Vietnam (Hoi An)

Hoi An had been mentioned to us by several travellers throughout Vietnam for its charming low rise buildings and picturesque look on a night. We now completely understand what they meant, the buildings and architecture feel European and have Chinese influences everywhere. On an evening the river is full of small floating candles and the lack of big street lights being replaced by dim lanterns gives this place a very pleasant vibe when walking around at night. In the day its charm is not so much feeling a lot like other places in Vietnam albeit with not as many high rise buildings. The town itself is renowned for tailoring, on every street there are row upon row of tailors offering to make you anything from coats, suits, shirts, t-shirts, shoes and bikinis all made to measure and probably a lot cheaper than back in England. We however didn't get anything made as we would have to carry it around for another 4 months.

The main attractions include a place called My Son, a set of island call Cham Islands, the old town (lots of tailors and craft stuff) as well as the usual temples, museums and bridges etc. We decided against the My Son trip as its review's say its nothing compared to Ankor Wat in Cambodia so decided against that. We did book on to a snorkeling day out to the Cham Islands. It was a really good day out and both of us had never seen a tropical reef before so snorkeling for a few hours around the islands was very interesting. You see lots of coloured corals in amazing shapes and sizes, not as many fish as we had expected but we over heard a conversation andut how over the last 5-10 years the fish numbers on the reef have been falling. We did however fall victim to some fake suncream and are now fully burnt and blistering which isn't the best. This also meant we basically lost an entire day in our room applying aftersun and taking pain killers to ease the pain before an over night train to Nha Trang the following day.

One of the best parts of Hoi An is the food. They have 4/5 local dishes which everywhere sell so looked at trip adviser and went to the good ones, they are delicious. They are called 'white rose', 'cao lau', 'shrimp wantons' and some local spring roles. Every night we ate local except one where we went for pizza which was also good even if it was expensive. One interesting place we stopped at was a small tea house called Reaching Out to escape the sun, the difference is that all the staff are deaf and dumb so sign language, small wooden blocks with key words on and small writting pad are provided to order with. We got a small snack, iced coffee and fresh iced lemon drink, it was very good. We have to wait for 8 hours before our taxi to the train station which is turning into a bit of an ordeal. With being unable to do much dues to pain from the burns we have stayed around the hotel most of day which isn't the best although I have nearly finished my book! The train will take 10hrs and we will arrive at 8am the next day in Nha Trang, the party and beach capital of Vietnam. Lets hope its good fun and we recover fast from our burns.