Surfin' VNM

Learning how to windsurf was on the to do list for today. We got up and headed straight over to Jibe's Surf shop next door. After a coffee I was somewhat in a position to compute all the information of the theoretical lesson. Then we headed further down the beach to a spot where the wind was more suited for our first tries. After a few instructions and practice moves on the beach we finally moved the large beginner boards into the sea.

Getting up on the board and into T-position was not too bad. We even were able to catch some wind and ride straight for a while.

The hard part was to turn... either a jibe (downwind turn) or a tack (upwind turn) were not easy. We focussed on practising the tack as this one would not send us that far downwind (and because it is a little harder than the jibe).

Practice, practice and practice. Matt, our instructor did a good job pointing out our mistakes. He better be for what we paid for the lessons (55$ per h per person).

After about two hours (1 1/2 in the sea) we kind of started to get it. Of course there is still plenty of practice required now to get anywhere near a place where we can do a somewhat graceful turn, but we can practice this on our own time now, by just renting the gear.

Cool, first lesson in windsurfing... check!

We freshened up and packed our bags and prepared to check out. Unfortunately we did not get our second night refunded. So another 10 $ per person down the drain.

While we had some lunch across the road at Cocos, we let our trunks and towels dry in the sun and then waited for the bus to Hoi An.

It was actually two buses: One from Mui Ne to Na Thrang, where we supposedly could get some dinner and then a night bus from there to Hoi An, where we would arrive at 7 am.
At least we would save a night in a Hostel.

The Bus to Na Thrang was a little late but compensated for this with being a bus from the future. Instead of four seats in a row we had three beds (seats that almost fully reclined) on two floors. Wifi was working perfectly and when it got dark the inside was illuminated with LEDs in different colour.
The A/C was not turned up to 16 degrees either. A very comfortable ride.

When we arrived at Na Thrang, our dinner break we hoped for was not possible as we had built up quite a delay and some guy from the bus company pulled us by our arms out of the bus and dragged us to the next Bus that left as soon as we stepped on it to Hoi An.

We have had no food since lunchtime and no snacks in the bag. It was 8pm now and we were worried we won't get any food until we arrived in Hoi An the next morning.

We had better seats however because we got the very last row of beds. Basti and I shared three fully reclinable seats.

I thought sleeping would not be a problem, and since there was not much else to do I tried, but had to find out that the road was extremely bumpy (they are still improving the main north-south connection from Hanoi to Saigon and every 3 km there is a construction site with dirt tracks around it).

So no sleep for a while, until I finally dozed off. About 5 minutes (that's how it felt at least) later the bus driver stopped for dinner.

We filled up on Rice and fried things (I believe it was chicken) and then rode north, through the night.