100 days in Southeast Asia | Part 12 | Vietnam: Pleiku, Kon Tum & Hoi An
Well... it was quite disgusting hahah first ride and this already happened!
And while we were getting ready to hit the road, the uncle washing our bike for us! Isn't it nice? Aw!!
After leaving the house of that lovely family, we had quite a distance to do to catch the brother in Buon Ma Thout.
However we ended up having to stop a few times obviously, long rides are exhausting.
We stopped for coffee, at a mechanic to fix our luggage rack that was a bit destroyed after the jungle adventure haha..And also lunch, rest, etc…
Then instead of staying in Buon Ma Thout we had to go up to Pleiku as Viv’s brother had already left the town since we were running late.
It kinda felt like cat and mouse, if that’s how you call it haha
The ride wasn’t the greatest after the 3h and not that pretty either, but at the end we made it to Pleiku and what a pleasant city!
Pretty big and developed. We spent 2 nights there and had a ride around town, enjoyed the good bakeries and good weather.
Our hotel was pretty cool too, the highest building in town it seemed!
And we got the room up at the 17th floor! Awesome balcony with a view. Spacious room for the 3 of us living room dining table and everything. Pretty sweet. Could’ve stayed there longer for sure.
It was called Duc Long Gia Lai 2 Hotel and we paid about $20 per night which was awesome divided by 3. You can see the building from a distance since it’s nearly the only real tall building if I remember well.
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| Pleiku |
Finally we were riding together yay! Haha
From there, we left at lunch time and headed to Kon Tum. Just a random town in the middle of nowhere, near the border with Laos and Cambodia.
It was quite interesting to stay in such small town that you can walk less than 10min each way and be out of the town already haha
We stayed at this Don Duong Hotel and we paid about $10 per night. Super cheap also, considering we were 3 people in a room.
Room was spacious, clean and pretty good for the price and also it was just for that 1 night anyway.
We had dinner at this local barbecue place, that was quite full of locals, so we figured it must be good haha.. everyone was excited to see us there, pretty funny. They don't get much tourism there as it is just a little town with not many attractions I don't think at least.
Even some other customers gave us some Saigon beer hahaha warm beer tho, and then we put it in a glass with ice. Vietnamese style beer hahaha
We had so many troubles in this trip, it seemed like a joke really hhaaha… We were going to ride together with the brother again to Hoi An, and when we were leaving in the morning, Viv couldn’t find the motorbike key LOL
Obviously, something had to happen and split us again.
Since the brother had limited time, we had to let him go and we went to the mechanic try to open the seat as we suspected Viv had accidentally locked the key inside it…
And we were right. Haha it was there, all good, solved. It could’ve been worse, like losing it and then having to make a new one. It would take way longer.
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| Kon Tum |
But anyway, off to Hoi An! Super exciting.
Obviously the bother arrived there first and decided to have a room for himself this time, so he stayed at Hoa My II Hotel in town and we stayed across the road 10min walk from his place, at Starfruit Homestay, and just wow, no doubt the best place we stayed out of all the places so far in southeast Asia!
And for a good price, which was great! We paid about $20 per night there and we stayed at the new side of the homestay, where everything is brand new, clean, modern, spacious, and beautiful. We also chose a room with a balcony, which also faces the lovely swimming pool they have there.
It was simply the best place and the staff was super helpful too!! 10/10 hands down.
The old, or ancient, town is such a lovely place to visit, to stay and to do everything, party, shopping specially, and just go for a stroll or a ride.
Cars and motorbikes are not allowed during most of the time between 8:30am to 9:30pm, in the old town/tourist areas.
Because of that, most hotels provide push bikes for its guests to use, some for free and others for a small fee, isn’t it cool?!
I thought that was such a charming thing haha made the atmosphere even better! And the other good thing is that most attractions in Hoi An can be visited by push bike too!
There’s plenty to do over there and it is such a diverse town! I think everyone falls in love with this city, honestly.
