Quang Ngai is not really a typical Vietnam travel destination for most tourists, but was the only place we could get to between Qui Nhon and Hoi An.  We found a home stay across the river with a very nice family running it.  The guy gave us all hugs when we arrived and offered water and Oreos and was generally super nice.

I went for a quick run before it got dark and my sunburn from Nah Trang manifested itself into a painful back wound and so when I started to sweat, my entire back began to sting.  I was only planning on doing a 5km, but probably could not have done much more due to the pain.

I had scoped out a night market and festival on my run though so that we knew where to go for food.  The night market was really cool, there was a stage with live music and then a whole length of tents with food stalls in them.  Riding up and down the food stalls were these guys on motorbikes, with 42 inch TVs and giant speakers and microphones offering mobile karaoke experiences while you eat your food.

The one place had some sort of hot pot dish and so we sat down and ordered “what they were having” pointing at a group a few tables over.  It looked like there was some sort of meat in it, so we were in.  When the dish arrived it ended up being full of Seafood which made our Italian friend pretty upset.  I guess when you don’t know what you are ordering and just point, you have to roll with the punches, you may not get exactly what you want all the time.

After dinner I went for a walk to the Tet celebration and did some street photography.  I posted a separate post about the photography HERE. It was pretty interesting to see everyone dressed up and taking what seemed like a million selfies.  Walked around there for a bit and then decided to call it quits early.

I woke up in the morning and was planning on going for a longer run, but the stinging returned and I only made it 3km before having to call it quits.  A small set back, but luckily sunburns heal quickly and I could already tell that the pealing stage was imminent.  I tried to find Aloe at the few pharmacies in the area and had no luck.

In the morning we transported to Hoi An which promised to be a very nice old town.  Upon arrival we struggled to find a hostel that was not full as Tet reared it’s head once again.  We ended up having to stay a few KM out of town, but in the end it was a really cute hut type place that had an open air room and a really cool vibe.  Since it was a little out of town, it did have a lot of mosquito.  Luckily mosquito nets were provided. We went into town and walked around a bit, enjoying the cool lanterns and old architecture.  Google even suggested to me that there was a craft beer place in the town which I had to check out.

Upon arrival at the beer place, I was a little disappointment to find that it only had beers from the 3 major craft breweries in Saigon.  I was kind of hoping that there would be some central or north Vietnam beers, but in talking to the owner, those do not apparently exist.  It was so nice to have a none crappy lager.  I had a Pale Ale from East West brewing and it was delicious.  I met a guy from England and we got to talking about traveling and beer and even though I was only planning on having one, our conversation was so good that a second was in order.  He offered to buy it for me, but the waitstaff did not catch that and I ended up paying for it in the end.  The second beer was an IPA from Heart of Darkness, which was also delicious.

After saying my good byes and him offering to show me around the craft beer scene in London when I come, I headed back to the hostel for some sleep as I was planning on trying again at my longer run in the morning.  I woke up early, went for a 13km run and then headed out early for the next stage in our journey… Marble mountain, De Nang, and the Hai Van Pass.

*EBBR in Hoi An