Lovely Hoi An

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Well, we're in Hoi An! Its a lovely charming little town blessed with some stunning architecture from the ye old days. A mixture of french colonial and chinese influence greets you whereever you wonder. The centre of the old town in partly pedestrianised and its brimming with little shops selling tailor made clothes and shoes, wood carvings, gongs, lamps, the list is endless. Even better are the numerous little restaurants and french style patisseries selling fresh croissants and european style cakes, much to Kates enjoyment!

The weather continues with its daily bake and have still not seen any rain in over 3 weeks! (touch wood) We got up at 4.40 this morning to go a visit My Son, a temple complex akin to that in Angkor but not half as big and unfortunately bombed to pieces by the Americans during the war. Quite how the Americans got away with what they did here is shocking, and just witnessing this amounts to in our minds a cultural war-crime. A 1000 of years of history wiped out by a nation that has nearly none. It gets easier to see why alot of the world dislikes the US even from our point of view.

Aside from spending much of our time in bars replacing sweat and wondering the shops we also did a spot of vietnamese cooking. The course cost 12 dollars each and included a tour around the local market to by our produce, then we learnt to cook crispy fried prawns, spring rolls, fish soup and fish fried in banana leaves. Delicious. Yum. So all those coming to our house in the next six months know what they'll be getting for tea!!!!!!!!!!!!

hello, it is kate here. i just wanted to say that i have got some lush hand made leather shoes so i am very happy girl. betweeen shoes and chocolate croissant i am in heaven!

tomorrow we go to cham island for a couple of days (including sleeping in a tent on the beach(James and Steph, it better be worth it!)) before heading further north to hue and yet more grim war stuff at the dmz.

we saw some christmas decorations in a shop today - it felt a bit strange but the thought of eating turkey in this heat is a bit too much! however we would like to hear all of your festive news and gossip from any wild christmas parties.

love katus and mark xxx

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Photos

Croissant heaven
Kate tucking into her first chocolate laden croissant in ages.

Gimp and squid
But who is who?

Culinary Kate
Kate making crispy fried prawns, yum.

Tasting the fish soup
Good, but a little salty for my liking.

Lightening the load
Kate helping an old lady with her wares! (this cost me 2 bloody dollars, as she was "hungry, 1 dollar, very hungry, 2 dollar!!)

shoes galore
Kate getting measured for some handmade sandals. Cost=3 pounds. Bargain.

Hoi An lights
A light stall by night.

My Son
The temples of My Son, near Hoi An. Bombed by the americans and now slowly being rebuilt.

Mark avec new sunglasses
Trying to keep cool (and look it) in a Hoi An bar.

Comments

[aliceeggface]

yum
hello to you both i like the pictures very much especially the one of markus with the sea creatures. your food looks so wonderful, you should feel smug as we just enjoyed our 9879th bowl of rice and grease animal fat, fish sauce. so wonderful to crunch all the bits! we are sleeping in the mission catholique which is fun! just chilling with the Nuns lots of love to you, all sounds very interesting and beautiful christopher john and A x x x x x x

[vani]

relief!
Hiya, had the oral today- nightmare! Just glad it's over now. Keep telling us more about the food- sounds fab, far cry from my 2 month diet of quiche and chicken kiev! Photos look amazing and enjoying the commentary. Hope the new sandles (?!), sandals take good care of the katus feet. Off to Dubai for a week so I'll catch up with ya when I get back. Take it easy, love vani xxx