As we travel up the coast it just gets colder and rainier. I’ll spare you repeat anecdotes. More enthusiastic locals, more grizzled southern fighters, more frustrated people with great English who can’t find good jobs.

Hoi An is a nice old city filled with charming 200 year old French and Chinese houses. Orchids grow like weeds on the power lines. We ate lunch in a wonderful cafe by the river, watching the wide eyed boats go past. The cafe played flamenco and orchids overhung the cafe window. We listened to the clear steel notes and dined on the house specialties suggested by a friend of the cafe: lemon shrimp and chicken cooked over bananas with shredded papaya. He also fed us “Cao Lau,” a delicious soup made only in Hoi An with water drawn from a special tasty well.Later we had French desserts while the friend of the cafe played melodies for us on his guitar. We’re enjoying this as much as we can.We’ll be back eating peanut butter and canned tuna in a hostel before long.

We talked to Monsieur Duong, a mathematics teacher, who has a lovely old house filled with ornate golden mother of pearl inlaid furniture.His father was VP of Hoi An and helped the Americans. After 10 years of re-education camp, poppa was exiled to the USA, where he lived in Worcester, MA! He came back to Hoi An to die and Msr. Duong keeps his shrine well stocked with scotch.

We continued to careen up the thin slice of land between the ocean and mountains, prisoners to Buddhist bus drivers who believed accidents were caused by ‘karma’ and not their own actions.

Around this time the country really started heating up over the S.E.A. Games!

Photos of Nah Trang and Hoi An.