We had a hole 8 person dorm for us alone but because we arrived late in Ninh Binh and wanted to arrive early in Hue we did not see a lot of the city and left early in the morning.

 

After two hours of driving suddenly Fabienne fell behind and I had to drive back to see what caused the problem. I was not able to get the bike going again so I had to push her to the next mechanic.

 

 

Unfortunately we were at a bypass so I had to push her bike for about 20km before we reached a mechanic. He tried a few things before realizing that there had to be an oil leak somewhere because the piston got stuck in the cylinder and he had to change the whole motor block.  This took from 11am to 3pm and then we decided to take a hotel nearby and spend the rest of the day at the beach.

 

 

In the evening we had one of our cheapest dinner´s so far. 2 beers and 2 dishes with chicken and rice for slightly over 2 euros.

 

 

 

 

The next day we got the bike back, paid way to much and as we realized that the bike was not working perfectly the mechanic was already gone… The engine was running, but neither the electric starter nor the kick starter did work so I had to push the bike to get it started.

 

An hour later a bus honked more then usual at Fabienne and another driver pointed at her back tire. As I checked why, I saw that her rear tire was running out of air. While we were looking for another mechanic she lost the gear lever too…

 

 

6 euros and 15 minutes later we had a new gear lever and the flat tire was fixed and we were of again to get to finally arrive in Hue.

 

After checkin in at noon, we had a quick lunch drove Fabienne´s bike to a mechanic to get it fixed again and did some awesome sightseeing for the next few hours.

 

Because we still had my bike we were able to get to different places quite fast and see a lot of different places in a short period of time.

 

After the tour we got her bike back which was running again drove them both to the homestay and went of for dinner. The city of Hue closes a few busy streets during the night for motorbikes so the bars can move their tables closer to the street and people are able to walk on the street without having to fear that they get ran over.

 

 

 

 

 

The drive from Hue to Hoi An was only 3 hours and our laundry was not dry, so we decided to go for a walk in the morning from 8 to 10.  A shower before we drove of and the freshly washed clothes made us feel great before heading out again.

 

After an hour we reached the most beautiful driving spot of Vietnam, the Hai Van pass. The last weeks we saw maybe one or two tourists driving motorbikes outside of the cities, here we saw about a thousand in one day. Companies offer to drive a bike from Hue to Hoi An without having to return it which a lot of people do for a good reason.

 

 

When we got to the Homestay in Hoi An we just put our stuff in our room and left to get some tailor made clothes. Hoi An is known as the Milan of Asia and the capital of affordable tailors.

 

We chose Yaly because they had the best reviews online. They were supposed to be more expensive than a lot of other tailors but when I gonna spend some money on a decent suit I prefer that the materials are awesome and that the suit will last more than just one evening.

 

The first day, we just chose the fabric, what form for the suit and they measured us. We now pay for a whole cashmere suit with 3 shirts, shoes, a belt and a silk dress for Fabienne about 540 euros. Which is ridiculously cheap compared to what we have to pay in Luxembourg 🙂

 

 

Hoi An is known for its lanterns and after dawn we saw why. This place is awesome and there is a reason why so many tourist come to visit this little city. The variety of lanterns on land, on boats and candles in small floating devices in the dark is simply staggering.

 

 

 

 

 

The thing with the tailor is that you have to fit your clothes a few times and changes have to be made before they fit perfectly so you have to plan the days around the appointments you get.

 

That´s why we had to get up early, change the homestay because the first one was not a place where we wanted to stay a few nights and then we drove of to visit the Unesco World heritage of My Son.

 

For every place there is a fee to pay to get in, which are mostly expensive compared to what food and lodging costs. Lodging is between 5 and 9 euros for two per night, the entrance fee to My Son was 13 euros. But for the first time I found it worth the money.

 

The place was clean, there was a shuttle to get you from the entrance close to the ruins, there were guides and the place seemed to be taken care of. Maybe it was so nice because one day after we were there the Indian President is going to visit the place.

