Nha Trang and Hoi An. Full of pleasant surprises. Like herpes.

Next stop on the journey was Hoi An, a coastal town in Vietnam known for its amazing tailors and shoe maker elves. As it turns out, you can’t get a bus directly from Dalat. You have to stop in Nha Trang, a super beachy area that seems to be an obligatory stop on the backpacker trail.

We had plans to travel straight through the day and night to Hoi An from Dalat. But since we barely made it onto the bus in the morning, and the aircon was broken, and so were the shocks on the bus, and it was one of the most horrible bus rides I’ve ever taken, we considered stopping in Nha Trang for the night and getting out to Hoi An the next day.

As the bus pulled up to gorgeous waves, we were set on staying. No doubt.

It turned out to be a pretty quiet town with really fantastic snorkeling. Unfortunately I have no pics of this – we lost the underwater camera somewhere between Krabi and Singapore. Along with my running shoes. And a few other loose ends.

We went on a beautiful (my first!) snorkeling trip, and apparently I was totally spoiled. The visibility was perfect, lunch was tasty, and the water was a perfect temperature. Except, it was full of tiny little jellyfish that stung me constantly. It was just a little itchy at first, but eventually it left little red trail dots on my skin.

I didn’t notice the dots until we got to Hoi An the next day. Convinced I had a parasite or the HIV or something more serious, I went to a clinic/pharmacist.

“No bug bites, your skin have allergy. You in water or sun?”

“Umm, yes. Mountain rivers, ocean waters, you name it. I’ve been in it. A lot.”

“Yes, yes. Your skin not like heat and sweat and water. Put on cream.”

“I can’t read this. It’s in Vietnamese. What should I do?”

“Put on, put on. Ok, ok.”

“Ok?”

I purchase said cream for, like, a dollar, and start applying. Adam seems to think he knows something about medicine and asks to take a look.

“This is herpes cream. It’s got the same active ingredient.”

“Umm, what? And how would you know?”

In any case, it was apparently the same cream one would use for a herpes outbreak.

As we all know, you can suppress an outbreak, but there is no cure.

Not that I had one ... just that the cream is multipurpose. Plus, I mean, it's Asia. And I'm a backpacker. Who knows what they were thinking ...

Naturally, I started referring to my little red trails as my herpes, or my herp. Which was fine, I suppose, until a few days later when I was in a crowded touristy area with a lot of people who understood English.

I had started depending on the fact that NO ONE understood what the fuck I was saying. Ever. This can become dangerous.

(While applying white cream to legs) “Hey, Adam, look. My herpes look sooooo much better today.”

Hmm. Silence.

Disgusted stare from group of older travelers sitting close to us.

Disapproving stare from my travel partner.

I just started laughing hysterically. I mean, really. How do you recover from that?

I still don’t know what it was that I had. They came and went, reappeared in other areas, and finally went away completely. At one point I had trails of red welts going down the length of my body, coupled with mosquito bites. It was niiiice.

We thought maybe we were carrying fleas? Or something? Who knows. Gross though, right?

Back to the point, Hoi An was totally fantastic and underrated. I got a ton of shoes and clothes made – to order, designed by yours truly, for unreal prices. I’ll have to show you all someday ;)

We stayed for a long time and ate great food, including the wonton soup and noodles that you can ONLY get in Hoi An. The dough can only be made from the water of a special well in town, so you can only get those noodles in that town. Cool, huh?

This is me. Eating noodles.

And that was really all in Hoi An. Loved it, shopped a lot, relaxed and had fun. Relaxed so much that there are no pictures. Not even of my herpes.

Priceless, isn’t it?