Hoi An

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From Hue, we ventured on to Hoi An, via a scenic mountain route over the Hai Van Pass. The trip was about four hours, there was a bit of fog about, but we managed to glimpse a lot of great mountain scenery in breaks in the fog. Stopped along the way at Marble Mountain to take a look at the incredible marble and jade statues the place is famous for. Lorenza almost had me convinced to purchase a huge Buddha for our garden, but my credit card was saved by the fact that we did not have a long enough stop for her to seal the deal (phew!).

Clothes shopping

Lucky we did not give the credit card a work out at the marble place, because Hoi An is a clothes shoppers mecca. he entire town is virtually wall to wall tailors shops. Everyone in our group had at least one item of tailor made clothing on order within the first few hours of being there. The whole process of selection, measuring, fittings and adjustments was a lot of fun. The tailor who made my linen sports jacket gave me a huge hug at the end of the process because he was so relieved I was finally happy with how it sat. I had made him adjust a certain part of it about five times before we reached this point, so he was very happy when I finally said “yep, that’s great”.

Fun people & a cooking class

Aside form the shopping, we also had a lot of fun in Hoi An with some of the local people working in the restaurants and shops. They were a very friendly bunch and had great senses of humour. Lorenza and some of the other folks also did a cooking class, which they enjoyed a lot.

Reaching Out Handicrafts

One shop which we liked a lot was the Reaching Out Handicraft store. They sold handicrafts, clothing and jewellery made by local disabled people. All of their products were very beautiful, particularly the hand embroidered clothing, table cloths and wall hangings. One of the staff explained to us that they were trying to get electric bicycle tours started so they could take tourists around the area to visit the people making the goods in their homes. The electric bikes are US$3000 new, but they can get them second hand from China for US$300. Sounded like a great idea to us. Take a look at their website here ... Reaching Out

Room with a view

Our hotel in Hoi An was great, first up we upgraded ourselves to a room with a view of the pool. This was because our initial room had it’s window directly above the kitchen chimney of a house behind the hotel. Their food may have been good, but the smoke from the chimney was polluting the room.

We were really thankful for the hotel pool also, because as we progressed further south it was getting warmer and the humidity was rising. It was on average about 35 to 37 degrees now with 80 to 90%!h(MISSING)umidity. Great weather for swimming and beer drinking but no much good for lots of walking.

Wandering around with Yuki

We spent a lot of time wandering around Hoi An with Yuki and found lots interesting things to keep us occupied, like the local fish markets, food markets and river cruises. On the river we passed many local fishing people, hauling up those huge nets suspended on poles. My camera lens decided to jam so I did not get any photos of this. Also, we passed by other big boats on the river transporting lots of passengers, together with livestock, bicycles and motorcycles heading toward and away from Hoi An. One boat was crowded with school children, all dressed in white shirts and black pants on their way to town. They were crammed into three different levels on the boat, together with their bicycles.

On the boat trip we were also reminded of one of the problems we had witnessed in a lot of places we visited - the scourge of the plastic bag. On the river our boats propeller became entangled with plastic bags and the engine stalled. As we drifted to shore the boat driver did her best to untangle the bags from the propeller, succeeding just in time to stop us from running aground.

We had been told that the Vietnamese government has started a big campaign in schools to try and educate people about littering and the plastic bag problem, but this will take a while to show results. Especially when you consider that a lot of the trash that we saw along the railway line during our travels actually found it’s way there because the cleaners on the trains were tossing it out the windows! I really hope this attitude changes very quickly because this is a lovely country and will only be trashed even further as tourism escalates.

How's my hotel compare?

Back at the hotel I had a long discussion with the owner, firstly because he noticed that Lorenza and I are not citizens of the same country. He was interested to know how we had met and why Lorenza was not an Australian citizen.

Then he asked my opinion of how his hotel compared to others we had stayed in so far in Vietnam. I was honest and it was easy to be so because so far his had been the best place we had come across. Big, clean rooms, really friendly staff and a fantastic swimming pool.

He was very proud of his business and then introduced me to his wife and we chatted away for an hour or so on various topics. Plus I helped him fix a problem he was having with his computer system (always happy to help!).

Life seemed pretty good in Hoi An. We could easily have spent a week or two relaxing in this lovely town.

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Photos

China Beach
Ha & Lorenza

Hoi An Cooking Class
Yuki - happy with her work