Hoi An - Still under the water

After our extra day in Hue the roads were reopened and we were able to travel to Hoi An by bus. Hoi An is also by a river, The Bon River, so it as well had been flooded, worse than Hue in fact. The power had been down for a couple of days and even our hotel which was some way from the river was 2ft under on the worst day, by the time we arrived only the 1st 2 roads next to the river were under water.

Hoi An is a small town which is now a UNESCO site, it had mainly escaped destruction during any of the wars so in the Old Town there were plenty of sites which were being preserved that we could see, such as a covered Japanese bridge and various museums and pagodas. Hoi An is famous for its shopping and tailoring and most of the best shops can be found in the old town, some in ancient buildings, much to Simon's delight we spent a lot of time shopping!!

In the couple of days we were in Hoi An the river had returned to almost normal levels and by the last day we could walk down the roads which were flooded when we arrived and we could see that the water level had risen at least 6ft as we could see the water marks in the shops. This had not deterred the shop sellers from opening up their shops, and whilst some were still clearing out the debris and sand others had already opened for business as usual. It was incredible to think that these people had suffered serious flooding a few days prior, back in the UK businesses and homes would have probably been closed for months.

After spending nearly a week in the floods we are looking forward to the beaches of Nha Trang and hoping for some better weather.

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