Hue to HCMCDay - 7 and 8

This was the part of the journey we had been dreading for the past month. Jamie and I woke at 5:00 am to go running near the Perfume River in Hue, packed up our things, met Gary and Kathy down stairs for breakfast, and met the bus at the travel agency in town at 8:30 for the start of our LONG journey south back to HCMC.

The bus took us 3 hours back to Hoi An, where we had 6 hours to kill before leaving at 7:45 on the sleeper bus to Nha Trang. During those 6 hours, we walked the streets of Hoi An some more, did some shopping (Gary and I had 2 shirts made for us), tried to purchase airline tickets (unsuccessfully), and dined in a few restaurants for either drinks, lunch, or dessert. We found an amazing ice cream place along the river called Casa Verda, so if anyone reading this (all 4 people) ever end up in Hoi An, you can check it out.

Our sleeper bus was nice enough. Jamie, Gary, and Kathy were all on the back row of the bus. I was by myself a few rows up. We went to sleep almost immediately and dozed on and off for the duration of the trip. At 6:00 the next morning, we arrived in Nha Trang, where we had to wait about an hour and half before the next leg of our journey to HCMC. This bus wasn’t a sleeper bus, but we napped, read, snacked, and chatted through this LONG 12 hour bus ride back to HCMC where we finally arrived at 7:30 pm, nearly 36 hours after we first left Hue.

Gary and I picked up some linen pants that we had ordered last week, and Jamie and Kathy checked into the same hotel we had before. After getting settled and cleaning up, we headed out to a BBQ restaurant we had read about and noticed the other day. It was delicious and one of the best and most fun meals we had had on the trip. They had a small grill on your table, so we cooked our own meat, shrimp, and veggies.

We were just about spent after this and crashed into bed some around 11:00 pm.

Busy 2 days but definitely memorable. Gary even said that he was glad he got the opportunity to take the sleeper bus. While I’m not sure about that, it was definitely 2 days for the books in our travels.