Hoi An

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We arrived in Hoi An after our epic train journey feeling surprisingly perky. Chi had booked us our hotel over the phone while we were still in Saigon, and we somehow managed to get a superior room for the same price as a standard, heyyy! The shower was amazing, I could have stayed in it all day (you know you’ve been staying in budget accommodation for 2.5 weeks when you find yourself marveling at nice showers!). We spent the rest of the day sorting out our itinerary (of course we’ve gone off track and are running out of time!) and exploring Hoi An ancient town. It’s a really beautiful place, almost European in some respects, and it’s the first place in Asia we’ve been able to take a leisurely stroll around! It’s very ‘old Vietnam’, with a Japanese bridge that made me feel like I was in Japan in geisha times (whenever that was!). It’s also (allegedly) the cheapest place in the country to get custom made clothes. I could have spent A LOT of money there, but I managed to stop myself thinking about my ever growing backpack which I still have to lug around for a few months.

We ate dinner at Café 43 (recommended by Lonely Planet, obviously – seriously, I don’t know where we’d be without that book) – the food was lovely, but the waitress was the scariest lady I’ve ever laid eyes on (think evil, penetrating stare). I kept waking up in the night expecting her to be standing over my bed brandishing a knife. Lizzie even locked our hotel room door.

On our second day, thrilled by the prospect of being able to walk around an Asian town, we decided, to go for a 10km walk to the beach (as you do). Nice to have some exercise, but sadly the weather ain’t so great at the mo’ – it looked very much like the North sea. Oh our way back, an old man tried to grope Lizzie – really odd actually, he just stuck his hand out near her, err, nether regions, and walked straight at her! She had to twist her whole body to get away! But then he just walked past like he wasn’t even doing anything. We were like, “did that just happen?!”.

Hungry after so much walking an avoiding sexual harassment, we ate dinner at Café del Amis, which an English girl we met earlier had recommended. The chef there, Mr Kim, just asks whether you want vegetarian, meat, or seafood – then you get this amazing set menu of all kinds of food fitting into your chosen category. I opted for seafood - it was so good, and quite exciting not knowing what you were eating. We got chatting to Mr Kim Jr, and he was telling us he has an English wife who lives in Jersey! And that he really likes McDonalds, haha.

It was Liz’s birthday on our last full day there, so as my gift to her (aren’t I a good friend), along with the card I made her out of my notebook paper, I bought us both a cooking lesson at the Red Bridge cooking school. It was such a fun day, it started with a trip to the market to learn about all the different ingredients, then a little boat trip to the cooking school down the river. The chef was hilarious, and spoke English with a slight Aussie accent. We made prawns in rive paper, hoi an pancakes, and eggplant hot pot. I think the only thing I am physically able of cooking again is the hot pot, but hey, I tried! We also (somehow) made decorative roses out of tomato skin – and Lizzie realized her true vocation, to move to Vietnam and make flowers out of vegetables. We met some lovely Aussie girls Sarah and Lisa at the cooking class, and went out for birthday cakes and cocktails with them that night at Cargo.

And now onto Hanoi! We woke up this morning at 5.30am to the sound of some Vietnamese pan pipe type music. We both lay there in silence for a while, until Lizzie murmured into the darkness, “It’s 5.30 in the morning for God’s sake, what is this? Some kind of communist torture?”. Indeed, Lizzie, indeed.

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