The first day took us about 7 hours to get to Hoi An, a small, quaint, and historic city in central Vietnam coast. En route, we crossed the bloody bridge that divided the North and South Vietnam during the war days and stopped by a local restaurant for lunch. Guess the locals at the restaurant were intrigued by the Indian boys. Some glares were quite piercing and quickly transitioned into a smiley retort. One of the neighboring tables had a full house, even a couple of their pet poodles were taking individual seats on the dining table.
The next day we woke up with no particular agenda. After breakfast, Faris and I ambled to the front desk enquiring about potential activities. After a call to local operators, we had about 5 minutes for a van that takes a group for scuba diving. We hustled Narein out of bed and hastily packed swim wear and joined the group. With no scuba diving certification, we had no idea how the process would work. The rest of the folks in the van had under water gadgets and seemed better prepared. We were taken around security at the docking station and boarded a catamaran sailboat towards the first diving site. No orientation and information thus far! We blindly went with the herd. The choppy water churned our stomach, exacerbated by filling the forms/waivers in a moving boat. Faris bore the brunt of it as he was filling the form.
We arrived at the dive site (with much calmer water) and went over a series of warnings and instructions. The newbies got paired with corresponding dive instructors, suited up, and jumped into the water. A little peak into the enormity of the sea world brought out various strains of phobia – Acrophobia, Agoraphobia…Soon after getting familiarized with the buoyancy of the suit, breathing technique, and depressurizing ears, calmer heads prevailed. The amazement and wonderment of witnessing the underworld superseded the remnant phobia. The accompanying instructor took us around different types of reefs with different habitants, towards various schools of fish, colorful creatures going about their ways – a breathtaking and humbling experience. We surfaced up after the allotted time. Apparently, it happened to be a good day with clear visibility and calmer water at this diving site.
We headed to an island for lunch break and consummated with a siesta by the beach. Soon after, we headed back to the city for about an hour of boat ride. On our return journey, we befriended a Gentleman who runs the local Sheraton hotels in Central Vietnam. He gracefully offered to book a table at his Sheraton hotel in Da Nang, fifth biggest city in Vietnam located ~60 KM from Hoi An to watch the international firework competition between China and UK. After refreshing, we decided to hit the road by scooter to Da Nang. With three of us, the configuration that worked out was to rent a scooter for self-driving with a pillion driver and a motorbike taxi for the third person. Guess learning to drive a bike in India would prepare one to drive in any traffic situation in any part of the world. It can’t get worse than driving in India. The traffic, proximity of driving to the next vehicle, vehicle exhaust sight and smell, etc., do bring back child hood memories of growing up in India. We arrived at the hotel roof top just in time for firework show to start.
The bar cum restaurant was running full capacity with Chinese visitors, rooting for their country in the ongoing competition. More than the competition, we enjoyed the variety at the buffet and watching the Chinese families interact with one another. The power players among Chinese are quite visible in their mannerism like the head nodding in unison of the subordinates and the ‘ganbeis’ (cheers) towards the power players.
It is on this day, we learned from Win that Vietnamese like their coast to be called as ‘North Vietnam Sea’ and not as ‘South China Sea’
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