Hoi An and The Cham Islands

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Hoi An is my favorite town so far. As soon as we arrived we booked Su Bi massages. 80 minutes of heaven. In the morning we perused the market and shops in the little quaint town along the river. The locals in Hoi An are fluent in an English bargaining script that goes like this...

Where you from?
How long you stay in Hoi An?
You buy something! Cheap price... It doesn’t matter what you say, they stick to their script.

Back in the day the Arabs came through Hoi An on their way to China to get supplies and suits. There are hundred’s of tailors throughout the city that can make you anything you want. It costs about 100 dollars to get a full top of the line personalized suit. They also make dresses and anything else you can conjure up in your mind.

After some shopping, we rented bikes and rode to the beach single file along the road. The water was a little cooler than Halong Bay but still pretty warm. We bought a soccer ball and set up a 4 on 4 match in the sand. Americans, Canadians and Australians vs. Europeans and Colombians. We have a diverse group (9 countries are represented in 15 people). I had so much fun and managed to score the winning goal.

At night the town is magical. It just so happens that we arrived for the full moon which is a special day for ancestor worship. Each family and store front had a number of things in front of their alter including water, beer, money, lanterns and incense. At night they burn a replica of a a house and some fake money in the street because they believe that everything burned goes straight to their ancestors. The river glows with light from the lanterns hanging from each store front and small lanterns sold in the street. The colorful statues in the middle of the river were the most impressive.

Diving the Cham Islands
Walking through town I noticed a dive shop/bar called Dive the Sham Islands. The French man who I believe owns that shop easily convinced me to book a day trip. For 75 USD they picked me up at 8am for a 45 min boat ride out to the islands and 2 dives which were both over an hour. The reef isn’t very deep. On the south side the visibility wasn’t very good but on the north side we were able to see the vivid colors of the healthy coral. Cauliflower coral, green coral shaped likes trees and many other bright neon colored corals. We saw a sea horse the size of my hand, the biggest one I’ve seen yet, and a spotted snake eel. The dive master, Dino from Australia, took out a fish id book afterward and taught us the names of the fish we saw. We stopped at a campground on the island for a really yummy lunch. The island looked like paradise with white sand, jungle behind and lots of hammocks set up under grass umbrellas. Thirty people or so, mostly French families, sat at a long table together under a grass hut. I sat at the end of the table with the Australians and Brits but sitting next to me was the cutest ever 3 year old French girl with braided pigtails down to her bum. She only had the bottom of a frilly bikini on. I gave her my french fries and she gave me a huge smile. On the boat ride back we passed many local fisherman laying on their boats and steering with their feet.

Hotel: Van Loi Hotel
Places to eat: Banana Leaf on Le Loi and Green Chilli on Nguyen Thai Hoc
Dive operator: www.chamislanddiving.com

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Photos

Cham Islands
Hon Tai South

Comments

[Cris]

Ah beaches!
Tere, Love the Blog! You may even inspire mom to be able to write you back it is so easy to post a comment :) Thank you for sharing the view, the beaches look incredibly peaceful, like time could just slip away. I've been glued to the Women's World Cup. While we were all sad that the US got silver, I kept thinking the Gods must have been moving the goal post in the first 20 minutes of the game to get Japan strength...they did the rest, they were the better, more perfect team today and they and their country certainly deserved to find some joy, after all that has gone down there. Keep writing, its a nice break from studying for NCLEX...:) Love your sissi crissi