A day in HoiAn

Trouble in Paradise. We’ve only been married for a day, but that’s all it took us to have our first newly-wed fight. American Lora (nicknamed – Sassy) and myself came back on the bike to the hotel, after the loveliest time chilling at the Hoi An beach, to book our tour for the My Son 2000 years old ancient city the next day. As we entered the reception room together laughing, Tam looked completely shocked and disappointed. “Laura, this is my beautiful wife Tam. Tam, this is Laura” was a lousy attempt to act as if I didn’t notice the nasty looks that went on in the room. Laura looked at me with a big question mark face and I shrugged, doing the horrible mistake of asking my sweetheart – “Wait, you’re not jealous, are you?”. A small shy “but I’ve missed you” was all I got in reply when she handed me my room key, probably thinking that’s where we were going together for a short tourist-that-only-met-quicky. Just before we left Laura came back in to make sure they pick her up from her hotel and the news I got is that my darling was relieved hearing that Laura’s staying someplace else. After escort-riding Lora back to her hotel, I rode back but Tam was already gone. Her receptionist friend, Ann, told me she was very upset so I called her up at home (?!) and told her that she shouldn’t be upset and that I love her. Everything turned out okay this morning when Tam came back and found out from Laura that Laura has a boyfriend back home at the states. We set a date for lunch tomorrow, Tam’s choosing the place – I’m buying.

All the Vietnam beaches I’ve seen up north suck. Noisy, dirty muddy beaches, are no comparison to Thailand’s exotic islands, yet yesterday’s Hoi An Beach was a great improvement. I wasn’t planning to go to the beach, but Laura, who I met on the lousy DMZ tour in Hue, caught up with me on the street and we ended up chatting together all day in some (relatively) expensive cafe’ place. Sassy Laura is a somewhat energetic interesting lively world-traveler I had fun chilling with so when she offered I’d rent a bike and ride along with her I had to agree. Fighting against the evergrowing feet muscle ache and my overall physical bad shape, I managed to paddle through the island and then on to the beach. We got there just in time for sunset, swam a bit, and then sat down with the Vietnamese next to candlelight and had a few drinks and pineapple. There’s a good place to take a girlfriend or a wife. Definitely a place worth coming back to…