Hoi An

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We took a morning bus from Hue to Hoi An, calling in at a Vietnamese beach resort and 'Marble Mountain', another not-so-great tourist attraction on route. The drive in parts revealed some spectacular scenery, of paddy fields complete with people in conical hats, lagoons strung with huge fishing nets on bamboo poles, small villages, bomb damaged buildings... and in the distance the mountains over the Laos border.

We arrived in Hoi An at midday, and walked around a few hotels until we got a decent price. We found out that by asking in Vietnamese (Alex is becoming quite a pro at this), we could get a better price than everyone else!

Hoi An has a very French feel to it, with narrow streets, lots of little cafes, and many many bicycles! We ended up whiling away a few enjoyable days here of shopping, coffee drinking and ambling, while awaiting onward transport. The 'reunification express' that I so longed to ride to Saigon was off-limits due to the washing away of train tracks by the storm here while we were in Halong Bay. The bus takes 24 hours, not what we had in mind, so we decided to pay the extra dollars and take an hour long flight! Only problem is that everyone had the same idea so we had to wait until the 14th for the next available flight.

We spent time making friends with some of the locals- a guy in a shop who always gave us a good deal so we kept going back, and a lady who sold bottled water from her polystyrene ice-filled box, all day, every day, in immense heat. We have discovered that in order to carry on, you cannot think about how poor some of these people are, nor how hard they have to work for so little. Everyone works here, whether aged 4 or 94, from dawn until after dark to make ends meet. Yet so many people in Hanoi have flash cars and excel in ripping everyone off to get ahead. A very unfair place to live.

We also spent a day hiring bikes and cycling the 10km round-trip to the beach. We beat the 'pay to park your bike' idea by using a cafe that had free parking and use of sun loungers under bamboo umbrellas, as long as you bought a drink. Not hard with the intense heat dehydrating us in seconds. The cool water was blissful, yet within seconds of stepping out of the water we were dry and hot- the 50SPF suncream is proving very useful. On our way back to Hoi An we stopped for lunch in a restaurant on stilts over the river- complete with four beautiful little puppies.

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