Cental Vietnam - Hoi An and Hue

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We took an over night sleeper bus from Nha Trang to Hoi An. This was surprisingly comfortable, with the added sleeping tablets that is!

Our hotel was a bit out of town but provided a free shuttle bus on the hour, which came to dictate our movements a bit as we would either have to walk very slowly out of town or run to catch the bus.

Hoi An is known for its old town as it used to be a large trading post for the Chinese and Japanese, and many of their clan houses and shops still remain. Also its known for its tailoring so now that we are coming towards the end of the trip we planned on having a couple of items tailor made and then carry them all the way home. I (Jamie) bought a suit from Yaly tailors, which took about 3 different fittings and I often had 2 or 3 Vietnamese people swirling around me taking different measurements, and it was still very cheap in comparison to prices at home. Laura had a couple dresses made, one of which was last minute so there was a big race on the last day to get the final adjustments done. Hoi An also has some great specialty dishes, my favourite was Cau Lao which was a pork and wheat noodle dish and is so far my favourite dish of the entire trip. We also had Banh Xeo, after asking Laura's tailor for a good place to eat, which is too eclectic to explain all the ingredients, but you have to build up rolls of food with one spare hand and chop sticks which proved quite messy but fun (the locals loved it).

Hue was the old imperial capital of Vietnam. A large part of the city is still behind the large Citadel walls. Within the citadel is also the Forbidden Purple City, which is meant to be similar to the Forbidden City in China. Hue also became famous during the War as it was the closest major city to the border between North and South Vietnam and was briefly held by the north Vietnamese during the Tet offensive, during this a lot of the old city was destroyed and you can still see bullet holes in the city walls. The day after seeing the citadel we took a boat trip down the perfume river to see impressive mausoleums built by the old emperors for themselves. Our hotel was great, our receptionist recommended us fantastic places to eat. After a good, but very hot, few days in Hue, we were happy to be heading significantly north to a town called Ninh Binh.

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