Day 61! The gym was unfortunately closed… but the waves today proved to be a nice workout! It was a great day of chilling on the beach with some newer friends!

I started my morning off just before 9am!

I had a fine nights sleep next to the guy I had never met before. When I got to the room, he had his headphones on, fast asleep, and was snoring. But I was still able to get some sleep.

I then headed over to the main hostel, where I finally had a bed in the 10 person dorm room!

I ate my standard free breakfast and chatted with my friends from the night before. We ended up chatting for around 3 hours about a whole slew of different topics.

But by that point we decided it was time to go enjoy the beautiful day on the beach!

The group consisted of Immy, Matt, and Haley from England, Anouk from Netherlands, Nathan from Canada, and Calvin from Australia!

We spent another 4 hours on the beach! A lot of it was listening to music and chatting more. But we also played uno and had a blast jumping around in the waves!

The ocean was VERY choppy today but with a close and high sandbar, we were able to body surf some big waves without being too far out in the craziness!

We would get our butts kicked by the waves for a bit and then go back to hanging out on the shore and then back in the water a bit later! It was a ton of fun! It really reminded me of my times in North Carolina, getting beat up by the waves with my dad… but the waves were twice the size!

While we were hanging out, some graffiti artists made their way into an abandoned building nearby and some of us followed in to watch!

This was the final product that we saw, which was super cool! It was awesome seeing the process and the art come to life on the wall. They were very talented!

We ended up walking back, cleaning up, and ordering a late lunch.

There’s a part of the hostel that is away from the music and is a great spot to hang out with other travelers. So we ended up sitting there while we ate and continued to chat and listen to music! Everyone added songs to the song queue so it was cool hearing everyone’s music tastes and getting new music to add to my library.

For my late lunch I decided to go big and I got a tofu Cao Lao noodle and a chicken Banh Mi! They were both delicious and filled me up after an exhausting day of burning calories on the beach!

We sat here for another few hours chatting the evening away until dinner time! By this point we had a few new faces hanging out with us too!

We got dinner at a restaurant on the beach where I went on the cheaper side and got stir fried noodles with vegetables. It was very tasty and dinner lead to even more conversation!

I absolutely love chatting with new people! It really fills up all my buckets learning about who they are, hearing about things they are passionate about, and diving into deep conversations about all sorts of topics!

At this point it was time for one of the bon fires of the week (on the beach). So we set out to the fire pit spot, got some nice tunes playing and one of the travelers started up a great bonfire!

I’d say a majority of the hostel came to this one! The weather was perfect and the stars were out in full force too!

During the fire, a traveler from Nebraska was doing acro yoga, which is yoga done with a partner and a lot of it is acrobatic.

They were doing a yoga pose where the person on top is laying on the bottom persons feet and their legs were in their hands. I ended up giving it a go and it was a great back stretch after sitting on the beach all day!

I think I’ll keep saying how great my days are here in Hoi An! As easy as it would be to keep hanging with people I already know, I really enjoy meeting new people!

I hope to keep hanging with old friends and meeting new ones; and I’m sure I will!

– Elie