travelling allrite

Yesterday it was planes, trains and automobiles. Today it was bicycles. I would like to say that I slept in, but Alex awoke far too early for that. When B eventually woke we had a Western/Vietnamese buffet breakfast at the hotel. Then we decided to do something we haven't done in a decade or more; ride a bike. Alex wasn't forgotten as the free hotel bikes have rear seats suitable for his age or older. No helmets, no gears, though I doubt that these bikes were capable of excessive speed or need to climb in this environment. Whilst the centre of Hoi An's old town is motorised vehicle free the surrounding streets have plenty of scooters and the odd truck or taxi. And the drive on the opposite side of the road to Australia. That said, the drivers around here tend not to speed and are pretty forgiving of other traffic. The use their horns frequently to warn other vehicles that they want to overtake. We started with a ride back around the old town before...

The easy way to get to Hoi An from Ho Chi Minh City is to fly to Danang then go via car for the final leg. Then there's my way. We had to wake at 5.30 am to get ready for a 6.15 departure from the hotel. A hotel car took us the few kilometres to the domestic terminal at the airport, where we checked into our Vietnam Airlines flight to the central Vietnam city of Hue. The airport was nothing flash, but it seemed functional. Alex had sandwiches (refused banh mi) for breakfast, then we went to the gate. Our blue Airbus A321 was parked at a remote stand, which necessitated a packed shuttle bus ride. It was nice to be aboard a full service airline again, even if the service was just a cup of water. We took off over the hazy skies of Ho Chi Minh City and for most of the smooth flight were cruising over a carpet of cloud. We descended over mountains poking their heads through the cloud, across lakes and paddy fields and over the beach. It was lovely scenery. ...