I should also mention that we don’t travel how most people do I guess. I mean in a way that we don’t rush to see every single attraction and then head to the next city.
We enjoy traveling slow and more as if we were living there instead of being a tourist only.
In Hoi An it wasn’t different.
We spent most of the time around the Ancient town enjoying the nice river view, bridge, people watching, bars, street food and restaurants. The brother got quite a lot of clothes tailored ahaha we didn't have space to carry so we got nothing at all.
Oh the brother and I went to a cooking class at a vegetarian restaurant which was so delicious. I'm not a big fan of cooking honestly, but it was so simple and tasted so damn good that it was worth the 4h stuck in a kitchen haha
The place is called Minh Hien Vegetarian Restaurant.
And we also spent one day at the beach, chilling and having some beers under the umbrella.
Such a pretty place. 10min motorbike ride and you are at the beach, it is super close. And so easy to get to as well, even by push bike.
The vibe of the whole thing is just magical.
Oh, coincidently we found out that the 2 lovely German girls we met in Saigon, on a party night, were in Hoi An too! And we decided to catch up.
We went to a rooftop bar and had some dinner, drinks and shisha with them. And also met their new Belgium friends and we all had such a great time.
Good thing is that their restaurants and bar all have this 10%-20% discount or free shots or something like that.
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| Starfruit homestay brekky view |
We got quite happy (read drunk) at that bar, then went to this other old weird bar to keep the party going and dance. But at midnight every bar and club in the old town closes as it is a law, and if they don’t, the cops come and make them shut…
So there was only one place left to party, which is 5min motorbike ride from the ancient town.
Mr. Bean bar haha, which is a bar/club and rooftop where everywhere you look there’s some mr. Bean picture haha quite funny bar.
We had such a blast that night that Viv ended up buying a Honda Win from an American dude hahaha Viv was drunk obviously. But this guy was leaving the town next think in the morning and was trying to sell it for a very cheap. Well, Viv went and bought it so he could sell it later and help out the guy and ended up even making a little profit too haha... Drunken business.
We ended up extending our stay there, instead of 2 nights we stayed 3 and it was going to be 4 haha nearly got stuck there. But, it started raining and we checked the rain report and it was quite bad. It was going to hit really hard in Hoi An as it was a typhoon! (November 2017)
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| Cooking Class |
And I’m glad we left when we did.
We were supposed to leave in the morning with the brother, however our bike was being fixed and it wasn’t ready when the brother wanted to leave. So because of the rain he ended up leaving super early like sunrise!
And obviously we couldn’t as we didn’t have our motorbike yet. So then he called Viv up after 2hs on the road and told him how bad the rain was and that he never experienced such torrential rain like that in his life.
Well.. so then we decided to change plans, as it would be awful for us to ride in such weather being 2 people.
So we decided to take the sleeper train from Da Nang to Ninh Binh and wait for the brother there.
There is no train station in Hoi An, that’s why we had to take it from Da Nang, which is less than 1h away from Hoi An.
So Viv went to pick up the motorbike at about lunch time and I took a shuttle van to Da Nang from the hotel with all our luggage. And we were going to meet up in Da Nang since it would be awful to ride with me at the back in such crappy weather.
And it all worked out pretty well, we basically arrived at the train station at the same time, and the shuttle van I think costed me $5 or something like that. The Homestay we were staying organized everything, so it was all quite smooth. It took less than 1h to get to DaNang train station.
Everything dry, except Viv haha, but all good, his poncho kinda worked a little bit still.
And so we went.
Put the motorbike on the train, unfortunately it is the same price as a person. About $30aud. Not cheap… but I guess our best bet at that time.
And we left at about 7pm. It was such a comfy ride. We had no one else with us in the cabin so we had all to ourselves yay!
We stayed at the top beds, which I so much prefer instead of the lower bed. I don’t know why but it feels better not having anyone above your head I guess haha.
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