It was a now well understood and common complexity to our daily ritual...wake up... feel the rays of light on your face and commence coping with the hangover that ‘night before’ Elisher had kindly gifted to ‘next day’ Elisher. We struggled to make the breakfast table at the Nhi Nhi, a ritual that I would have gladly missed but for the disarmingly great Vietnamese coffee that was always on call by the time you took your seat. A couple of those, a little sweetened condensed milk and there you had it, the cure for any self inflicted ailment.
Interior of the Nhi Nhi Hotel - Hoi An
This was going to be Frichot’s last day in Hoi An before heading down south to Saigon in order to catch up with a few friends from his last visit. We decided that we’d take the bikes out for a while and travel down river and out of town in order to see what was on offer. Pushing along out of Hoi An, with the breezes at our backs, it was more than a gentle and comfortable ride on the flat roads that cut through mainly rice paddy fields and the occasional scattering of houses.
Taken from our morning ride
Morning ride from Hoi An
After riding out of town a few kms we turned 180 degrees and road back into the Ancient Town and onto one of the tailors that I’d done a little business with the day before after concluding my session with Tony. After trying on a few of the items and also checking in on the progress of the shorts that Jet had requested, we were asked to return in approximately an hour, easy resolution to that one, we were on our bikes and back exploring the surrounds. We essentially rode into the backwoods of Hoi An (check out the red dotted line on the map), riding mainly across rice fields and along dirt roads lined with tall palms. In the heat of the day and virtually in the middle of nowhere we stumbled upon ‘The Great’ café, essentially a couple of tables and chairs that were set up in someone’s backyard. We sat there happily as the owners children vied for our attention by showing of their toys. Now, I don’t know what went into the coffee that this lady made for me but it was one of the most wickedly heads spinning coffee’s that I’ve ever had. I think I had Frichot in stitches for a good view minutes with some of the comments I was coming out with – that coffee was Vietnamese country wild!
The blue line shows the morning ride out of town
The red line shows the afternoon spin that we took
We rode on back to the tailors a little over an hour later only to find that the shorts could not be made, well no problemo, off to the Now and Then bar for some drinks, lunch and the general feeling of tranquillity that comes from being in Hoi An.
Getting back to the hotel a few drinks to the good, Jet was in pack-up mode as he was getting ready to jump a flight from Da Nang to Saigon at 6pm that evening. We said our goodbyes and looked forward to catching up in KL for what would inevitably be a great NYE, of that I was already absolutely certain. Leaving Frichot to finish up at the Nhi Nhi, I rode back out to Tony the Tailor’s in order to go through a shirt/suit fitting. In one of those kind of serendipitous moments I had the odd thought of wondering what I’d actually do if the chain came off my bike and I found myself having to push it back to home base. As of course, as destiny and good fortune had it happen, I didn’t have to wait more than 5 mins to find out what that result would be. As I rode along one of the streets in the Ancient Town I pushed down on the pedal and then felt the other give, I knew straight away that the chain had come off, damn it, I was now left with the corpse of a bike. However, as the theme of ‘happy coincidences’ continued on this trip, I pulled up to the curb and parked my bike directly in front of an elderly Vietnamese man who just so happened to have a tool kit with him. He took hold of the bike, pulled out something from his tool kit and had the chain slipped back on in under 30 seconds – it was like riding around with your own personal bike mechanic on call. As he slipped the chain back onto the gears and kind of showed me the problem I took a mental note of the requirements…I didn’t want to be 5kms out of town having to push the damn thing back in that distance under any circumstance.
Making it to Tony’s a little later on, I checked in on what had been delivered thus far. The shirts were of course supreme, the jackets even better and the suits near perfect, only requiring minor adjustments, which would get completed overnight and be ready to roll the next day.
I rode around for a little while after that, stopping off at another bar in town and getting lost in a game of pool with the resident staff for a while. We were both crap and the game took forever to complete. I cruised around for a little longer but on this night didn’t really manage to find anything that appealed to me or where I could spent a little time on my own. In any case, after a few days of late nights/early mornings I decided to give myself a bit of a night off and called in early, somewhere about 11pm.
Lantern Central
