Vietnam: Hoi An

From Hanoi we took a sleeper bus to Hoi An using Camel Travel. I only mention the name of the bus company so that everyone reading this will never use it because it was terrible. The sleeper bunks they had on the bus were designed for Vietnamese (little people) and were about 8 inches too short for any westerner. Also, the guardrail to prevent you from rolling out of your bunk during the bumpy ride was non-existent. The pillow was a stained pillow case with about a dozen feathers in it. We tried to sleep as the bus driver swerved all over the road, honked his horn non-stop and smoked cigarettes. Next thing we know, we are being told to get off the bus because we need to transfer to a new bus...only the new bus is around 2km away (but accordingly to all the locals, it was only a 5-10min walk). After hopping a cab over there, we were dumbfounded to learn that our bus actually arrived 2 hours late so we missed our connecting bus. We had to kill 5 hours in Hue Vietnam before the next bus would depart. We finally made it to Ha Noi, albeit 8 hours later than expected, and promptly went to the clothing shops to get fitted for suits. Morgan's friend Will Akridge had a shop he recommended to us to buy all our custom made clothing. I purchased a black Tuxedo, a dark pin striped suit, a gray suit, a white linen suit, 5 button down shirts and a pair of custom made tux shoes for a total of $425. Morgan and I grabbed a few meals on the street for anywhere between $0.25-$0.60 a meal. We spent so much time at the clothing shop that we made good friends with the girls working there. Our last night in Hoi An we took the girls out for a drink where we learned that one of them makes $5 a day and the other makes $10 a day working 12 hour days, 29 days a month. This low salary works out well for them though because rent is only around $20 per month, and food is around $1.50 per day. One of the girls we met named Viet said she saved money for 6 years to buy her motorbike. After spending 2 nights in Hoi An, we caught a flight to Ho Chi Minh city where we will spend a few days before flying to Nha Trang (beach city) for Will Akridge's birthday.

During our first meal in Ho Chi Minh today, Morgan and I met a nice old guy from North Carolina. He said that he was 68 years and had just retired from UPS. Randomly we asked him if he had heard of Akers Motor Lines, his answer "I worked for Akers Motor lines for 9 years, best job I ever had". Small world...