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Published: August 8th 2007
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Today we left Hue and set off for a place called Hoi An, carrying our packed lunches that we all got from the lovely Hoy. Our coach journey took us past some stunning scenery, which was a mixture of lush green trees, dirt tracks, countless rice paddies, the odd water buffalo and villages with children playing and people going about their day to day work. Our first stop was for a coffee on the most stunning beach with crashing surf and white sand. After travelling further and listening to a history lesson involving the opium wars between Vietnam and China plus other significant historical info that I'm afraid went in one ear and out the other, we stopped at Danang where we visited the Cham Museum.
The museum housed a mixed collection of Buddhist statues and Hindu deities that were fascinating to look at but would have found a bit more information on the meaning of the different gods helpful. After the museum we travelled a bit further down the road and stopped at China Beach. This was a place where the US soldiers, fighting in the Vietnam War, would head for short periods of R&R as it
was a relatively safe place. As we ate our lunch and reverted to five year olds, mucking about in the sand- Simon began to tell us about what went on here: Apparently the US troops did some hard partying here involving sex, drugs, rock 'n' role and copious amounts of booze. However I imagine that there was no real respite from war to be had here; just men trying to block out the nightmare that was the Vietnam War for the time they were allowed to any way.
After getting back on the bus, bringing with us most of the beach, we made a stop at the Marble Mountains. I really wanted to explore the caves but was advised against it due to my bad foot (which I must tell you - I have just found out was actually broken!!). Any way, after this we eventually arrived at our Hotel in Hoi An.
Hoi An is a historic merchant town and was once one of the busiest trading posts of South East Asia. However as I discovered on our orientation tour of the town - the trading element was thoroughly alive and kicking and was going to do
some serous damage to my carefully considered budget. It is a long time since I have passed stall after stall, shop after shop of beautiful lanterns, bags, silks, shoes, jewellery and paintings - the list is endless; these were things I knew I was not going to be able to resist easily.
After splitting up to do our own thing before dinner me an Sarah found a fantastic bar where it happened to be happy hour so we settled in there for more than a couple of drinks and were shortly joined by three of the ladies from our tour who had clearly smelled the G&T's from afar.
Earlier in the day we had been told by Simon, our tour leader, how the school girls in Hoi An had caused a bit of a stir becuase on the way to and from work guys had had many accidents due to being distracted by the girls' uniforms. After getting over the outrage that the school girls were blamed for men's scummy behaviour we actually caught sight of the girls coming home from school. Well I have to admit it was a sight to behold: It was as if time
slowed down as these stunning beauties cycled past on bikes wearing their pristine white uniforms of white pyjama trousers and a very tight fitting, long sleeved top that billowed out behind them as they rode past. As we silently watched them glide by I slightly forgave the scummy male commuters and could easily see why any man or woman might be slightly distracted by this evangelical sight.
Later that evening after basin full of happy hour G&T's (mum please don't read this) I hopped on the back of a taxi bike during a very heavy down poor in my skirt, flip flops and no helmet and headed to the restaurant. Here I happened upon Sarah who was already there having done a Vietnamese cooking class however she was slightly occupied with a gay Vietnamese man who had commandeered her to transcribe a love letter in English to his English gay boyfriend. At the restaurant, after all of the group had materialised we ate a fantastic meal that we topped off with two buckets- it was the fist time we had seen buckets since Koh Samui so we were quite excited. This made the task of wading through river water-
which had come up to shin height due to the heavy rain - particularly amusing on our way back. We managed to end the night -so I'm told and just about recall- at a bar with lots of backpackers including several Irish accountants and some Ozy guys who offered to show us round when we reach OZ. As me and Sarah stumbled out the bar we suddenly realised we didn't know how to get to the hotel and after drunkenly flagging someone down and asking them where our hotel was we were highly amused too see them signal that it was just over the road 😊
The following day was a free day in Hoi An which I'm afraid to admit was spent shopping. When it costs 12 dollars to have a dress tailor made from scratch to fit you- I'm afraid you'd be hard pushed to find any woman who will stop at one. My comeuppance for being so bad with shopping, which sadly didn't stop at clothes, came with the increase in the weight of my luggage and the problem I had packing quickly from then on!! I cannot recommend Hoi An highly enough, not just for
the ridiculously priced shopping but every single person I dealt with there was so warm, friendly and just lovely.
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