. After talking to a few and them getting the idea that I wasn’t looking for any hotel with a star attached to it they sent me down one of the off streets where I booked into a nice small guest house/hotel. A nice clean room, hot shower, only a couple of English channels (bummer) and free wifi all for $8US. As soon as I got settled I scouted around and found my three places to eat where I would continually go to throughout my visit. Heading down to the docks you really get the sense of how touristy the place is. Hoi An on its own was a very important shipping port and culture thrived here. The buildings are of still classic style and with the money from tourism, it is probably the most maintained. It is basically a glam heritage site full of cafes, shops, and restaurants. The waterfront is really very beautiful and relaxing as the canals are all done up for strolling. Other than that, it was really quiet as tourism must have dropped like a stone after the economic downturn. I would guess that they have had to have lost more than 50% as it is extremely quiet and this is supposed to be the high season. Not good for the locals, but I imagine it is now good for anyone.
I was originally going to spend just a few days but the day after X-mas, the rain was still coming down strong and even though it was only 35 kms to Danang, I just hate riding in the rain. It was three days later when I just sucked it up and rode off in the pouring rain.
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Danang is not a tourist town but is Vietnams fourth largest city and the Centrals economic powerhouse. I was just going to spend a night or two there as it was known as the Saigon of the North during its day and a popular American R&R place during the war. To get to Danang I took the beach access road along the South China Sea and drove along China Beach. China Beach was the location that the tv show “China Beach” with Dana Delaney was filmed. Nothing to extraordinary as the same style beach runs the whole north to south of Vietnam. I liked that tv show so it made a check off. The other notable stop was the Marble mountains which were a couple of all marble uprisings along the coastline. Not really too much of interest to me and absolutely no appeal during the rain so it was just a quick drive by. Danang turned out to be a nice place as the hotel I stayed was right on the river with a pleasant boardwalk. Again, the rain ruined all that so it was just a place to drop the bags. I did have a really strong cup of coffee while lounging the rain away. Talk about strong. I am off of caffeine again and man that cup made my eyeballs dance.
The Christmas light shot at the top was the last for my trusty camera as the soaking of the rain that night just killed it (again). This time I am not going to bother trying to get it fixed as I have been thinking that a smaller pocket camera might be better as at the moment I am not taking any pictures because I am packing the camera into my small pack and unlike my other ride I have to bungee strap this one to the top of my other pack and it is just a hassle getting it out when I am on the road. In Hue I will see if I can pick up a new camera and I have a feeling the blog will pick up again as I will have more to show and have to write less.
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From Danang it was six hours of rain surfing to Hue where I was going to drop anchor for possibly the New Years as I had to work on getting a visa extension and would also mark my re-entry back into the highlands as I try to avoid the NH1 for the rest of the ride to the north. There isn’t much resorty places in the hills, so I was going to soak up as much relax time as possible before going for a long and I am assuming a wet ride. And that gets me up to date. The rain is a big downer and it doesn’t look like its going to stop so just going to have to suck it up as I only have thirty days to get up to the north, do a circuit, and get to Laos.
Interesting stuff:
Discovery Channel. I am actually learning useful stuff by watching tv, who would have thought.
Google Earth. Something useful on the net not porn related. Pretty cool technology. I can see my parents house and my dads Forerunner in the drive way. There is even a photo shot taken on the street right in front of the house where I lived in Key West. Great fun as I can use it to figure out routes as I am traveling. Hell, I could have just stayed home and traveled the world just by using this site. Highly recommended. Just plug in your address and you can get a satellite photo of your house.