Advertisement
Published: October 17th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Our motorbike journey left us, soaking wet, bedraggled and dirty but in high spirits. We booked into a hotel but (having had to share our bath water with live small red worms), decided to check out the following morning. We upgraded to the Vang Hung I just down the road. It was much nicer but still had a half size bath. It was clean, had AC and looked nice, but it was a whopping 22 American dollars a night. As a treat for Emma's birthday we thought that we would splash out. On the day, she loved opening all the cards that Anne gave her. She put them all over the room and we bought a "birthday cake" muffin from the WWF cafe and put Anne's (truly inspired) surprise sparklers to good use.
Hoi An know for its... charm and its shopping, basically. It is a small historic town, that unlike its neighbours did not get levelled during the civil war. It's relatively quiet, very easy to stay in and focussed entirely on tourists. Every street is full of very economical taylors, shops selling pearls, modern paintings, ceramics, bespoke shoes and other very tempting bits and pieces and trust me
it was very hard to stop Emma being "tempted".
Emma: Mummy you would love it.. We did both succumb to having some more travelling cloths made. I had two short sleeved shirts and a pair of shorts all very natty and Emma had three pairs of trousers, the same number of blouses, oh and one pair of sandles.
Emma had a fantastic time attending a cooking class at the Red Bridge, she booked at the WWF cafe in the middle of town, which it really nice by the way and serves superb hot chocolate. As chance would have, both Denise and John from Halong Bay were attending the small class the same day. It was really nice to bump into them again. Anna you would have loved it, I'm sure that your mummy must have attended and told you all about it. Emma learned how to make Fresh Rice pancakes, Egg Plant Hot Pot and how to make Plate Decorations like tomato swans and cucumber flowers.
During our stay we booked a car to take us to the ruins at My Son. On the way there we stopped at a small factory making pottery (every thing from small
clay whistles to huge urns (big enough to put unwanted travelling companions in). Emma had a go at throwing a small pot off a wheel that was being driven by foot (some one elses). When we got to My Son it was about midday and very warm, 36 degrees to be exact. We walked the shaded paths until we reached the first site, a small complex of buildings of which two are now exibition rooms, (the one good thing about going when it is so hot is everybody else has left). We then crossed over a small stream and went to the next set of ruins. As we walked around to each set of buildings, the next always seemed to be in a slightly worse condition than the last, until we where left looking at just a small pile of bricks. In total, the complex was far smaller than we had anticipated but this in no way detracted from it's interest. We were very pleased to have visited it. We were to visit the Cham museum in Danang, however we decided against it in the end, maybe next time.
The day before we left Hoi An, Emma requested another
of my special walking tours "like the one in Hanoi". So I put on my tour guides cap and stepped out into the torrential rain. We paddled our way around the old town, visiting the temples, government buildings and small museums that were there. Until we got to the river bank which was set to burst, at which point we cancelled the rest of our tour (I did not receive a tip again, typical). So we retired to one of the comfortable western eateries on the street facing the water and spent the afternoon watching the little boats arriving. Little did we know at the time, that they were being called in to avoid the imminent typhoon.
The weather was rather changable whilst we were there. It ranged from torrential rain for two days, to searing heat (plus 36 degrees) on a couple of the others. Even so, it was a beautiful place, we both thoroughly enjoyed our seven day stay but I think Emma little more so than me.
After many happy days, we decided to head to the cool mountain town of Dalat. We purchased our 14 dollar tickets and set off on one of the
not uncomfortable over night buses, that run up and down the country, with the sole purpose of ferrying tourists from one point of interest to the next. It only became apparent once we were on the bus (when we were told about the approaching typhoon), how timely are departure was. It took about fourteen hours to Nha Trang but the time was greatly eased by the company of an Australian couple (Bruce and Claire), that we had met briefly at the pottery factory two days before and a lovely Finish chap. Once we arrived in Nha Trang (our journey's mid point) grabbed a welcome breakfast and then travelled onto Dalat.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.145s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 18; qc: 69; dbt: 0.0726s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Al
non-member comment
Tourists Eh?
No More Tours for Miss Measures till she coughes up.....bad Emma taking advantage of Marc like that ;-)