Hoi An - Day 3 (Marble Mountain)

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Well after my cocktails last night, I woke feeling a bit queasy but we had already booked our trip out to Marble Mountain to be picked up this morning so I had to suck it up and get on with it, after all, it was self inflicted.

We went for breakfast and I avoided the coffee as I didn't want to have a crown's episode on the way to the mountain.

Our driver, Baa again, drove us to the mountains which was about a 20 minute trip. Along the way we saw lots of police and I'm not sure what was happening but they were suddenly everywhere. Baa said they were pulling cars over and searching but due to the language barrier we are not sure what for or why and they didn't stop us which I was grateful for, even when you know you aren't doing anything wrong they are still quite intimidating.

We seemed like we were almost there when Baa said we were stopping at marble shop to look before going to mountain. Next thing we are being taken through an extremely expensive looking shop and our personal guide takes us through the whole shop and tries to sell us all sorts of overpriced stuff. Our son Zeke plays chess and so we were looking at the marble chess sets, they were $300 US dollars for a small one. I can buy them cheaper at home and yes, I know that they are hand-carved and marble from the mountain, etc but still can't justify it. We both also had a bad gut feel about the place. I have also read many reports about tour companies taking you to places and then you walk out and find the same thing at a fraction of the price down the road. So we didn't buy anything and within seconds she turned from being lovely to swearing about us to her colleagues. We don't need to speak Vietnamese to know that they were being derogatory about us. Brad and I have a code word that we use to warn each other if it seems like the other hasn't noticed a danger or something to be careful of, we didn't need to even use it here as we both sensed it.

It had started raining by the time we walked out. Baa then walked us across the road to the entrance to mountain and we paid our entry fee. We then went up in a lift and walked through the temples and admired the beauty of the mountains and the carvings. One of the caves required us to climb through a small area to get out. I am quite claustrophobic and also scared of heights but was proud of myself as I was okay with this; the only thing that made me nervous was how slippery everything was from the rain as wet marble is not the best surface to use as steps when wet (lucky there were enough parts that weren't marble). We got up to some beautiful spots and I'm not sure why but the heights didn't bother me at all. We did see one poor man slip down the stairs and hurt his back and were very careful to ensure that we didn't join him.

We ended up coming down a whole heap of steps and found ourselves outside the mountains in a quieter area , up the road from where we went in. it was very well marked for tourists and there were some others like us who looked a bit lost. Anyway, the bonus of this was that there were some stalls there and the little buddha

that the previous lady wanted to sell me for $30 US dollar, I bought one that looked identical for $3 AUD.

We walked up the road a bit and another lady started talking to us and invited us to her shop, and whilst we were wary, we went anyway as it was just across the road and a legitimate shop. It was very small, no bells and whistles and run by her family, there was a lovely young teenage girl there helping out and you could tel that they were nice, honest people. She explained to us that the marble shop that the drivers take the tourists to are expensive because the drivers make a 30% commission and that tourists don't realise to just walk further down to the other shops. We ended up getting a bigger chess set for about a quarter of the price of the one at the marble shop and felt like the money would go to the family and not at decking out some fancy shop targeted at westerners.

We then went back to the marble shop as this is where our driver was waiting, you could tell by the looks that we weren't real popular, oh well!

He then took us back to our hotel in Hoi An and we were going to go get another roll like the one we had yesterday but saw that the hotel were doing a brunch and decided to do that instead. It was a huge buffet full of seafood, beef, lamb, sashimi, curries, dessert, etc, it was delicious and catered for many different cultures. There was also a table where you could get your nails done for free so I took advantage of that.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I don't go to nail places to get my nails done as I see it as a waste of money (maybe having so many kids to pay for influences that lol) and I can do a pretty good job myself but since being here I haven't been able to buy nail polish removed and half my nails have had the polish removed by the mozzie repellent. If it strips paint, I hate to think about what it does to our skin but anyway, I had 4 lovely girls doing my nails and chatting to me and now have lovely nails again (at least till I put on more mozzie repellent).

We then went back to the room where Brad had a nanna nap and I updated the blog. We then had to head to check out our clothes that we'd had made. Along the way we stopped for a chat with our friends from Adelaide and then said our farewells and found our way back to the market and to the shop. We tried on the clothes that we had ordered yesterday; Brad's suit looked great and only needed a few alterations and one of my dresses fit perfectly but the other needs a few changes made. We then went walking through the old town again and found a shoe lady that we had met on the first day and hadn't been able to find her again yesterday but today we found her and ordered some shoes.

After that we decided to wander to the night markets, along the way we took some photos, stopped for a drink and some people watching and also each made a wish with a floating candle and put it in the river. As we were standing on the bridge, about to take a selfie, I was approached by some young Vietnamese students (university aged) who in very broken English managed to tell me they were learning English and could I play a game with them. I often go off gut feeling and my gut feeling with these kids was a good one. Brad on the other hand hadn't heard the conversation and was dubious about me following a bunch of young people. At their request I followed them to the other side of the river and had already decided that if they wanted me to go inside anywhere or on one of the boats I would not go in but they didn't, they lead me to a crowded spot on the edge of the river where their were similar groups of teens, each with one or two tourists and it turns out the teams were competing against each other. they were an English class from Da Nang on an excursion and the aim of the game was that they had to teach an English speaker how to sing a children's song in Vietnamese and then we would all have a sing off against each other. They ran me though it a few times and then the competition was on. First up were 2 guys, then a couple and then me on my own as Brad refused to join in and just stood on the side laughing his head of at me. We all did okay and at the end the winners were the 2 guys (for enthusiasm apparently), and then me and then the couple. The kids sang along with us and it was so much fun. We had lots of laughs as we tried to communicate and sing. It was definitely a different experience.

We then said our goodbyes and walked along the waterfront, trying to decided where to go for a drink (this is what we do when one of us needs to go to the toilet). We were going to go into one that was an Irish style pub that had some great live music but she was singing in English and to be honest, we didn't come here to experience western life, we can do that at home. We were then approached by a lady who tried to get us to come into the Hoi An Curry House, she won us over when she said they had a toilet so we went in there. It turns out that the large beers were equivalent to $1.15AUD and the cocktails were $4.15. The mango daiquiri was not very nice but the beers (Larue the local brand) were keeping Brad happy at those prices. We also each ordered a noodle dish for dinner and it was fresh, delicious and really cheap. I would highly recommend this place. Next thing we were being approached by a man who invited us to his village on a tour, any way, long story , short, he seemed legit so we've booked it in for a couple of days time.

We then went for a stroll through the night markets and then eventually back to the hotel and to the Blue Bar for a quiet drink before bed.

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