Hoi An -Day 5 (Brad gets friendly with a cactus)

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Today we were supposed to go on a tour to a fishing village on bicycles with a man named Mr Trung but unfortunately when we woke up it was absolutely pouring rain (of the heavy torrential variety) so we cancelled it. We lost our deposit but we were both kind of relieved to have a quiet day.

We spent the morning just hanging out in the hotel and not doing a whole lot; Brad watch tv and I updated the blog.

Last night Brad had arranged with Mark (our kiwi friend) that they would hire a motor bike and go for a ride together at 2pm, Mark had already done it before and was keen and neither myself or Lyn were up for it. When 2pm came round, the weather had cleared up so Brad went and met Mark. In the mean time I went up the road and got a Banh Mi from the same guy as the other day and it was delicious. I also did a messenger call with the kids which was great to see their faces and chat to them.

Meanwhile Brad was taking ages, it was supposed to be a 2hr ride and it had already been 2 ½ hours. I was starting to get a bit worried so I sent him a text via our Vietnamese mobiles but no reply. Not long after that he turned up with some blood on his face and arms and one of his legs.

It turns out that he had a fabulous time (the highlight of his trip) riding through villages and rice paddies, he saw beaches and farmers with water buffalo and enjoyed getting amongst it but towards the end of the trip (near the rice paddies) he was riding along and an old lady was riding along (wearing the traditional vietnames hat and with her push bike packed to the hilt} at the lady was on the opposite side of the road and as he got closer, she kept moving over towards him on his side, towards him, he was so busy trying not to hit her that he didn’t notice the cactus bush which apparently grabbed him and pulled him into it. He then ended up in the cactus with the bike still going on top of him and his shirt tangled in the cactus and pricks everywhere.



Mark had already ridden off and the old lady probably gave him the verbal finger as she rode off so he had to get himself out of it and get back on his bike. Mark thought it was hilarious and when he returned to the hotel, so did I. He cleaned himself up and was okay, just a few sores and scratches.

That afternoon we had to go and pick up all of our clothes and shoes that we had ordered. First we went to get our shoe lady. We had ordered 2 pairs of shoes, a pair of knee high boots and a leather jacket from her. We are both so happy with our stuff. The boots are a copy of some I saw in a shop a couple of years ago for $400AUD, the jacket would be a minimum of $800AUD and the shoes would be at least $150AUD each; we got the whole lot for $400AUD.She was so lovely and was never pushy and was extremely accommodating. I would highly recommend if you are going to Hoi An, go see her (the photo is her shop).

We then went to get the other stuff we had ordered from the tailors (Number 41 is the name of the store-in the markets). My dresses were good, Brad's suits were great and my wooden cape is beautiful.

Whilst we were there we had a bit of a kerfuffle with the staff because Brad started telling some poms about our shoes and jackets so they wanted to know where it was (these guys don't sell shoes and leather) but of course like everywhere else in Vietnam, they apparently have a friend or relative that does so they didn't like Brad suggesting another business in their shop. I then took them to our shoe lady while Brad stayed and picked up al of our stuff.

I wanted to go back into town again for our last night but Brad had had enough of the locals so he wanted to stay in the hotel so we had dinner with mark and Lyn and sat up chatting till late. During that time we also had other travellers stop and have a drink or two and then leave. We met a mother and daughter; the daughter lived in Singapore and the mother in New York but they were English, we also met 2 couples from Brisbane who were now on their 4th visit to Vietnam.

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