city life!

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hi everyone,
Lost my last blog floating round cyberspace somewhere....we arrived at Hoi An it was the most beautiful place so far so much character in the buildings and people real friendly...as its further up north it has a real big chinese influence to the city....also french as the grid system for the traffic and streets are logical to get round...we stayed at a nice hotel with satelite tv what a luxury even though you only catch the world news..anyway....the 1st night we ended up on a bridge at sunset going over the river and met a couple of local women who were very funny indeed made jim eat bettlenut....like tobbacco but makes your tongue go red...and also decided to make me shout at locals passing on the bridge in the vietamenese that they taught me...i have not got a clue what it mean't but everyone was laughing...most probably something like "look at me i am a stupid foreigner". The sunset was incredible every 5 seconds the colour of the sky turned pink to red to burgundy....we went for a great meal in a resturant on the front of the river....wonton out of this world and jim had a chicken something...real good! We went to the beach the next day hired a motorbike and off we went where the sea was really rough due to the tailend of the Typhoon that hit Phillapenes and china...we were lucky we missed that one for sure! Jim decided to do some body boarding...and got chucked about in it...i stayed on the sand as it had real strong undercurrents....and didn't fancy drinking the sea water....we stopped at a great resturant on the way back only 4km from town called "Son" food was so good...thats the thing when your near the sea seafood is going to be fantastic....we walked around the market...yes as usual...we love it....and bought our plane tickets to Hanoi...cheap...cheap....20 quid thankyou Vietnam! Next day we decided to chill on the motorbike and get a bit of the countryside and came across a pottery where 2 old women were on the pottery wheels they asked us in and we made our own pots...mine was best of course well 2 years at art college was not a waste of time! This place had a kiln with wood burning and they were making tiles for roofs, pots and decorative bits...no one spoke english so we were having half conversations in Vietmanese...which they loved bless them! That night the lady on the bridge invited us to her house for dinner we gladly accepted and picked her up on thew bridge 3 up on a motorbike and drove to her lovely house...the food was delicious fish, rice, eggs with jasmine hot tea...em was her name and if you ever go to Hoi An go to the bridge called "Cam nam" and ask for Em and she will take you on her tiny boat.....great experience...when we dropped the bike off the next night a man invited us to drink rice wine with him and his friends that stuff is bloody rocket fuel....smells like wine tastes like tequilla....off we stagger down the road after 8 shots to a world famous resturant called " Cafe Des Amis" Where the chef greats you and its a set menu everynight we choose seafood...ohhhhh the most amazing dishes came out "white rose" which is only made in Hoi An it's like wonton then stirfried seafood and veg noodles, curried fish....the best meal we have ever had....he took 6 months off to travel and cook all around europe...clever man indeed!!! It rained so hard at the cafe that he bought out raincoats and off we went on a motorbike in our plastic suits 3 up...singing what the locals sing...Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Manam Manam as we biked pass people they clapped and joined in what a great end to a fantastic place we loved it there and never wanted to leave...what charm it had also the people ....
From there we flew to Hanoi where we are now more later on that as we are going on the Halong Bay tour tmrw early! We are setting off round the pinnacles in a fantastic Junk Boat....bring it on...i will be like a japenese tourist happy snapping....already have 10 cd's of pictures! Well goodnight till the next instorement.....

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