Hitchhiking in Vietnam: Hoi An

 

Hitchhiking in Vietnam: Hoi An

24^th of September, 2024.

I start walking while holding my sign which reads Hoi An at the same time because there are too many lanes at this intersection, and the one further right, on which I can walk, is for motorbikes only, so the cars don’t have a clear view of me. Those are a few tips for you hitchhikers.

A young man in a motorbike offers to take me somewhere. I don’t really understand what he is saying, and he is working for Shopee. So I imagine he is going just somewhere out of town, and I keep coming with him. He stops to buy me some water, that’s very kind; and then he stops again somewhere else, where it seems that are a few grabs. But I tell him that I cannot take them, but that’s OK, I will just keep going. But then he says I can just keep coming with him. Now, I don’t know if he was going all the way to Hoi An, or he just wanted to help me, but we get all the way to the city centre. Yay!

I walk a little bit while looking for a place to drop off The Hulk. At the first travel information I ask, which also happens to be a travel agency, they seem a bit helpful at first, but as soon as I let clear that I am not interested on booking a tour, but only need some help to drop off my backpack only for a few hours, the lady with whom I talk becomes super unhelpful and almost ignores me. I leave the place very disappointed and walk a few more metres until I reach Hoi An Express Travel Agency, where I am received with big smiles by all the staff, everybody super friendly and welcoming, and they immediately say I can leave my backpack there without any problems, and we even chat a little bit before I go exploring the town. Now, was it that so hard?

Hoi An is a gorgeous town! Like really, really beautiful! At least if you are an admirer of historical buildings. Most of them are restored and look quite “new”, and by that I mean you can notice the new paint; but they still preserve the old architecture, which is gorgeous! Some buildings kept the old looks, and I love them! But honestly, everywhere you go, or look, all the buildings look truly amazing. I felt like taking photographs of everything but contained myself. There’s not really much what to tell you about the Old Town, apart from that I recommend you to walk, slowly, all over it. It is very touristic, yes; and it will be full of tourists and tourists traps, yes; but what to do? There are shops for basically everything, and dozen of them. Then, there’s also lots of cafes, bars and food places. I can only imagine how all this it looks at night.

I spend only a few hours here, as I think it’s wise to start hitchhiking today, towards my next destination, Hue, because I imagined that I could get there today, and tomorrow early morning start exploring. Before leaving Hoi An, I sit outside a cafe, on tiny little chairs, and eat the snacks from Thẩm for lunch. They are so yummy!

The walk to outside Hoi An is not long, but for whatever reason, it takes a long time until somebody finally stops.

The man who stop is, again, on a motorbike, and he is going to Da Nang. I decide to accept because it’s getting dark and I rather get to Da Nang today than nowhere. He is a doctor, working here and living in Da Nang. They way is not easy, as I am carrying all my bags, and I feel like falling a few times. It gets even worse when we stop to pick up his son, Max. He is a lovely boy, but the three of us and my backpacks in the motorbike is too much.

They drop me off in a pagoda somewhere in Da Nang.

And then I get super lucky again! Not that I believe on that, you know, I now use only as an expression. Laugh. At the pagoda, nobody. Well, almost. I found a gorgeous Damatian and play with him for a while. Then, when I spot a young girl and try to talk with her, she seems super scared of me and refuses to even trying to talk to me, and run away. Dear Loki, I know, but what to do?

When I finally see some people sitting outside, I try to ask them. There is a man and a woman, and I can see in the woman’s face some panic, just by me approaching them. Dear Loki again, why the hell are these people so freaking scared of foreigners? Is the government telling them that we eat little children in the West? Luckily for me, the man is super friendly and starts listen to my story.

This really nice man tells me that I cannot stay in the pagoda. I just think that the pagodas in Vietnam have a really different point of view on Buddhism. Anyway, the nice man calls someone and then he says I can come and stay in his house. I feel that I can trust him, so I come with him in his motorbike.

The house to where we arrive it actually belongs to his brother, and we are greeted by Ann, his niece and the person with whom he was in the phone. She is a teenager and can speak great English. Ann explains to me that her uncle works in a gas station, and although he can understand English well, he cannot really speak. Her father, his brother, is out of town but her mum arrives pretty soon, and Ann explains to her everything about my travels and me, as I already told her. Her mum is very sweet, and she does everything for me to feel comfortable in her beautiful and big house. I also meet Ann’s little brother, a very active young boy, and we try to practice some English and also play together. He gives me some candies and chocolates, which means that, even though he could not really talk much with me, he liked me.

Ann’s mum also video call her husband at some point, and he seems happy that I am staying with his family, and he asks his wife to make sure I have everything I need. How adorable! What a lovely family! Ann’s mum even offers me a glass of milk before I go to bed, and Ann explains to me that her mum knows that Westerns like to drink milk before going to bed. I admit that it’s been ages since I have had milk before going to bed, but it just feels so nice and I loved so much that it probably was because of the caring feeling coming from her mum.

I have a room for myself. Ann shows me a small place in the hall of the second floor, where she made something like a little shelter for herself, to study and spend sometime by alone. It’s so cute! She is a very nice girl too. It surprises me actually how many wonderful young girls I have met in Vietnam!

Next morning, the uncle who brought me here goes and by some Banh Chung, a very traditional dish in Vietnam, which he tells me to be from Hue, my next destination and where his family is from. They moved here, to Da Nang, when he was young, but he loves Hue, and miss his hometown. He loves Banh Chung, and says he could eat it everyday. It is a stick rice block filled with beans paste, which can contain, or not, pork. It is steamed and wrapped in banana leaves. He also get us some coffee! Yummy!

Ann and her brother go to school. Her mother already left earlier for work. The uncle offers to drop me off outside Da Nang so I can hitchhike to Hue. He tell me, if he was not working, he would take me all the way to Hue. What a nice man!

We stop at a point in the road to Hue, which is kind of the last spot in the city before the highway, where I cannot stand for hitchhiking. But I don’t want him to keep driving me much further, as I know he must go to work. But he insist on bringing me somewhere else, a place where he says is ideal for hitchhiking. I can’t argue with him so we just keep riding his motorbike until a very remote place, completely outside Da Nang, but most likely, one of the best hitchhiking spots I have ever been. It is really great!

I feel so blessed for meeting this wonderful, really extraordinary people through my travels, that I can barely believe!