This morning we decided to make for Hoi An but not before we made the long walk back over the river to town to enjoy another western breakfast at the Bread of Life complete with backpacks. The place was busy as usual and we did not hesitate on ordering a huge pancake breakfast each and a pot of tea. The pancakes, as usual, were amazing and always reminds you how you miss western food sometimes... Although also reminded us how unaccustomed we are now to the richness of such food, ensuring we struggled to finish our breakfast.

Whilst recovering from our sugar high we did some research on how best to reach Hoi An whilst sipping our delicious tea. Hoi An is a mere twenty seven km away but not easy to get to, your either ripped off royally by taxis or you are stung by the local buses who insist on inflating the price because 'your a foreigner' and 'you have a bag'...now to me neither agreement stands and being a foreigner shouldn't mean your charged more (the double tiered pricing argument I've been having for weeks) and secondly Asian people do not know how to travel light and will each carry half a dozen bags and boxes where ever they go so no argument there. We had read about people who ended up nearly scrapping with the conductors due to the prices and so we would avoid this route if at all possible. We weren't really wanting to spend another afternoon arguing and haggling with greedy locals over ridiculously inflated prices and so were very reluctant to leave the serenity of the cafe in search of the 'yellow public buses', who in reality find you and scream at you as they fly past demanding you get on.

On doing a bit of research Laura had discovered that the big supermarket in town 'the Big C' offers a shuttle bus to various areas around Da Nang, including Hoi An. Obviously you have to buy something from the store but only like a dollars worth and then your receipt is your ticket. .

After finishing our breakfast and feeling content with a good fill of maple syrup and a potential solution to our 'bus' problem we headed south through town to the imposing Big C. It was basically a small shopping mall with their large supermarket situated inside. I headed in whilst Laura guarded the bags and bought some snacks including cheap apples.... Jeez I miss certain fruit here and apples being cheap here does seem to be a rare thing. You may ask why Laura was guarding the bags? Well basically, supermarkets in Vietnam allow no bags in the stores to combat shoplifting. They offer lockers as you go in but our bags were way too big so Laura got watch duty. At the checkouts Laura was trying to communicate with me about what I bought. I couldn't hear her over the noise so we were trying to lip read by shouting. The girl on security found this hilarious and just stood there laughing at us, we must of looked pretty strange. So, we had our receipts ready for the bus, now it was just a case of catching the next bus to Hoi An! All simple, straightforward and stress free........ in Vietnam, I don't think so. On the way out a local guy kep pointing at me, Laura assumed there was something on my bag so checked but couldn't see. In the end he came over and it transpired that he was trying to tell me to be careful with my money, which was poking out of my pocket. Laura said a big thanks to him and then came another lecture to me, she's always lecturing me about keeping everything in the money belt.

We headed out ..drama avoided and went to sit on the benches at the bus stop, next to some local women who managed to tell us they were heading to Hoi An, so far so good. The timetable on the board told us the next bus would be at 1:30pm, about 40 minutes. On enquiring with the staff they told us the next bus would be 3:30pm, we were slightly confused why but had no choice other than killing time. We headed to a coffee shop inside the mall to mainly take advantage of the WiFi. After being given a paltry serving of coffee, 3:30pm was looming and we headed back to the bus stand. Near the time, people started heading outside and the ladies gestured us to follow them, all going well so far. Soon enough two buses turned up with another two sitting dormant on the side of the road. We were asking which bus goes to Hoi An but suddenly no one was helping us, the guards were ushering us away and the drivers would not tell us anything. The ladies we were following got on a bus, but the staff insisted this wasn't our bus. Then suddenly the buses departed and we were on our own on the side walk with a young girl and boy. To our surprise they spoke decent levels of English and explained they were waiting for the Hoi An bus too so maybe we hadn't missed it... thank god we thought!

In the next few minutes we were approached by numerous taxi drivers and men on motorcycle taxis. They were lingering around trying to obviously get us to go with them to Hoi An for likely stupid prices. They were then talking to young girl in Vietnamese who seemed a little reluctant and sheepish to translate for us. We knew what was happening..... the taxis were trying to get her to explain the buses were not coming so we would go with them then when she tried to ignore them they got mad at her... obviously telling her some rubbish about we should pay more or something. It really annoyed us as they are trying every trick in the book to put us off getting the easy, cheap method of transport. Laura got really mad with the guy and told him to go away as we didn't want his service and that he should be ashamed if himself for trying to corrupt the younger generation to his disgusting and out of date beliefs... After a while himself and the taxi mob gave up and went off (albeit not far away... still watching us).

This left us with the two children who we learnt were brother and sister, they were here to buy fathers day gifts, the boy was always running off back to the shop and looked as though he was hard to control. The sister was older at fourteen tears old and was testing her English on Laura, which I think she enjoyed and her brother who was eight years old was very cheeky and had very good English. He spent most if the time tickling us and running about, we shared our baguette with them and chatted whilst waiting forever for the bus. As time ticked on, we were told the bus would first be coming at four thirty pm , then five pm then five thirty pm and finally seven thirty pm. By now we were tired hot and sticky, we had been here since just after twelve and were fed up with lacklustre promises of buses and anyway, the guards were larking about with the taxis so it was obvious what their motive was. We had that feeling nothing would actually come at all and the other two felt the same, which was a shame as we guessed they had missed their bus because they got caught up with us being manipulated by the taxi mob.

