Hoi An (not to be confused with Hanoi or An Hoi!)

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We arrived in Hoi An two days ago at about 6a.m after a long and torturous overnight bus trip. Our beds were more like chicken coops, the bus stopped every couple of hours rendering attempting to sleep fairly useless and the roads were poor to say the least, but we got here and all is well. We're in a cheap hotel with a swimming pool so no complaints there.

We spent the previous 4 days in Nha Trang which is a beach town so we were very happy to be swimming in the sea again - we hadn't seen it since Ko Pha Ngan. We met a guy from Derry on the bus and spent a couple of evenings out with him drinking jam-jars of various colours and flavours.

One day we decided to go over to a neighbouring island called Vin Pearl - you get there by cable car and the island consists of a water park, amusement park, arcade and several restaurants. Once you pay your 10 dollars, that's you - free to wander about and go on anything, including the arcade games, for no extra cost. There were no queues either so we were only delighted with ourselves zooming down slides of varying scariness, relaxing in the lazy river and splashing about in the wave pool. The amusement park was fairly impressive too with lots of 'scream if you want to go faster' rides and a few tamer ones. At one stage we decided to go on the Pirate Ship (because Paul is a pirate you know) which was basically a big swing. We ambled over to be greeted by the sight of about 10 Vietnamese women on it crying and getting sick. We went on it anyway and, apart from the carousel, it was the tamest of the lot. How those women coped on the cable car over we'll never know...

Nha Trang itself is your typical beach resort - really we could have been anywhere but pleasant all the same. We lost track of the amount of times we had to say 'No thank you' as people tried to peddle us books, fruit, motorbike rides, paintings, books, books and more books. Saying 'no thanks' is no deterrent as they stand and stare sullenly at you until you eventually ignore them and continue your conversation. Paul was offered massages but only when I wasn't standing beside him...

So now we're in Hoi An which is a really beautiful town - the old town is a world heritage site and has preserved all of the lovely ancient buildings. It is full of traditional crafts such as lantern making, painting, silk and tailoring. Paul got measured for a suit and me for a dress (exhale Mammy - not one of the white variety and without a veil!) so that's good news for Dave Hartnett who no longer has to fear his suit being borrowed and doused in Guinness every time we get invited to a wedding.

Yesterday we went on trip to My Son which is the site of the ruins of the old Cham Empire religious centre. The ruins have been damaged further by bombs and the heat was oppressive but even taking that into account, after the temples of Angkor we were struggling to be impressed. I think it's hotter here than anywhere we've been so today we're going to the beach which is about 5km away. It's just too darn hot to do much else.

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Photos

sunrise in nha trang
from the 10th floor of our hotel

sunrise in nha trang
10th floor

pirate ship
we sat well away from the vomit

Comments

[Dave H]

New Suit!
Woo-Hoooo!

[shane]

Jam- Jar binks
Was the Jam-Jar drinking done in the sailing club.?I remember getting pretty wasted there for little or no money.