Follow Me Around the World

After a late night for Morrie and I, we had a bit of a sleep in.  We both popped up at nine am which was a record for both of us together on this trip.  We went down for breakfast; both brought our computers and had a little bite to eat.  Today was all about going to the beach.  Craig, Booby and I had planned to meet at 10am to head to the beach.  They were going to rent some push bikes and I said “not for me, and I will just catch a motorbike down,” and that is what I did.  When we all got to the beach and picked out our section we rented chairs for a reasonable price, sat down and enjoyed the magnificent scenery of the beach in Hoi An.

The water was colder than in Lang Co, but refreshing.  It was one of the hottest days yet, perfect weather for the beach.  Of course I was stubborn, didn’t put sunscreen on my body, only my cheeks and nose since I was looking for the ultimate tan.  I spent most of the day body surfing on small waves, enjoying the water, and the weather.  I laid out, we all got some lunch, went back in to the water and before you knew it, it was 330pm and time to leave.  I was clearly burnt and needed to get back to town to get my clothing that I had made up the previous day.  After picking up some clothing I went to another few shops and looked around.  Before I even made it to the hotel I had tailored a pair of pajama pants, a pinstripe suit, and five dress shirts!  It was too hard to resist considering how inexpensive it all was for high quality tailoring.  Now I was beginning to get nervous as to how all this new stuff would fit in my already busting-at-the-seam backpack.  I got back to the hotel and was tired.  The sun, heat, swimming and shopping had tired me out.  I was really hot so I jumped in to the pool for a quick swim and had a nice cool down swim with a few locals.  It was cool to be interacting with some kids and locals who had come to visit Hoi An just like anyone else.

After swimming I jumped in to the cold shower, put Aloe on and got dressed for dinner.  Dinner would be at seven downstairs and the other Intrepid leader would take us to the restaurant called Banana Leaf.  Again the food was good, didn’t take as long but was extremely overpriced for Vietnam.  That had seemed to be the trend here.  Either the food is really bad and really cheap, or very good but really overpriced; there are few “ok” meals, which are reasonably priced that won’t ruin your stomach.  It has been unfortunate, but the food won’t be fantastic everywhere you go, and that is just something I have had to accept here in Vietnam.

After dinner, some went home; Craig, Minz and I went to the place with Deb and Penny where we had gone the night before.  Minz was this British guy we had met at the beach and had invited to dinner with us.  He arrived late, but was able to get his food rather quick and caught up to us.  The three of us went out for a quite drink, had a really good chat about life and politics and stuff.  On my trip to Asia I have gotten much more interested in politics of the world, not just of the USA and fucking Bush.  I am hoping to watch a lot more world news either online or listen on the radio.  It is really interesting to hear about things outside of the USA.

After splitting with Minz, Craig and I found our way home.  It wasn’t too late, but Craig, Bobby and Joanne had to catch a 10am train with their leader to head south in Vietnam, so he wanted to get home at a reasonable hour, I had no problem after the night before and spending all day at the beach.

Morrie was still up, chatting with his wife on Skype and updating his “diary.”  I got online and started chatting with Mom and a few friends.  It was morning so some people were on.  It was nice to chat with friends I hadn’t spoken with for several weeks.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 12:20 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.