Easy Rider does Hoi An

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We arrived in Hoi An early in the morning after an overnight train journey to Da Nang from Nha Trang. This journey was significantly quieter than the previous train journey that had the cheap vodka and fire extinguisher incident. The view of the East coast beaches was obscured (enhanced) by literally hundreds of Vietnamese people doing their own personal fitness. (Tai Chi, Slapping arms, badminton and aerobics of some sort ). It is a surreal experience as it was 0530hrs, come 1000hrs and the beaches are subsequently enhanced by overweight westerners lounging and being harrassed by locals flogging everything edible from lobsters to packets of crisps.
After a brief nap we had an orientation walk around Hoi An to the tunes of " Sir , Madam come into my shop and buy something (anything)" from every person in the street. Hoi An is famous for its tailoring prowess and can knock up a made to measure suit / dress in a few hours. After being dragged through a number of tailors by our tour guide, who was obviously getting some sort of kick back, we finally made it to a nice restaurant in the old quarter overlooking the river.
Hoi An is a lovely old town and we had plenty of time to explore the area, as we had three nights here. Both of us hired scooters as did many in the group on the basis of, why waste energy using our own legs when it is so cheap to flit around at high speed? In addition we could carry other group members on trips who could not or did not want to ride a scooter. Great fun was had by all, although Gary's passenger found it a bit uncomfortable as he is 6 foot 6 and the scooter found it uncomfortable as the combined weight was over 30 stone!!! We all screeched through the countryside to see how the villagers live with a small piece of land, a water buffalo and satellite TV. We also took a longer journey on the highway towards Da Nang to visit the Marble Mountains. The image of 6 scooters speeding up the main road was like a very poor version of Easy Rider. The Marble mountain area was an excellent alternative from the beaches of Hoi An .
Although the walk up to the observation points, caves and the obligatory Buddahs was stepped, they were very steep and tall. Anyone under the height of 6 foot found it hard to get up there although the promise of an ice cream had the desired effect of spurring people on. Part of the trip involved visiting a number of shops that carved marble. As backpackers we thought we could get away with saying "It is lovely but it is very heavy and we need to carry it around" but the obvious repost was, "don't worry sir we can ship it back for you". The half ton marble statue of a lion / buddah / eagle will really enhance the front of our house.
Gary felt the urge to get a tailored suit made, but his shape now will almost certainly not be the same shape on his return to blighty, but it will look lovely in the wardrobe at home.
Gary's bargaining skills came to the forefront when we tried to find a restaurant for a group meal of ten (without group leader) and Gary managed to negotiate a 10% discount - for himself! Then subsequently wasted the 20p saved on 1/2 a beer!
Overall Hoi An was a good place to chill out and relax for a couple of days and it was exactly what we did, with good food, good beaches and mad dog Lovett on the scooter.

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Photos

Japanese Bridge - Hoi An
Part of the Old Town area which is car and scooter free

Marble Mountain Cave
One of the caves gave the impression of an Indiana Jones film. The holes in the ceiling were caused by American bombing during the Vietnam war.

Carolyn in the spotlight
It was all we could do to keep her from singing and breaking into a tap dancing routine.

Laughing Buddah
At first glance and from this angle no wonder he was laughing, but that is not what you think it is.

Marble Carvings
Most of the stuff was really good.

Hoi An
The river frontage was peaceful and relaxing