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So the story continues from the train it seems. Friday we are awoken after a very rocky train ride at about 6.30am by someone handling out breakfast which consisted of dry noodles (ie Pot Noodle)!! All of us looked up and then in syncronisation put our heads back down on the pillows and were rocked back asleep by the train motion. By about 9.30 all were all admiring the stunning coastal scenery Vietnam has to offer and me and Louise indulged ourselves in the delightful breakfast of pork flavoured noodles.
We then had the tragedy of trying to find a taxi driver that wouldn't scam us out of a load more money and strategically bartered with a taxi driver to get us to the final destination of Hoi An as the train only went to Danang.
We randomly picked a hostel from the guide book and were lucky that they had a cheap room room available and then went and had a look round.
The next 2 days consisted of basically shopping, but with a difference. This time we had about 200 different tailor shops to choose from and basically they can make whatever you want from catalogues, magazines or things they had already done in any fabric you wanted all made to measure. The receptionists sister however was a tailor and with not much decision in the matter were frogged marched over to her shop to have a look at ordering some clothes as soon as we had checked in. This was all good for Louise and I who had been struggling to find any clothes to fit over here but it would have been nice to have a browse first. So we indulged slighty, maybe a bit too much. Strangely enough during one fitting in the first day Louise was taken away to look at some lace and happen to bump into Laura and Emma and so we arranged to meet for tea etc
We did do the touristy stuff though, we went on a trip to My Son, some ancient ruins of Temples, similar to Angkor Wat if you have heard of it in Cambodia and we also took in the Village life of Hoi An and I did a bit of wandering through the old town and around on the connecting island. It was nice to chill out after the hustle and bustle of Hanoi but there generally wasn't very much to do apart from shop and getting time to do anything else whilst trying to tell tailors that "no I didn't want anything making", "no I didn't want to have a look in their shop at clothes or material" and that "yes I understand its cheap but I'm on a budget and room was running out in my rucksack"
The final night we decide to be very cultural and go and see some local traditional music and dancing performances in an upstairs bar. It was very exclusive as only 10 of us were in the audience and there was very different music and some very humorous pieces of dancing going on, it was another experience to say the least.
So that was Hoi An, a shopaholics dream, anything they want in any style they want, but after 3 days I was bored and fed up and so the plan was to move onto Saigon. And after checking and double checking and I think even triple checking with the Hotel and taxi driver that they wouldn't try and get more money off us at the end we were satisfied to continue to the airport for the flight.
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