 

 

Seeing the suit and the dress being made in such short time was awesome. They were exactly as we expected them to be. A few changes had to be made which is normal, some like their suit tighter which looks better but is less comfortable others like it to be more comfortable to wear. So they make them a little bit to wide and to long just to tighten and shorten them up in a second step.

 

We solely ate street food that evening, from mango/rice cake, banana/rice cake, cao lau, bhan mi, pancakes and more grilled banana/rice things. It´s often hard to know what´s exactly in there but the food costs between 0.30 and 2 euros, so if it´s not good we could just get something different.

 

A few beers and a foot massage later we went to get our bike to drive back home. The parking valet told us to be there before 8pm and we were 10 minutes early but the bike was gone. We looked for it in the streets nearby but it just wasn´t there anymore.

 

A local merchant told us to look further up the street and we found our valet with the bikes about 200 meters from where we initially parked. Of course there was no way explaining him that we did not approve the service we paid for so we just left and went home.

 

 

 

 

Our appointment at the tailor was badly placed at 2pm so we decided to sleep long and spend half the day in our homestay before we went to the second fitting.

 

We´ve been measured by hand and I have been measured with a laser scanner too, I cannot understand how the clothes would not fit better and after they had to change them already once the suit was still not the way I wanted them. We placed the third fitting session 3 hours later and went for a walk through the city.

 

My suit, shoes and shirts did fit perfect and Fabienne´s dress did almost too. Next appointment was tomorrow morning at 9 to pick everything up.

 

 

We had dinner at a seafood restaurant recommended by locals. It was a bit outside of the center and they have rarely tourists there because no one understood english. We still managed to get some food and something to drink 🙂

 

 

 

 

We got up early, picked up Fabienne´s bike from the garage, drove to the tailor picked up our clothes and drove back to the homestay to leave the clothes and drive to a monastery build around caves nearby.

 

The entrance ticket was reasonably priced which makes the experience even better! The temperatures although didn´t. Starting early into your adventures does not help a lot but the caves did their part. We took a lot of brakes to stop and drink because we had to climb a lot of stairs inside and outside of the caves.

 

 

After we were back at the homestay we showered and enjoyed the air conditioned room for two more hours before we headed to the city center to buy a third backpack ( new clothes took more space than calculated and shipping is just too expensive ) and be early on for the lantern festival which takes place once a month.

 

 

Long story short, the lantern festival was a flop. There were supposed to be more lanterns and the shops were supposed to turn of their lights, but none of them happened…  It was exactly the same as the previous days.

 

Disappointed we had a more fancy dinner then planned and went home quite early to get enough sleep for tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

Easier said than done, at 8h30 we were on the road, half an hour later than we wanted. 250km and slightly over 6 hours of driving are laying ahead of us for today.

 

Most of the time we drove over the highway 1. A highway which isn´t a real highway, speed limit is 60 km/h but its straight, the road is in a good condition and there was not too much traffic today. That´s why we made good progress and arrived in Quy Nonh around 14h30.

 

 

We checked in and as we wanted to relax a bit before going for a walk Fabienne realized that  shampoo flooded her backpack. Half an hour of a soapy mess in the bathroom later we were good to go.

 

The city is not touristic at all, during our 4 hour walk we saw two other tourists. Restaurants and bars did not understand us but with the translating app and our hands we still managed to get along more or less well.

 

 

The whole menu in our designated restaurant was in vietnamese with no images of the dish and the waitress did not even understanding a single word of english so Fabienne used the app to order and I saw a picture of a dove and randomly pointed at one dish on that side of the menu.

 

The food was incredibly spicy but the dove was good. I just somehow ordered two instead of one, or they just assumed that we would share the food. We´ll never know…

 

After the way back to the hotel through the lively streets with absolutely no space on the sidewalks because motorbikes were parked in every little available space we went straight to bed for another early start tomorrow.