Exploring Hoi An

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Today we rolled out of our hotel pretty late and when we were walking to lunch I heard my name and saw Alyna and Richard...again! She had called out to me in Ha Noi when we were leaving (late) for the bus from the Kangaroo Cafe to Sa Pa so we didn't get to chat. This time we chatted for a while and it was nice to catch up and sort of touch base. So random, but Yea, Sewanee's Right!

At at the Vinh Hung restaurant and walked to the river. It's so pretty and there are so many shops, restaurants, vendors, musicians, and just people. Really fun and lively. The vendors here are pretty funny because they all start out with "Hello, how are you?" and then continue to walk with you and ask "Where are you from?" and then maybe "How old are you?" (pretty much the same questions the natives asked in the north around Sa Pa) before getting to the point, "You take look in my shop?" It's sort of strange sometimes because you don't want to be rude, but if you're too nice you get sucked into looking at things you don't want or finally trying to ignore them as a last resort, which is probably ruder than just "I don't want to buy anything".

We started wandering around, found a bench and sat there for about 2 minutes before an old man with a whistle came. "Do we need to leave?" was met with a slight nod and blank stare, so we assumed that meant "yes.".

After being ejected from our lovely bench we went and booked a tour to My Son for tomorrow. It was $6 if you took the bus there and back and $8 if you took the bus there and the boat back. We opted for the latter and paid in VND (it's really annoying when they have their prices in dollars, a common occurrence, because we lose money in the conversion) and went back to watch a movie before heading to bed before our 8:00 pick up.

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Photos

Little bridge
love the buildings...all sort of yellow and old-timey

small road
next to the river...all tried to sell us hour long trips on their boats

Comments

[tia]

pictures and lanterns
love the pictures. ok, please tell me you looked inside those laterns to find out how they were lit up! and why aren't these new entries on the page with the old travel blog?

[gibbogirl]

lanterns
no, i didnt look inside because those are all lit up with a strand of lights like christmas lights. what old blog? from korea?