We arrived in Hoi An this morning at 7:00am, exactly 24 hours after we stepped onto the bus in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday. This was not the brutal travel experience you are anticipating. The buses were clean and comfortable---far more so than in the states---and we were given multiple breaks to stretch our legs (and support the local economy, natch). I can highly recommend the sleeper bus they loaded us onto in Nha Trang for the final 12 hour stretch... horizontal bus rides are much more pleasant than they sound!
The best part was the chance to see Vietnam outside of the city. The more I travel the more the world completely fails to be exotic. The countryside here---changing from dry and rocky near the south into wet, lush agricultural land towards the north---reminds me of my rural home, except with rice paddies instead of hay fields. It's what comes between the major tourist sites that continues to fascinate me. Despite differences of culture and aesthetic, nothing here seems foreign. The impulses that drive everyday life are the same. Mark Twain's quote comes to mind often: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
While Vietnam seems to be very comfortable with tourism and most of the cities and towns we are planning to visit are very much on the tourist circuit, I was grateful yesterday to glimpse the regular lives of the Vietnamese along the roadside. While we are here in Hoi An (if it ever stops raining!) we hope to break out a bit on our own to see the countryside. Every few hundred feet on the highway are open-sided, thatch-roof "rest stops" with a dozen or so hamocks and a small food area. How wonderful would it be to cruise around this country on a motorbike using these rest stops to support us? (Don't worry Mom and Marlene, we are NOT going to go motorbiking!)
It promises to rain in Hoi An for the next four days, which should give us plenty of time to figure out how to upload pictures. More soon!
From: Gillian
