Making Friends in Unlikely Places

After the unexpected booze cruise in Hue, I decided it was time to move on and signed up for a 5 hour, and $5, bus to Hoi An. The guidebooks describe Hoi An as quiet beach town, and since Hue wasn’t as relaxing as expected, I was eager for a bit of a break. I was a bit worried however – since Hoi An isn’t exactly a backpacker hot spot, I had to book a hotel. I was more than ready for my own room after a few months of hostels, but knew it would be hard to make friends (or at least find dinner companions) in this kind of environment.

One of the best parts of staying in a hostel is meeting tons of new people, but sometimes after all the standard “Where are you from” and “How long have you been traveling” questions are exhausted, you find you don’t have too much in common and aren’t too upset when you or your new ‘friend’ has to move on to the next city. I was lucky enough to find great groups to travel with in Borneo and Bali, but otherwise my friendships with hostel roommates were pretty fleeting and I didn’t expect to make any more real connections on my trip.

As is always the case, things happen when you least expect it. I was sitting alone in the lobby of the Hue hostel, waiting for my bus, when I discovered that there were about ten different bus companies going to Hoi An that morning. I went to the desk to ask which one I was supposed to get on, and the receptionist pointed out another girl and said “Follow her”. I asked the girl if she had the same color ticket as me, and we got to chatting. Her name was Jemma, she was my age, and I could tell she was British from her accent, so I was shocked when after saying that I was from New Jersey, she replied “Me too!”

“No,” I said. “Not Jersey in the UK. NEW Jersey”. I thought this was a reasonable clarification as the Borneo kids I was with were from the Isle of Jersey. Instead, she looked at me like I was an idiot. Turns out, she did actually mean New Jersey and had lived there for about ten years growing up before moving back to the UK with her family. And even weirder –she had lived about ten minutes from my parents’ house. We were both excited when we learned we were staying at the same hotel, since she had the same fear of not meeting anyone either. In these five minutes of small talk I could tell I liked her sense of humor and her attitude, and once the right bus finally showed up, we sat next to each other and chatted for the rest of the trip.

View from my seat on the sleeper bus

The bus dumped us outside a hotel in Hoi An, where there were tons of taxi drivers screaming for our fare. We found our bags and planned to wait for the prearranged hotel pickup, even though the bus had got in early so we would have to stand in the sun for 45 minutes until the pickup time. The drivers wouldn’t leave us alone, and the sun was beating down on us. Once we were about to give in and said the name of our hotel, they shouted over each other with fare offers, and told us the hotel was a “cheap cab” or a 20+ minute walk to the left. Granted we were being cheap, but we decided to wait, and that’s where we found the third member of our new group.

“Are you girls headed to the Sunflower?” we heard someone ask. Hearing the girl’s voice and British accent we realized this was not another aggressive driver competing for passengers, and we turned to meet Leanne. She was headed to our hotel as well. As we were exchanging names, one of the drivers beckoned to Jemma. With a confused expression she walked over towards him, and we heard him stage whisper that the Sunflower was really just half a block down the road to the right. All of the other drivers would have taken us for ride around town, and being dumb tourists without a map we would never have known and paid them their asking price. Thanking the honest driver, we headed off down the street and within two minutes came to the right place.

I think it was the complaining about the long bus ride (Leanne had taken it from Hanoi and was on the bus for over 20 hours) and our shared indignation at almost getting ripped off again, but the three of us were basically inseparable from then on. We checked into the hotel and met up right after dropping our bags for a day of lounging by the pool. We made plans for the next few days and then walked to the old town for dinner and drinks.

Old town waterfront at night

It was one of those times where everything worked out – three girls traveling alone, on the same bus and staying at the same hotel, with similar interests and complementary personalities. My Vietnam experience would have been completely different without Jemma and Leanne, and I can guarantee I wouldn’t have had as much fun as I did if I hadn’t met them. We had so many adventures that it’s going to take me multiple posts to give you the full story, so keep reading…