While in Vietnam......

It is difficult to decide what to do in a country that is so foreign to me. Do I go north or south? Do I hike or bike or float on boat?  The opportunity of new experiences is quite intimidating and that fact is really settling in. What if I miss what might be the best thing about that part of the world?  Or is there a "best thing?"  That's probably like saying "what if I miss the best thing about Paris?"  It won't happen because that best thing is only the best thing to that person who thinks it so. 

Other than the night on the boat in Halong Bay, I have tickets on the train to Danang.  It's an overnight train, in a car with 4 sleeping berths.  Getting to sleep with three strangers already seems a little odd, but it's the way it works.  The train runs all the way to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) but I am not going that far.  From Danang I will take a short taxi to Hoi An, a French provincial city near the middle of Vietnam, close to the coast.  Supposedly it's worth the trip, quaint, picturesque, easy to spend a couple of days in.  My hotel looks very sweet from the photos. 
 

 

 

 

 

Highly recommended on Tripadvisor, which is where most people get their travel information these days.  Hoi An is also where you can have clothes made very expertly and yet inexpensively.  So I will hang out around Hoi An for a couple of days, ride a bike to the beach, enjoy their hospitality and then take another overnight train back to Hanoi.

 

A few people have recommended I visit a small town in Laos, Luang Prabang.  It would mean juggling the trip to Halong Bay a bit, and I might see if that can be arranged.  It's also something I can book while in Hanoi, decide at the last minute, so I may go that route.  Still uncertain on this option.

 

So many choices, so little time.   All these options are rolling around in my brain, running into each other like cars dashing through an intersection.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's a vacation, not a mad frenzy through the country.  I could have gone the easy route, I suppose, and just booked a general tour, where someone else would have done all the work.  Maybe next time.

 

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