Seaside Charm in Hoi An, Vietnam
Although Hoi An had been one of the places in Vietnam I most wanted to visit, the timing of my trip would put me there during rainy season. I had read online about kneehigh water during October and most blogs warned that it wasn’t worth the trip, so I had originally written it out of my itinerary. But while traveling in Sapa, I kept meeting other travelers who had just been to Hoi An and swore that the weather was perfect. Knowing I wouldn’t be back to Vietnam anytime soon, especially if they keep this $135 visa in place, I changed my plans and booked a $16 Jetstar flight to Da Nang, where I would taxi to the seaside town of Hoi An.
Two main things attracted me to Hoi An: it has a UNESCO heritage ancient town as well as a beach. Although I had heard the beach wasn’t that much to look at, I had been on the road for nearly two months with only a bit of beach time in Bali, so I was craving the ocean. I chose a homestay just a block away from the shore, at a very reasonable price since I was there in low season. The flight I had had to book back to Hanoi and then on to Laos due to my change in plans was prohibitively expensive, however, so I hoped the weather would hold out to make my detour worth it. Lucky for me, it did!
The beach looked exactly like the Jersey Shore, which was just fine with me, and it was so relaxing to walk along the quiet shore after so much time in hectic Hanoi.
But on my return to my room that night, everything fell apart.
I opened up my laptop, ready to attack some freelance work after taking a break from it while Erin was in town. And everything went to hell. My keyboard was on the fritz. My ’z’ key was stuck. The space bar triggered a forward slash. The return key triggered the caps lock. The delete key turned the volume off. I frantically googled answers on my phone while Whatsapping my more technologically savvy sister who was slumbering in New York. ”Semi urgent computer question when you wake up!” I typed. ”Scratch that. Really urgent!!!”
Everything up until this point had been perfect, work wise. I was getting into the groove of the freelancing life, picking up more work and always managing to find a way to Wifi. But what to do when I had deadlines to meet and no working keyboard? I could email on my phone, but marking up PDFs and editing manuscripts was not going to happen on that tiny screen. I was hundreds of miles away from an Apple support store and it would be three weeks before I would be in a place where those sort of amenities would (maybe) be available.
In short, I panicked.
But with the help of my sister, I managed to download an app that allowed me to remap my keyboard. Feeling like a hacker, I reprogrammed my keys, disabled the ones that were acting up, and came up with a decent fix that would get me through at least for a little while. It was my first real lesson of dealing with a meltdown on the road. There are lots of things I love about solo travel: flexibility, independence, and the feeling of accomplishment when things go right. But it is tough when you are solo and things go wrong.
Once I had calmed down from my initial night of panic, I set out to explore more of Hoi An. It is definitely my kind of town: relatively quiet, with beautiful architecture, delicious and unique local food, and beachy to boot! Hoi An was a former port for the spice trade, and therefore has lots Chinese and Japanese influenced temples and buildings throughout the town.
Hoi An is also famous for its tailors and you can get all sorts of clothes made there. I looked longingly at the lovely pea coats and jewel toned dresses, none of which would fit in my backpack. I did pick up a pair of silver leather sandals to replace my Toms, which had met their demise on the dirty streets of Hanoi. And then the lights went down on this lovely town.
