Domestic Migration

We arrived in Vietnam a week before the start of the lunar new year, or Tet. We had been warned to make travel plans in advance to avoid the rush of people traveling to their homes and families. Now, almost two weeks after Tet, we understand the warnings: we arrived in the seaside town of Hoi An to discover that all trains and bus seats southward were booked for the next several weeks. Yikes. We had planned to mosey our way down the coast, taking the ubiquitous buses that rumble down the coastal highway, stopping and picking up roadside passengers. Barring that, we had planned to take an overnight train (as we had from Hanoi to Hue).

Nothing doing.

We had not appreciated two facts of Vietnam life: first, that millions of people work and live in separate places, and that they travel home over Tet come hell or high water. Second, that Tet lasts for weeks ... and weeks ... the country just about shuts down for a month, and people don't head back to their cities of work until mid-February ... and there are millions of travelers. It's like having a Thanksgiving weekend for a month in terms of the demands on the country's travel infrastructure.

Happily, we were able to book one of the last airline seats out of Danang -- about 30km north of Hoi An -- to Saigon, so it looks like we'll make our flight back to Cairns, Australia. It's been a wonderful few days since our last post in Hanoi, and we still owe our faithful readers updates on Saigon's flowerful and noisy celebration of the new year, as well as our visit to the magical island of Cat Ba.

For now, though, we're "stuck" in the beautiful and historical city of Hoi An -- one of the only seaside cities in Vietnam to have escaped damage from the 20th century wars -- for five nights. We have a room in a lovely little hotel that sits alongside the river that once served as one of Vietnam's earliest trading harbors, having been around since the 1st century (!), and just a 5km scooter ride from some lovely South China Sea beaches. It's not a bad place to be "stuck," and since we seem to have reliable internet, we'll make a point of uploading some pics and stories from our travels here in Vietnam.

Thanks to all for your Facebook notes and blog comments -- we love to hear from our friends, even as we rely on these admittedly-impersonal postings to keep you all up-to-date on our wanderings. Keep your cards and letters coming!