From Hue To Hoi An By Tourist Bus

After being flooded and trapped in my hostel for a day, and with many restaurants and stores still closed the day after, I decided to leave Hue and head down to Hoi An.

There’s a few ways to make the journey between Hue and Hoi An. One of the more popular ones is to do a motorbike tour and stop at several interesting landmarks along the way. I actually had booked such a tour with a local tour guide BUT he didn’t show up to pick me up nor did he contact me or my hostel, so I figured he just wasn’t coming. Waste of money ($72 USD), but what can you do?

As it was still rainy and overcast, I figured rather than chance a motorcyle tour I’d just book a tourist bus.

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Tourist buses are different than regular buses; they’re combo tour/transit, as in they combine travel with sightseeing. Rather than drop you back off at your starting point like with a normal day tour, you just get dumped at the other end of the tour! It’s also much cheaper than the motorcycle tours, at only 300,000 VND / $13 USD.

I booked it through my hostel and luckily they were still running despite parts of Hue still being flooded.

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It was a small passenger van with (I think) 8 people total, plus the driver and tour guide. We left Hue at 8:00 am and arrived in Hoi An by 2:00 pm. Along the way, we stopped at:

Lang Co Beach, which was full of big buses with tour groups and a few bedraggled trinket sellers.
Hai Van Pass, which was very beautiful but also VERY cold. Also foggy, so even if I’d done a motorcycle tour after all, there wouldn’t have been anything to see!
Marble Mountain, which is a bit like a store’s display for marble statues. Luckily not as busy as it might’ve been!

Normally we’d also stop by the Thanh Toan Tiles-Roofed Bridge, but it was flooded. 😛 The trip also came with a bottle of water and a snack.

The bus dropped us off at our hostels in Hoi An. I stayed at DK’s Backpacker Hotel, located slightly outside of the main downtown part of Hoi An. I had a private room with an en-suite (yay!) and the nightly rate included free breakfast. Score!

I’d basically been sick for the last week plus, so I was looking forward to resting for a few days in a quiet, but cute little town. Luckily Hoi An had gotten over its own flooding problems right before I arrived, so while it was overcast and rainy most of the time, it wasn’t actively flooding.

Here’s a room tour of DK’s Backpacker Hotel: