Adventures By Design

In which the travelers miss their dog

We arrived in Hoi An early this morning after a night on the sleeper bus during which neither of us really slept. First our bus took us to a hotel owned by the same company where we were cajoled and badgered to check their rooms and stay there. Although the hotel looked nice from the outside, and apparently had a pool and cheap rooms, it was a 10 minute walk from town. Having been in Hoi An before we knew that there were plenty of nice hotels with pool and cheap rooms right in the middle of the town where we could easily walk everywhere. Our bus sat in front of the hotel for at least 10 minutes before they finally gave up and took us into town.

Getting off at the bus station we were of course immediately surrounded by touts offering us rides to their hotels. We knew that we wanted to go back to the same hotel we had stayed in before, however we didn’t know the name of the hotel, or exactly where it was. So we ignored the touts, shouldered our bags, and headed off down the street looking for familiar landmarks. Happily it only took us a couple of minutes before we started remembering things, and found our hotel. It was just as we remembered it (although a few dollars more per night than 3 years ago) and they promised us free wifi, so we agreed to take a room and headed out for breakfast.

When we came back from breakfast we checked the internet since we had been promised that the wifi would work from our room. Of course it didn’t work unless we sat outside the door of our room… blast! Just as we were getting annoyed by this we heard a loud dripping noise and found that the air conditioner had started leaking all over the floor… curses! Extra irritated, Ric now headed down to the front desk to lodge our complaints. Thankfully the hotel staff were very understanding and helpful and they changed our room right away.

Finally settled into a room, we took a nap for a couple hours (remember we hadn’t slept all night), then headed out for a late lunch and a walk around town. Hoi An is much as we remember it: a relaxed, sleepy little city with beautiful old shops and homes, and tailors everywhere you look. Tomorrow we’ll choose a shop to get some clothes made. As we were heading back to our hotel for the night we passed a shop with three of the cutest little puppies inside. Gin squatted down to greet them, and one immediately climbed up on her lap and starting licking her face. We played with them for a while, considered if we could sneak them back to Canada in Gin’s purse, and finally said goodbye, missing Inca more than ever.