05.23.24
We’ve been in Hoi An (Vietnam) for almost three weeks, and, like many places we have been, it’s grown on us. It’s is small enough to be intimate and cozy, yet large and spread out enough to offer lots of different shops, eateries, and things to do. Our room, about 15 minutes outside town, has limited spontaneous, “let’s walk down to the coffee shop,” opportunities, but it is also surrounded by bird calls, streams, and ponds, frogs, and lots of coconut trees, and is very beautiful at a great price.
Kat found a great coffee shop downtown with AC, and is able to hang out there if she needs a change of pace. My gym is far from fancy, but is convenient enough to visit almost daily, AND the local markets are just up the street. And when we say “markets,” this means veggies, fruits, food items, home items, and such, so stopping in and picking up some bananas or pomelos (our new favorite), is effortless.
My intimidation about riding the bike at night has been contained, so we have been downtown and enjoyed the nighttime festivities. It is lively, bright, and quite crowded, and SO representative of Asia! We have found great food almost everywhere, and if we need our burger, or western fix, we have lots of options.
The beach (actually two of them), are just minutes away, and quite beautiful, but we have not been that often due to the heat–which IS oppressive. We’ve also connected with some fellow expats, so that’s always fun sharing each other’s lives. There are still a few things to do before we leave on June 1, but we will most likely return again.
And the latest news is our BUST of the (almost) Lantern Festival…It is held once a month around the full moon, and all the boats in the harbor are alight, plus there are individual candles floating on the water. At 8:00 pm all the lights in town are turned off and all you see are the lanterns.
HOWEVER, our recent plans to attend this month’s festivities was a fail, as the rain started around 6:00 pm while eating dinner. By 7:30 it was raining harder, and over the next few hours it poured buckets. And here we were, a 20 minute walk away from our bike, AND a 20 minute ride to our room.
Long story short, we recognized that once you are 100% drenched, you can’t get any wetter–and that took just a minute. We had to slog through several inches of water to get to the bike, then ride (in the dark) to our room, which included going through several large puddles, one that was about two feet deep! I kept up the speed, still lost traction, but spun those wheels to get us through. We made it home, looking like the proverbial “drowned rats,” and were very thankful that the roads were mostly empty and God watched over us.
Just another lovely day in Paradise!
