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Published: December 3rd 2008
We returned to the Hanoi Elegance 3 yesterday afternoon as previously described.
If it is Wednesday, it was time to move on to our next stop on the road, the "pretty Hoi An" as it is described in my guidebook. Katherine and I had breakfast and then made the 45 minute drive to the airport. It is a pretty quick flight from Hanoi to Hoi An and, even though our driver left us standing stranded for about fifteen minutes while he made his late way to us, we were ensconced in our next hotel before 12:30.
The Ha An hotel has a lot of character. My guess is there are more backpackers here than at our last hotel, and lots of Aussies. Our room is lovely. The service is not as crisp and warm as in Hanoi, but perhaps the culture is a bit less effusive here. On balance, we have found the Vietnamese to be exceptional people and they have been a big part of the success of this trip to date. What the Ha An does have, we discovered as dusk drew in, was a supply of bats outside where Katherine and I shared an Asian pear. Upon discovering the bats, we decided to head inside our room from the deck where we discovered in turn a three inch flying cockroach. As I write this, the spray is hopefully taming our pets and we will have little concern of what may be underfoot if we get up in the middle of the night!
Hoi An's old town, where we are located, is full of character. More to the point, it is filled with tailors. This is THE city to have your clothes made for you. There are no less than 200 shops that specialize in custom clothing. Wander in, pick your style, get measured and, voila, tomorrow your clothes will be ready for pick up. Katherine is having two shirts made for Ian and one item for herself (so far). There is a lot of pressure from the stores to those strolling the sidewalks - "Come in. See my store. Here is my card." It is all quite a lot of fun. The town is on the edge of a river so the other pressure is to rent a boat from the many tied up to the dock - come and see the river. We may do that tomorrow.
This area feels like it will be totally different in ten years. We flew into Danang, a little north of here. As we drove for miles beside the beachfront, there were countless signs for high end resorts coming soon. I have a feeling that this once open expanse of beach will look like Waikikea very soon. That will likely be sad for all but the entrepreneurial. I am very glad that we find ourselves here now.
Tomorrow, we will make our way out early to finish the requisite shopping. Hoi An is a World Heritage Sight by UNESCO and there is much to see here, despite the dimunitve size of the town itself. I am hoping to spend a bit of time wandering the beach. While lying on a beach is agony to me - the time goes SO slowly - it might be a nice change of pace to sit with a cool drink and watch the waves roll in. We'll see.
For now, I think I will go check on the cockroach and call it a night.
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Katrina
non-member comment
Hi Nancy!
Hi Nancy! It is sooooooo interesting to read about your experiences with my lovely "mother's country" so far. Coming from a totally different perspective, it is actually quite refreshing. :) Anyways, I hope you are enjoying yourself so far and yes, do watch out for those cockroaches. You should try to make a modern day "ao dai" if you have time, it'd be interesting to see....hehehe. Take care! XOXO, Katrina