Mr. Phong

Now to a little adventure:

So we were in Hoi An. Unfortunately, there is no train from here to the south. Sergio, the traveler from Colombia, and I realized after our shared theater experience that we had the same route ahead of us. So why not travel together?

My first choice was the train, but it only left Da Nang 30km away. During dinner in Hoi An on our last day there, a local approached us and asked if we would like to visit him in his village between Hoi An and Da Nang for a small fee, and he would tell us something about the traditions and history.
Why not? You don't get an offer like this every day. The plan was to visit Mr. Phong and then continue to Da Nang in the evening to catch the night train.

Mr. Phong is a Vietnam War veteran and had more stories to tell than you can imagine. Although it was difficult to understand many things because of his accent. Afterwards, he explained to us how the family clans of Vietnam are structured and that they go back up to 500 years in the past. Everyone here belongs to a family clan and knows exactly when and where it was founded. I don't even know my great-grandfather's name. We Europeans are really stupid when it comes to preserving our history.

Mr. Phong took us into his backyard, where some pigs were grunting around. Right next to it were completely dusty cisterns. 'There we do rice wine'. Really? I laughed. The distillery looked like it hadn't been used in decades. 'No, really.' Mr. Phong took a dusty plastic measuring cup with some chicken feathers stuck to it and dipped it into a dirty barrel full of liquid. 'Try it.' Why not? You're only young once. Yes, I tried it. Honestly? I have never had better schnapps in my life. Sergio also tried it and we just grinned at each other. 'Is it possible to get 1 liter of that rice wine?' ...

If you learn one thing while traveling, it is to stay calm and improvise cleverly. It became a bit complicated in Da Nang: When we arrived, we found out that all trains for the next two days were fully booked due to the end of the holidays. Damn, what now? 5km further at the bus station, the lady at the counter told us that all buses were fully booked for 5 days.
Okay, brainstorming. We definitely had to continue today, as time was running out. When you think about it, all people in Vietnam are pretty corrupt... 'Hey, let's go looking for the bus driver.' Sergio was a bit skeptical at first. 'But we don't have a ticket.' I smiled. 'Trust me. Everybody here is a bitch.'
Actually, we looked for the next bus that was heading close to the city we wanted to go to, and behold: the bus driver took us for some pocket money. Lucky us.
Actually, we even got the best seat on the bus, which was a whole camp of mattresses.
It was a long, rather sleepless night. The rice wine helped a bit though.

But hey! We were on our way to the south!♡