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Published: August 26th 2006
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A short flight and an even shorter bus ride and we arrived in Hoi An... again nothing like I expected! Hoi An is a picturesque little town, plenty of colourful buildings, art shops and a nice river with some little islands. My first day in Hoi An was amazing in terms of food. My best food day so far! We started out at this little cafe sampling some of the local specialities... The 'Hoi An Fried Wontons' and 'White Rose' which is basically steamed shrimp wrapped in rice paper accompanied by a delicious sauce made from some type of stuff. I don't know what. Great food. I love it.
Hoi An is most famous for its tailor shops and there are around 300 of them. It would be a crime to come to Hoi An and not have any clothes made and I didn't want to commit one so decided to have some stuff made. Whilst there are bucket loads of tailor shops, not all of them are honest establishments... some of them will try and rip you off. Three places came recommended from some Australians we met in Cambodia and from our local guide so we headed to these
Hats
Everyone in Vietnam seems to be wearing these! in the afternoon. They can basically make anything you want. You can choose something from a magazine which they will copy for you or you can design something yourself if you are feeling creative. You can also pick from a massive range of fabrics. I decided to have a suit made so picked a tailors shop that I liked, a picture from a magazine and then found a fabric that I liked... An Italian cashmere wool. I also decided to have a shirt made so picked a fabric for that. The girls in the shop then measured me up with great precision and accuracy taking measurements I didn't even know existed. They would make the suit overnight, (quick service) and told me to return the next day for my first fitting. So having got all that sorted I left, in a flash...
More great food for dinner at Miss Ly's, supposedly one of the nicest places in Hoi An. She looked like a prostitute but cooked really good food. I started with more Wontons and White Rose and then had Cau Lau, a pork noodle dish with greens, bean sprouts and croutons. The water used to make the noodles
Fish seller
Big Fish... Little Fish... has to come from a local well so I guess this really is a local speciality. It tasted pretty special. I couldn't resist the banana and chocolate pancake for dessert. After all that top quality nosh which only cost a few quid we headed to the Cargo Club. A good name for a club me thinks but at the Cargo club there is no dancing, no DJ's, no loud music. Just desserts... amazing desserts. I went for a nice little mango and caramel number. Perfect. I am now a much bigger fan of desserts than I used to be. All of them looked tempting... I will be back here. Maybe food in clubs was a good idea after all?? Lots of food talk today but as I said before this has been the best food day ever! I shall call it Foodsday. A new day of the week perhaps?! We headed back to the hotel but Steve got lost. This local guy offered me a ride on his motorbike. I accepted and we found Steve down the road. I sat with the locals for a bit drinking beer and then headed to dreamsville.
The next day was a day
Vietnamese children
White Horse?? Yes please. of complete contrast in terms of weather! We started out early.. 6.00am. Already it was getting pretty hot. We hired bikes and went for a long bike ride around Hoi An, first of all checking out the fish market. A much nicer smell than the dried fish shops in Hong Kong... fresh fish.... much better. Lots of people here, lots of activity, lots of fish. We then cycled off into the countryside stopping at some little villages, a little school, the customary rice paddies and various other countryside type stuff. It was great but really hot. Having completed this cycle trip me and some others headed to the beach which was only about 4 kilometres away. More pedalling fun and top scenery. The beach, 'Cua Dai' was really really nice, pretty empty, white sand, palm trees and really warm water. Great beach. We spent some time swimming and chilling out on the sand. There were lots of ladies selling fruit. I bought a Mango from one lady... tasted good. Some might say refreshing.. others may say sticky. And that was when the day changed! I was standing up quietly brushing the sand off myself when another fruit selling woman creeped
Fishers
"Tossing" out their nets up behind me and whispered some stuff in my ear. I think it was a spell or a curse. It sounded scary. It made me jump big time. I turned around and she was laughing. An evil laugh. Then she vanished.
So we head back to the hotel and I realise that I am badly sun burnt! Pretty red face... and back and legs etc. My sun block obviously wasn't strong enough or that Witch's spell made me turn red! To be fair though this was the hottest day I've experienced in Asia yet. This Asian sun... its not to be trusted. I headed to the tailors for my first fitting. I was impressed with the quality and the fit. The suit and the shirt fitted pretty perfectly. I guess that is the whole point of tailor made clothes. Good work I said... only one minor adjustment on the collar. I think the suit cost the equivalent of about 30 English pounds and the shirt less than a fiver. Pretty good me thinks. I had another pair of trousers and another shirt made in different fabrics. Everything would be ready the next day! Perfect.
In the evening we
headed out on a boat along the river and around some of the mini islands. The weather turned from boiling hot with clear blue sky's to dark cloudy angry sky's within minutes. A storm came. Lots of rain and an electrical storm. Pretty colourful. Captain John Kirk is an ex storm chaser like the ones you get on Discovery channel documentaries. He got extremely excited. Mental weather. I like it lots. The joys of monsoon season. Now slightly wet and extremely red with sunburn it was time for a cooking lesson. We went to Cafe 96 where we had a lesson from a Vietnamese chef. We made some spring rolls, fish stuffed with 'special mix' grilled inside banana leaf and a spicy green papaya salad with shrimp. After cooking the food we ate it all accompanied by some rum. It was tasty gorgeous. After another stop at Cargo for more amazing desserts we headed back to the hotel on our bikes.
Last day in Hoi An - I headed to the tailors to pick up my newly made clothes which all fitted well. Very pleased! I decided to post them home as I have too much to carry as
it is. A final look around town and it was time to leave. I really liked this place! We boarded a bus and went in search of the Marble Mountains. We found them a few miles down the road. Unsurprisingly these 5 mountains are made from marble. We climbed one of them called 'Thuy son' via lots of steps... hot work. I covered my head with my t-shirt to keep the sun away looking somewhat like an Arab. Osama Van Popperdom! Inside a cave at the top ofthe mountain there were these great beams of light coming through. A strange atmosphere inside. Ying and Yang looked on in disbelief, (statues in the entrance to the cave). At another cave I purchased some incense sticks from an old lady. She had blackened teeth! A lot of the oldies here blacken there teeth as it is a sign of beauty. I took her picture and then headed into the cave to light my incense sticks and place them around the statues of Buddha. I wished for good weather in Halong Bay. I hope it works. We are heading there soon.
We then headed on to China Beach... a long beach near
the Marble Mountains, near where a US base used to be. US soldiers were airlifted here during the war for a bit of sea, surf and sand before combat. One minute the sky was clear blue... then a storm came within minutes! After some good cuisine at the beach we headed on to Hue stopping at yet another nice beach on the way. Again the weather changed quickly... Sunny, Storm, Tunnel, Sunny, Rain. I think it was undecided today. And so.. after a long drive through more countryside we eventually arrived in Hue. And that's all for today folks. Stay Safe. Play Safe. Rave safe. Be Safe. laterz... PPTD :-)
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Martyn
non-member comment
Beautiful
It's all looking pretty special Mr Ross, but these is my favorite collection of pictures. Not only does it look and sound amazing (resulting in unfortunate bouts of jealousy in myself)... but you'd be hard pressed to differentiate between your photos and ones taken by an official photographer. Not that I ever doubted your skills but some of these photies are really really good. Safe bro, have fun for me wontcha!