Central 'Nam

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We were dropped in Hoi An early in the morning and we sleepily walked away from the out of town hotel we were dropped at, to something more central. We found a place which later turned out to be one of the worst on tripadvisor but we didn't have any problems. Hoi An is probably the nicest place in terms of looks that we've been. The whole town is a Unesco thingy and all the buildings fit in with a half wild west saloon, half Chinese feel. That's probably a crap description but it's nice and there's lot's of good food. We spent the first day walking around eating and drinking. They have a beer called 'fresh beer' here. Not sure how strong it is but it's 9p for over half a pint so stopping off for a drink almost costs you nothing. At night, thousands of Chinese lanterns light up the city along the river. The next morning we took a bus to the Cham Ruins at Mí Son. The setting was nice amongst the Vietnam jungle. They're these brick Hindu things but a lot were destroyed by those scallywags the American's bombs and there are still craters around. They are now 'restoring' some of them. There were statues as well including a linga (phallous) of shiva. This brought on a load of linga jokes from the guide before a chubby Chinese tourist went bright red and had his photo taken whilst leaning on it and giving the peace sign. In the evening we went to a cooking class. They have some full on versions available but the tight bastards we are just went into a restaurant and asked and the woman said she'd show us how to make as much as we want for $2 each (plus the menu prices). She did most of it while we watched but we now can make spring rolls, yellow curry, Vietnamese pancake and shrimp hotpot. After a game of pool and a couple of drinks we went to bed. It's not the most happening place at night (well we didn't find much). The next day we headed to Hué. We only really went here to get into Laos but we stayed 2 nights. All we really did was go to restaurants and bars and did a boat trip up the river. When we asked how much, the woman said 600,000 dong (about 18 quid). Since we didn't want to for that much we kept walking away and eventually she offered it for about 8 quid so we went for it. It's annoying though how they get just two of you on a big boat when you might as well put more on one and charge less. Anyway we spent ages going up this river and didn't see much of interest other than a Buddhist Wat. Should've done some research as I think there was stuff to see, we just got the wrong boat. Anyway, the next morning we set off on one of our worst journeys yet to Pakse in Laos.

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