28th January - Quy Nhon

I had a pleasant few days in Hoi An, largely thanks to staying in a friendly relaxed hotel, but although a pretty town, I found the number of tourists oppressive and today I was ready to leave.  This morning I had my last ride on the bike.  Having had no response from my posts on Craigslist and Travelfish I'd decided to donate it to a local charity.  I rode into town to meet with Nick Keegan, the director of The Kianh Foundation, to hand over the bike.  I’d located this British charity on the internet and tracked down their offices earlier in the week.  Nick was a nice chap, a Scot from Edinburgh, who’s been in Vietnam for 6 years having left his civil service in the UK out of sheer boredom.  He’s now married to a Vietnamese woman and seemingly happy.  He said how much Hoi An has changed with the massive influx of tourists, and how the locals have become ever more fixated on getting the tourists’ dollars.  The charity, which provides therapies for children across the province with physical and mental disabilities, used to work within a government-run orphanage within Hoi An but the bureaucracy, corruption and eventually obstruction from all the petty officials, envious of the charity’s success in getting things done, became impossible.  The charity is currently waiting for their newly-built day centre, just south of Hoi An, to open.  I was pleased to be able to donate my bike to such a worthwhile charity knowing that my donation would not be stolen by some government official, and in a small way to be able to give something back to Vietnam that I have enjoyed so much.  Nick said that they would either keep the bike for the organisation to use or give it to one of their more impoverished families.  But when I left I was truly sad to say goodbye to my bike which has become like an old friend.

I walked back to the hotel, checked out of my room and waited for the minibus that was to take me to Quy Nhon.  With everyone returning to, or from, their families following Tet, the buses and trains were already full by the time I enquired at the start of the week.  But instead of a minibus, a woman on a motorscooter arrived and told me to get on the back with my huge backpack – no helmet provided.  She took me to the minibus a couple of kilometres away.  My stuff was loaded in the back of the bus and I was told to sit on the back row of seats.  We then set off for a bone-crushing, nerve-jangling bouncy ride for six hours.  Whenever we entered a village or town we slowed so the driver’s assistant could shout out into the street to tout for more passengers.  Before long, our 15 seater minibus was crammed with 28 people (I counted them), and the driver was going at a ridiculous speed swerving out from behind much bigger buses and trucks to overtake them on blind corners etc.  I had felt so much safer and more comfortable on my bike.  I recalled what Nick had told me this morning, that over the four days of Tet, 137 people had been killed on Vietnam’s roads.  I felt certain we would add to those statistics.  Within an hour the old woman beside me was throwing up into a plastic bag which was then summarily thrown out the window (no fun if you happened to be a motorcyclist trying to overtake at that moment).  Then a woman in the row in front of me was vomiting, then another.  The poor woman beside me threw up six or seven times over the course of the journey.  By the end of the journey four adults, all women, and one child (did I mention the two screaming babies?) had vomited.  Happily I was beside an open window.  The longest six hours I can remember. 

It was dark by the time we got to Quy Nhon (pronounced Hweenion) where we were dropped in a random petrol station.  No taxis to be had, and everyone I asked for directions either looked away (which I have learned means ‘I don’t know’) or nodded (also meaning ‘I don’t know’), so I walked in the general direction of where I thought it might be.  Eventually I found the sea and saw the hotel sign a couple of kilometres up the beach.  Long walk with the heavy backpack but when I got there I was given a nice room on the 10th floor overlooking the beach with the sound of crashing waves.  Comfort again; phew.