Vietnam Continued

Vietnam is a place that you could spend months exploring and still not come home feeling like you experienced all that it has to offer. I have only two weeks, which makes this trip really hard for me. Hell, five days were wasted in Hanoi when the weather was too miserable to go outside. Not only did that ruin my time in Hanoi, Sapa, and Halong, but now it forces me to spend little time in the rest of Vietnam. Since my time in Hanoi I have traveled south to the towns of Hue, Hoi An, and Na Trang. Hue was an interesting little city. I only spent a day there and on that day I rented a bicycle and cruised around to see some of the various pagodas (temples) and tombs of Vietnamese royalty. The next morning, myself and a friend rented motorbikes and decided to make the full-day ride to Hoi An, a few hundred kilometers south. The trip is known as being one of the most beautiful drives in the world, and I would have to concur. It takes you through the countryside and back roads of Vietnam. Along dirt roads and mountain passes. The most notable pass, Hai Van, was absolutely breathtaking. Winding through the mountainside over top of the Pacific Ocean was quite the view. The most nerve racking part of the journey though was when we traveled through the town of Danang, which is a large bustling city. Let me sort of explain how roads work in Vietnam so you can get a better picture of what driving here is like. Motorbikes outnumber cars almost 100 to 1. The only cars you really see on the road are buses or trucks. There are also rarely stop lights at any intersection. The horns on bikes and cars are extremely important, because the way to go through an intersection is just lay on your horn to make sure every one knows you are coming and gets out of the way. Its kind of frightening to be driving along on your motorbike and all of the sudden being greeted by a deafening horn to your left signaling to get the hell out of the way. When going across an intersection it is essentially a free-for-all for everyone except for trucks and buses, so all bikes and pedestrians simply go at a steady pace and hope that the motorcycles miss them. It is a little terrifying at first walking across the street because it looks as though you will get hit by 20 cyclists, but as long as you keep a constant speed of walking, they miss you. So, long story short, motorcycling in Vietnam is very fun, but very dangerous. You must always be paying attention to the road and what is going on around you. There is nothing like taking a motorbike 100 Km/hr down the dirt roads of the Vietnam countryside, surrounded by the ocean on one side and rice paddies on the other. Truly a sight to behold. After the ride, we arrived in the city of Hoi An. Hoi An was once a trading post for groups all over Asia and Europe, so there is a strange meld of influences going on with the architecture. Sort of a mix between French and Japanese/Chinese. The old part of town was very cool (but touristy) with small streets lining canals that reminded me of Venice. Hoi An is also the tailor capital of Vietnam. Everywhere you walk there are shops where you can buy a tailored silk suit for as little as 50 USD. If I had more room in my gear or the money to ship it back, I would have definitely jumped at the opportunity. Oh well. As I said before though, my time in Vietnam is severely limited now, so I had to continue southward after one day. I arrived this morning in Na Trang, the beach capital of Vietnam, and hopefully I get to spend a few days relaxing, but I still have to travel to Saigon and catch a bus to Cambodia in the next few days, so we will see. I finally uploaded pictures to Facebook. All of the China and my SE Asia pictures so far. Check them out.