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Published: January 30th 2010
The houses
They are very tall, very thin, normally packed together and in varying degrees of decay.Ah a day off! This was my first day off since starting this job! Wow did I need it. You may think it is all fun and games doing this job, and well yes you would be totally right it is all fun and games. But it is very tiring at the same time. The travelling alone is a bit of a killer. I had the luxury of staying in bed until 9:30! That was a lot earlier than I had planned to get up. But why waste a perfect day off. I actually wanted to join the family with their trip into Hoi An, as it is classed as a World Heritage site. I actually don’t think it has changed much, except for the modern traffic and technology. But other than that, I can imagine it being like this 100s of years ago.
The tour this morning was a walking tour of the Ancient city with 4 stops along the way. It was basically a big con, into going into tourist traps and giving the locals a chance to take your money. Well, that is a bit harsh, but that is basically what it felt like.
We had
A bell
That's about as interesting as it got in the Museum. A bell from the time of Gengis Khan. only been out of the van for less than 5 mins when HB said she didn’t want to walk so they got her cyclo to go in for the whole trip. The whole trip lasted about 2-3hrs and how much did this cost? $5! Geezs, that is how much it costs to get to the end of the road in London. We actually only walked around a 2 block radius which I think she could have walked, but hey I am on a day off so I’m keeping my mouth shut.
The first stop was a museum of History and Culture. It wasn’t terrible interesting, they had some pots and bells; to be honest I didn’t really pay attention. The only interesting part was the information our guide told us. Vietnam is meant to mean People of the South. It was given its name by the 1st Emperor of China. Viet means the Vietnamese people and nam means south of china. So basically you get the people of the south. They have a population of 85 million here but even though the cities seem very crowded only 25% of the people actually live in the cities the rest of
them live in the country.
Our 2nd stop was a Buddhist temple. Outside it was rather hot, but as soon as you stepped inside the temperature dropped about 5c it was really nice to be cool again. What? I’m English; I like the cold, the damp, the fog and the rain. I just don’t like snow or temperatures below 5c. This place was really beautiful. It was all in Mandarin because when the Chinese conquered Vietnam some 1000s of years ago they changed the language. You would have thought that they would have changed it back again. This Buddhist temple was for the Lady Buddha. All above us were coils of incense with prayers in the middle from tourists praying for good fortune and the such. These coils last for a month! Pretty cool. Our guide didn’t have much to say here. So moving on.
It is really hard to describe to you what the streets of Hoi An are like. They road is about wide enough to get a car down, but this is a 2 way street! As I said in an earlier blog, I have no idea what side of the road they drive on
here, they drive at each other. Now on these streets you have mopeds, cyclists, cyclos, vans, cars and people to contest with! It is hard work. Every other shop is a tailors, and wow some of those dresses are lovely. I already had planned to come back and get one (just so you know, I got myself 2!). There are people selling things to you left, right and centre. Ladies with baskets on poles trying to get you to buy their fruit. Which we did, only to be told by our cyclo driver not to eat it because the bananas had been in the sun too long and would make us sick. Good thing he told us
After we started feeding it to HB. I’m not so stupid as to eat them myself; I give them to the children to eat. I am a kind caring nanny 😱. So the streets are very busy, very dusty and very loud.
Hoi An is right by the coast and a river and each year it floods. It has been flooding since time began and will continue to flood until time ends. Last year the streets flooded by one and a half
Carp fish.
In Chinese belief, these fish were turned into dragons by the Gods as they were the only animals (although they aren't animals they are fish) to be able to fill the world with water. metres! Wow, the people here are used to it, but still. You would think it would close everything up. Oh no, they just move up stairs and people take boats instead of bikes. It becomes a Venice of the East, but not so nice. Yuck, I dread to think what is in the water.
Our last stop after seeing the Japanese Bridge which was built to stop the flooding (HA yeah that worked), I am surprised it is still standing seeing as it is over 200 years old and made of wood. We were taken to an old house. Again this was a big con. Sure it was old, and very interesting, I have no idea what the lady said to us I could barely understand or see anything. Vietnamese house lack windows, so it is very dark inside. The only thing this lady who ‘lived’ there wanted to do was sell us her hand embroidered table clothes. These were stunning. It took them 15 days, of two people working on it to create one table cloth. The one they sold to us (yes we are suckers) had butterflies and lilies on. Wow, you could sell this in Harrods
for £100s, and what did they charge us? $38 for the table cloth and 6 embroidered napkins!
So then it was back to the villa for a total relax, via being mobbed by a fruit seller who wanted to have her picture taken with me and F. Only cost us 4 bananas for the privilege! Once back at the villa, I put on the very snugly dressing gown (over my clothes) and plugged myself into my Ipod until night time. Ah, bliss!
To be continued...
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Erin *~*~*
non-member comment
ok I am all caught up now
you can write some more now LOL! I love the temple - it's SO beautiful!