Day 64! It’s starting to heat up in Hoi An! The weather is making the beach a very enticing place to be. I’m glad I’m so close to it so I can take full advantage of this!

After a nice night out, my mind decided it was a great idea to wake up on the earlier side. So instead of sleeping in, I woke up, showered, and went to enjoy my free hostel breakfast.

After eating, I had told my friend Immy that I’d teach her how to ride a motorbike. I’d never done this before, but after riding through Vietnam for the past (almost) two months, I felt like I could show her the ropes!

We spent around an hour riding up and down the quiet street near our hostel! This road was an ideal place for her to learn and reminded me of my time learning how to ride in Pai, Thailand!

After letting her ride on my bike in 4th gear for a bit (since the acceleration was manageable), she hopped on a friends automatic motorbike and I hopped back on Kilby and we headed into the busier streets for a little bit.

She went from being unable to fully balance on the motorbike, because she wasn’t confident in the motorbike staying up, to being able to make turns and cruise down the quiet streets near our hostel!

She definitely needs a little more practice, but it was awesome to see how much she improved in such a short amount of time!

After the lesson, Immy, Alex, and I went into town to run a few errands!

Alex needed to pick up some tailored items and he also told Immy and I about a ring shop he liked so we went to check that out!

We also picked up some cheap pomegranate juice along the way.

It was a very hot day with the temperature reaching around 90 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius). So by the time we got to the ring shop, we were sweating buckets!

The ring shop was a big success! I ended up getting two of my rings resized, which is great because I haven’t been able to wear them.

I also ended up buying a new sterling silver ring for very cheap all together! I’ll show a picture of it at a later time (I’m sure it’ll pop up in a post soon).

We happened to be near a restaurant I’ve been to a couple of times and enjoyed a lot. So we walked across the bridge to Vietnamese Chopsticks!

I didn’t get the chicken with pineapples this time, but I did get a chicken stir fried noodles which was equally as good! I’m a big fan of this restaurant.

We then started to walk back towards our bikes, but our first stop on our way back was to a fruit stand that had star fruit!

We ended up getting three small ones for 10,000 Dong. They weren’t the tastiest fruit I’ve had, but they reminded me of a Granny Smith apple.

We then went to a scarf shop for Alex and the shop owners remembered me from the last time I was here! It was very nice to catch up and talk about the store, where they were from, etc.

Also in the conversation, I learned that cashmere comes from Cashmere (the more you know) and the owners were from there originally but now have lived in Hoi An for the past 6 years!

When we got to our bikes, a strange thing happened. A random lady tried to tell us we had to pay her to park where we had (she wasn’t a parking attendant). She told us we each needed to pay 5,000 Dong to park there but there was nothing saying that and even after Google translating she couldn’t show us where it said we needed to pay here.

It felt very scammy and she was not very happy that we were against paying. Maybe we should’ve just given her the 5,000 each but it really didn’t make sense to Alex and I.

After getting back to the hostel, I hung out in the more chill area hanging out with the friends I’ve made.

I then decided to go to the beach with Alex where we swam in the ocean for a bit! We then hopped out of the water and a few other people joined us!

I jammed on the guitar for a bit as the sun set again which has become a favorite activity of mine!

I finished off the night with a Hoi A chicken rice for dinner, played some pool with a few hostel mates, and then got into some deep conversations with some new friends and lots of card games!

Tomorrow, I plan on going to the Laos embassy where I’ll attempt to figure out what I need to do to get into Laos by motorbike! I have a vague idea of what I need to do and bring… but we’ll see how it goes and what they say!

Send positive vibes this way that it all goes smoothly!

– Elie