To Hoi An
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Thu 4 Jan 2018 23:57
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To Hoi
An
 We had a slack morning, late
breakfast and pack. Bear trots over to our favourite snack
truck, five minutes later he jumps in our taxi with an egg roll and a
mixed salad and spam looking stuff. I have two plain rolls to add cheese
triangles to, one for lunch, one for supper on our ten hour train journey
covering five hundred kilometres from Nha Trang to Danang.
  Crossing the Cai
River en route to the train station.
   We sit for a while in the waiting
room watching the world go by, then a few minutes after settling on the platform
our train, the thirteen twenty seven SE8 pulls in and
we find carriage 3. Hysterical - when all the departing passengers have left the
train and a huge crowd begin to climb up the huge first step from the ground –
three young Japanese must have suddenly awoken and realised they had to get off.
Some of us had to go backward as three massive cases have to come down, three
startled youngsters climb down and we have to reassemble a queue that has been
well and truly disturbed........easy in theory but so comical in
reality.
 Sadly, we have a window so darkened
by advertising (the sort you are supposed to be able to see through) that I have
no view at all. Bear can see through the window in front of him and gives me
regular updates. Meanwhile, we ‘enjoy’ the loudest programs, wildest singing and
a chap fighting to repair a dodgy speaker that every so often lets out an
ear-piercing squeal. This Train TV engineer spends the whole journey racing up
and down, leaping on seats after ejecting the unsuspecting passenger and doing
much head scratching, all performed with the smallest of trusty screwdrivers. At
the back of our carriage is a very excitable man dealing with two young
daughters who clearly sport three sixes on the back of their scalps. He rolls
between shrill screaming and loud shouting, the daughters bend between high
decibel crying and shrieking at each other. Even locals, fully used to this form
of transport and have long since mastered the art of sleeping through anything
are regularly on their feet nagging the man. Dinner
truck, crisp truck and fruit truck come through the carriage so
frequently that elbows and ankles are on high alert. Once it gets dark things do
get a little quieter as sleep takes over but the TV is not ready to be showing
anything that lulls, we have full opera from a lady with scary eyebrows, the
background some war scenes. At least when a chap begins to warble the scene
behind him is flowery.
     At ten to eleven we are met by a
driver from our hotel and off we go for the forty minute journey to Hoi An. We
pass some massive hotels in Da Nang, many names we
recognise. There are new super-size hotel and conference centre being built as
this tourist area expands.
 After checking in we have fun choosing
which bed we will use in our biggest room
yet.
ALL IN ALL A ZOO
EXPERIENCE
GREAT
COUNTRYSIDE |