s/v Rachel: First Impressions

Location: Hoi An, Vietnam

We left Blacksburg on January 10^th and caught the Megabus (for only $8.25 each!!!) up to New York City where we stayed with a friend in Manhattan for a few days to recover from the 12 hour trip. We had a lovely visit with a dear friend and had a great walking tour around Greenwich Village. We also visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, even though Julie was suffering from a terrible cold.

Pet bathroom at JFK airport, notice the fire hydrant

Three days later Julie was feeling somewhat better, thank goodness, and we had a great flight from New York to Seoul, Korea on Asiana Airlines. We managed to snag exit row seats with copious leg room and had an empty seat between us. The crew was exceptionally friendly and helpful, and the 14 hour flight passed in greater comfort than we expected.

First beer in Vietnam

We went to the counter at Seoul to request another exit seat for the 5 hour flight to Hoi An and were told “Fly four”. Mark said “Fly four?” and the woman replied “Yes, fly four. Sorry, cannot move your seat.” We said okay and thanked her for looking. Fly four?

We arrived in Da Nang at 11pm and waited for our luggage. And waited. And waited. At last one bag appeared. But there were two. So we waited...

We had arranged a midnight ride from the airport to the hotel in Hoi An. Julie went to customs and was able to see a young man holding a sign with our name on it. She managed to sweet talk the customs people into letting her out to talk with him. He promised to wait.

In the meantime, everyone had left the luggage carousel and we were standing there alone. Still no second bag. A very nice young man who spoke excellent English took us over to the lost luggage counter to fill out “the form”.

We finally got to our hotel at about 2am local time short a bag and with our copy of the lost luggage form. We fell into bed and that was it for the night.

Mark woke for a few minutes at about 4:30 am – just long enough for a lightbulb to go off. “Fly four? Oh, of course!! She meant 'flight full!'”. Needless to say, we need to brush up on our listening and understanding skills while we're here. Many people here speak at least some English and we, not speaking a bit of Vietnamese, need to tune our ears a bit to better understand.

First lunch in Vietnam

We are staying at the Riverside Pottery Village Homestay. Our host, Nguyen (pronounced “Win” - sort of) is a wonderful man. He is very friendly and has been very helpful to us, even arranging to receive our lost bag two days after we arrived.

Out looking at houses

We went out house hunting yesterday and found a few options, none of which really jumped out at us. We're hoping to go out again today to see a few more. Once we make a decision we'll get moved in and will start getting to know our new neighborhood.

The party from the balcony

Yesterday afternoon Nguyen invited us to join him and his family and friends for their annual year end celebration. Our attendance would bring his family good luck in the new year. We were joined at our table by 5 young Chinese students, all of whom spoke excellent English. Between their helpful advice, Nguyen's regular visits to our table, and some additional willing help from his family, we didn't embarrass ourselves too badly.

Several courses of wonderful food followed by a “hot pot”, a delicious sort of stew cooked at table by adding fresh ingredients as you go along, similar to a fondue. The character of the meal changes depending on who adds what when – vegetables, noodles, meat, seafood, etc. It was delicious!!