Ancient Town

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  Hoi An, Vietnam
Thursday, February 19, 2009

I still ask myself what possessed me to get out of bed at 6am to watch the Super Bowl that I didn't really care about. Maybe I missed watching American sports. Perhaps I merely wanted to see if it was possible to watch it in a small town in Vietnam. I was encouraged by the fact that the Before and Now bar showed the intense Aussie Open final between Nadal and Federer the night before. I figured there was a chance that they would be open to show another major sports event the next day, so the following day I woke up late and thought I could still catch the 2nd half at the bar. Closed. Went to the next bar. Closed. After wandering around the sleepy town searching for a TV, I found a restaurant and started flipping channels. I figured it was around halftime and they'd be showing a concert as usual, so naturally when I found Christina Aguilera and stopped flipping, thinking she was a likely candidate for a performer. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Then "Cher in Concert" came on and it suddenly hit me. Not only did I miss the Super Bowl, but I also woke up at the wee hours of morning to watch Xtina in concert

Hoi An rice fields

. I made one last attempt to find the right channel, but instead found the Celtics-Pistons game, ordered some breakfast and watched some basketball. At least my efforts were somewhat rewarded.

My expectations of Hoi An were:

1) Crowded with shopoholic tourists
2) A surplus of dirt cheap tailor shops
3) Cheap local food and overpriced Western food

I really needed some more clothes, so I spent the whole time in Hoi An shopping for clothes and left. I'm kidding. But seriously, some people many tourists were doing just that. I had no desire to carry around more clothes or ship home a suit a didn't need. However, I did ship home a homemade marble sculpture from Marble Mountain as a birthday present for my parents and met another traveler at the post office. She was a Malaysian, living in New Zealand and traveling around Vietnam, so we hung out for the day. We both agreed that the town center was too touristy, so we wandered to the outskirts of town and noticed two Aussies from the post office were hanging out in a random house

Karaoke

. Immediately, we were summoned into the house by the owner who insisted we drink beer and sing karaoke with them. They spoke no English, so I used the little Vietnamese I learned to communicate that I was willing to sing Michael Bolton. I mean, it doesn't get any better than "When a Man Loves a Woman" (Office Space reference, anyone?). I even tried a sappy Vietnamese love song, which everyone loved.

The rest of my time in Hoi An was spent mostly at the beach where a wild, completely unorganized pick-up soccer game broke out between Vietnamese and foreigners and locals tried to sell us all kinds of crafts. We found some great local food called "Cao Lau" and "White Rose" with a delicious squid fish sauce. There were also plenty of restaurants serving Western food and bakeries, so I took advantage and ordered a tuna melt three times from one place. I had a great time hanging out with the other travelers I met in town and even though we all dispersed to different locations I hope to stay in touch with them. When I enjoy a place more than I had expected, it is usually because of the people I meet. I guess I have been lucky on my trip and met some really cool people, but many backpackers have the same open-minded, spontaneous mentality that makes it easy to become instant friends.

I knew I would get ripped off heading out of town because it was still close to the holiday, so I took a minibus further south to the little visited Qui Nhon and other beach towns on my way to Saigon...

Next stop: Beaches of southern Vietnam

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Bridge in Hoi An

The next cover of "Lonely Planet Vietnam"

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