They were going to catch the public bus to Hoi An, we so decided to join them full well knowing the overcharging that happens but maybe being with the kids would help. I guess it was time for more patience, resilience and haggling. We left the Big C together and held hands as we weaved through the swarms of motorbikes stuck in the traffic near the market. Not long after hitting the main road, the yellow public bus turned up. The two kids jumped on and we saw the price of 18,000 dong written inside the door. Knowing better than to get on as the very eager conductor was trying to get us on we asked the price. He kept shouting 'on' but we persisted and he said 50,000 dong each, we laughed and insisted 20,000 each maximum. At this point an older women appeared and was shouting prices at us and demanding us on. It got down to thirty thousand dong but Laura stood her ground and said 'No... its twenty' and turned around. With this the bus started to drive off before it suddenly stopped about 20 yards away and the conductor Shouted at us (plus our little friend was at the back window beckoning us on). We agreed 20,000 although he looked pissed off (always a good sign of a fair price) and we jumped on the back seats.

The lady taking the money didn't come to us at first and I saw the locals handing over 18,000 dong. We thought maybe she would wait till we were out of town before demanding more money knowing we would surrender... obviously haven't dealt with us before. However she soon appeared and when she did so she had a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, we held out 20,000 dong each and she just snatched it out of our hands. This was combined with Laura getting an utterly evil look to which an utterly evil one was sent right back. We felt very pleased with ourselves as we played the game right and didn't given in to intimidation. They just do it to get some beer money and it is pretty disgusting considering the price is written on the bus. It is a shame as this behaviour is deemed acceptable and that foreigners should pay more for buses, however we were glad to disappoint. The key is never get on the bus before negotiating, people do it and then they are stuck. That is when things can turn nasty! Luckily we got away with it and enjoyed the journey to Hoi An playing rock, paper and scissors with our little friend while sharing our cookies with him... At one point the conductor saw us and I think I saw her face soften slightly, clearly she was surprised to see that foreigners are actually nice people who don't have two heads or eat their own young.

We arrived at the bus station and received a bit of navigational advice from a chap who was from here originally but now lives in the US. We then had to say our sad goodbyes to the two youngsters as their dad would pick them up and it was very sad with lots of air kisses and waving... We were sad to see them go as they were really lovely kids and very friendly but I suppose now we were focused on a new stress that involves finding accommodation (currently our worst pastime).

As were walking towards town we suddenly heard the sounds of some running up behind us and shouting. The little boy had caught up with his sister not far behind and they said they wanted to walk with us, they were obviously not getting picked up at the station and told to start walking. Soon enough however, their mum pulled up on a motorbike and they both jumped on and zoomed off around the corner waving and saying they hope to see us again. It was only a five minute walk until we entered the hotel area north of Hoi An, and the usual frustrating ordeal would begin.

Laura had done some pre-planning with pricing but we found that the 'walk-in' prices were inflated, some quite considerably. This proved a little frustrating as we headed into the old town. It was now getting dark but even with our heavy bags rubbing and our faces soaked from sweating we could not help but admire the beauty of Hoi An waterfront. It is like a medieval style Chinese water town lit up with thousands of Chinese lanterns giving it a unique ambience. We had to keep on task though and we soon tried to play off two hotels on the front against each other. Both had pools (one albeit inside and more resembling a paddling pool) but they just wouldn't go low enough for us. We trudged back to thought the quaint small alleyways dodging the people on bicycles and headed back to concrete sprawl of 'new town'. After viewing multiple budget hotels we eventually settled on one for twelve dollars which had all the commodities expect an outside facing window. Yes, outside windows are premium here and you pay basically double, crazy I know, we even commented that we didn't realise windows were so expensive in Vietnam. We did have a window, it just faced the corridor so was a bit random and pretty pointless. Tired and sweaty we dumped our stuff and headed for a hopefully brief, search for food.

We headed back to the old town, to the water front and crossed the ornate (now packed) bridge which had lights shaped like a Chinese dragon across it. We tried some restaurants and found food at ridiculous prices so kept on searching, as we approached a market we found a little restaurant with plastic chairs and a pleasant woman who beckoned us in. We ordered the local speciality of 'Lao Cau' which is marinated pork with thick noodles and vegetables. It was a more acceptable twenty thousand dong (as much as eighty thousand in some places). We both agreed that the marinade was delicious and the noodles had a pasta like texture. I do prefer this to the sometimes, sloppiness, of noodles in pho dishes. After we cleaned our bowls we headed home for much needed rest.

After a long, hectic day, waiting for buses that did not turn up. Trying to catch a bus and fighting to pay the set price. We settled down for a relaxing evening in front of the box.