On motorbikes from Hoi An to My Son and the beach

Motorbikes are essential in Vietnam and probably the best way to move around in the busy chaotic city traffic and in the suburbs. We were not very sure about the idea of renting a motorbike in Hanoi because of the extreme intensity of the traffic their, but Hoi An seemed like a perfect place to gain some motorbiking experience. 

The rental "office", consisting of three guys hanging out on the street, was just in front of the hotel and the personnel assured us that we will not be disappointed. The motorbikes were much cheaper than we expected - 4$ per bike for the whole day, excluding the gas money. We had to stop at the gas station later on to refuel and were offered an escort for free.


Click on the photo for larger pics

One of the guys drew us a map on how to get to My Son, which turned out very accurate later on, another one explained how to start/switch off the engine and how to honk, the most important skill of all :-)) Vietnamese honk all the time without any apparent reason and we did the same just to get even. The reaction was lots of smiles and waves :-))

After 30 min we were all set to go.
We wanted to see the My Son temples, or what was left of them. They are situated 40 km outside of Hoi An and as was mentioned before, we got the map from the guys who rented us the motorbikes. On the way we got to see some rural countryside.

We got to My Son an hour later.

As it turned out, of the several so called temples, there is only one actually worth seeing.

The rest of the ruins are mostly a few stones lying around in small groups.

Although butterflies flying around seem to like them a lot.

Altogether, My Son alone would probably be something that can be easily taken off the itinerary, but just driving around the country side was absolutely fun and we enjoyed it enormously.

 

On the way back from My Son we decided to drive to the beach to see where to go the next day. On the way we stopped at the river to see the sun going down.

And finally, there was the sea...

Vietnamese fishermen use round boats when fishing, but I have no idea why... It was funny though, because I've never seen a round boat before. They looked more like huge pots than boats :-))

The guys wanted to try the water...

... and Lena was trying to take a picture of the very cute puppy.

Because we got here only in evening, we didn't have much time left before dark. So, we got some cocktails and decided to comeback here for the whole day next day.

In the evening we met with Eva and Daniel to have our last dinner together at a family restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet. The restaurant turned out to be an all-you-can-eat place, which we didn't know, so there was some misunderstanding in the beginning but was resolved quickly and we had a great evening.

The next day we spent at the beach, the same one we found a day earlier. I didn't really want to take any pictures as Lena was busy with it already; the ones she made are available HERE.
Before going back to the hotel and returning our bikes, we went for a last drive around the suburbs.

In the evening we were planning to take the train to Saigon and decided that it will probably be best to get some dinner before going to the train station in Dananag, since there is no train station in Hoi An. Just walking around, we got to the local market, which we haven't seen before. It reminded me of the markets in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, I guess because it's all Asia after all.

In the middle of the market there was a large pavilion where all kind of food was prepared and sold at the spot.

We decided to get some food here instead of going to the restaurant as everything looked quite tasty and smelled great.

The dish we all ordered was ok, but the guys decided that they want an additional one, which tasted a little bit strange, but we blamed it all on the specifics of the local food. 

After dinner we all got back to the hotel where the taxi was arranged and left Hoi An, arriving to Danang one hour later and two hours before the train departure. 
Our next stop was Saigon.