All set for Tet

We arrived in Hue, Vietnam's capital, and only had one day to wander around this little city. We visited a famous pagoda, beautifully situated on top of a hill, surrounded by water. The grounds contained gorgeous temples, an ancient tower and an old Austin mini. Yes, an Austin mini. It sits on display, because a now famous monk drove it to Saigon 40 years ago, parked outside of a government building and set himself on fire to protest religious oppression. I guess that's one way to do it. As the sun was setting, all the child monks gathered in one of the temples and started clanging a gong while chanting. The sound was so beautiful and haunting, we stood for ages listening.

From Hue to Hoi An. I know, they all sound the same. We still get mixed up too. Now, what is Hoi An famous for? Well... its hundreds, no, thousands of tailor shops situated pretty much everywhere you go. These tailors will make anything you could possibly imagine, made to fit like a glove and for dirt cheap prices. Unfortunately, we arrived just in time for Tet (New Year). Oh Tet! How it plagued us so. We were warned that everything would be shutting down for ten days, so thought Hoi An would be a nice place to hang out because of its beaches. We also wanted to get clothing made, but soon realized that 95% of the shops were closed for the holiday. On top of that, prices flew up everywhere because hardly anywhere was open and supplies were limited. Whatever didn't work out for us there, the excuse was Tet, whether or not that was actually the reason. I must admit, it was a confusing few days. We'd walk into a shop that was clearly open, and the whole family would be sitting on the floor eating, which is not unusual, but would announce they were closed. In Asia, we'll walk into a store at any time of day, and we will almost certainly walk right into a family meal being eaten right on the shop floor, leaving us feeling like we're constantly interrupting their family time, just because we need to buy toilet paper. So it was hit and miss until Ian and I found a couple tailors who would make our things. In the end we each got a couple Italian cashmere and wool suits done for under $100 each! We're not exactly sure where we're going to wear them, but gosh, they are beautiful.

Our second day there we got up while it was still dark out, with our friends Scott and Reinira , we hopped on motorbikes and drove the hour to My Son to see the sunrise. Well, we missed sunrise but spent the morning wandering around the ancient temple ruins dating back to the 8th century! Hard to believe that something that old can still exist!

That afternoon we went to China Beach, made famous from the T.V. series in the 80's. No, I don't remember it either. But it is a beautiful beach, and one of the few that haven't been turned into a garbage dump. It is shocking how environmentally careless people are here, although we figure that if animals and humans don't even have rights in this country, the environment doesn't stand a chance. Everyone just throws everything everywhere! We'd be on the most beautiful, secluded hike and be stepping over garbage the whole way, or on a beach and actually have to clear a spot on the sand from empty bottles and wrappers. It made us so angry how they're destroying such a gorgeous country and they just don't care! So, we were enjoying our day on China Beach and because of Tet everything on the beach was closed, of course. Out of no where a security guard from a resort down the beach spotted us and walked over to demand money for parking our bikes by the closed restaurant we were in front of. We stared at him in disbelief since the restaurant we were parked by had nothing to do with the resort he was from. When he became more demanding about giving him money, that would obviously go straight into his pocket, disgusted, we packed up our things and left. Another beautiful day ended off with harassment from a local. What else is new?

Things got worse when I got sick, and in Asia when you get sick, you get really sick. We came to the conclusion that I'd contracted hook worm (Nice.), which is extremely common in Vietnam and can be picked up from anything, so my chances were pretty good. Just another casualty of Vietnam. Can this country get any better?! Fortunately, I got better just in time for New Years eve. We went out with Scott and Reinira and watched some hilarious live dance shows that weren't actually supposed to be funny. We then watched the longest fireworks display any of us had ever seen, not because there were a lot of fireworks, they were very small, in fact. After each display, it was almost like they'd have to reload, so six different times, what seemed to be the last firework would go off, then silence, everyone would cheer, the crowd would start to disperse, then suddenly they would start going off again. Six times. By the end we were killing ourselves laughing.

After six days in Hoi An, the longest we had stayed anywhere, it was time to leave. We went to the bus station and sat across the road having something to eat while we waited. Our bus pulled up and everyone started putting their bags on. We still had five minutes so we went back to get our food packed up, when all of a sudden our bus took off! Ian ran over and what we found out later had happened, was they decided to switch buses, so unloaded everyone and their bags back off the bus. Since we had stepped away, our bags remained on that bus! Ian took off like lightening! He actually jumped onto the back of some random man's motorbike and yelled, "Follow that bus!" So he did. He and Ian flew through four sets of lights before Ian jumped off and ran in front of the bus to stop it. And yes, this is a true story. It could have ended horribly, but Ian saved the day! He's grinning right now, reading this. Oh the excitement!