A Day Exploring Hoi An

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It is amazing what your first impressions are of a place when you arrive late at night and how they change when you view the same place in the fresh morning light.

What seemed to be a dark ghost town in the dead of night, came to life with the morning rays. Hoi An is a beautiful city with amazing architecture and despite the amount of shops directed at tourists, the city has a strong cultural feel to it.

The town was an old trading port and the Europeans have left an imprint in the architectural style with wall to wall shop villas which wind through narrow lane ways. However, it the riverside food markets that really give you a feel of the place. However, to get there you need to pass a multitude of traders trying to sell souvenirs, tiger balm by the drove, whiskey bottles with snakes and scorpions soaking therein and toys for the kiddies.



Hoi An is also littered with tailor shop after tailor shop. All of them boast the ability to be able to recreate any piece of clothing you want within a day or two or even less; suits, jackets, pajamas, underwear, whatever you want. There are also shoe makers who can recreate any sort of shoe you want. If you can find that leather shoe or street shoe on the internet, they can make it. If it's been done before, then it can be done in Hoi An. And for a twentieth of the Western price, it was pretty tempting. However, the whole premise of the trip has been to travel light with the Scrubba wash bag and to tell the truth, we weren't really envious of the tourists adding to their already overly cumbersome luggage. We had become accustomed to the freedom of traveling light.

After a day exploring the town, it was off to the riverside for dinner. Unlike most places in the world, the riverside restaurants were as cheap if not cheaper than those lacking a view. The meal was made all the better with 20 cent beers.

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