The bus arrived to Hoi An at about 8am and we realised we could walk to the hotel (much to the taxi drivers disgust!) The walk woke us up though and it was exciting to see the outskirts of the town. Everyone seemed so relaxed and it already felt a lot more cultural than Nha Trang. Our hotel let us check in early and during breakfast a lovely lady called 'My' who worked at the hotel came over to us and had a chat. She helped us choose a cooking class and told us a good tailors to go to with good quality but not too expensive.
Hoi An is such a beautiful town, we had heard so many good things about it that we were a bit worried that we had built it up too much in our heads . . . There was no need to worry, we were blown away. The buildings were so old and the roads all cute and full of culture and character. There were lots of shops filled with beautiful locally made bits and bobs, cafe's, bars, tailors and restaurants. The locals we're so kind and we didn't feel hassled at all. We headed to the tailors and were really impressed with the material and quality of 'An's' where My suggested we should go. Ruby had a dress and a jumpsuit that she wanted copied in different materials. I had a playsuit that I wanted to be made in two different materials. It was good that we had patterns for them to copy as we didn't really need to be fitted. We chose our material and were on our way. We had a nice wander through the streets and bought some nice local snacks and fruit from the ladies on the street who were carrying two big baskets suspended on rope hanging off a wooden plank which they rest on their shoulder. The lady offered it for me to try and it was so heavy! Theses women are so petite and small, most of them old but they are so strong. Our favourite fruits were these lychee like fruits in a pink spiky skin. We also bought some sweet dried ginger, ginger crackers and nuts. We sat by the river with our mini feast and watched the colourful boats go by. All of the boats had eyes painted on the front either side, it was pretty cool. That evening we went for a dinner just down the road at a palace where loads of local people were eating and were welcomed in warmly and given a delicious Phò noodle soup. Most people were watching us eat it and one of the guys came up and showed us how to tear up the salad leaves and eat it properly! We then went back to the hotel for a chill and an an early night. The next day we woke bright and early, had our free breakie and were collected for the cooking course. We had a really nice group of 7 and started of by following our guide round the morning market. Each of us were given a basket and they were gradually filled up as we walked around amazed by all the different fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and seasonings. There were so may things that we didn't recognise that didn't even have an English name. I loved the fresh noodle section and generally watching all the local women busying themselves buying there family's food for the day. There was a Vietnamese lady on the course for a travel agency and she was laughing at how funny it was to see our guide as a man being so good in the markets as men don't traditionally do the shopping. Once our baskets were full to the brim of shrimps, salad, pork, vegetables, noodles and much more we were taken to a boat I travel down the river to the kitchen. The journey was about 20/30mins and they kept us busy by de tailing all the bean-sprouts on the way. Once we were almost at the river mouth we swapped onto smaller boats and were taken back inland in a different direction on smaller rowing boats where we we're rowed through the water coconut fields. The local village all shared the coconut plants and used the stranger shaped podded coconuts to eat and used the leaves to dry and then use as weaved roofing for there buildings. We arrived at the kitchen already feeling like we had already had our money's worth! Before heading to the kitchen we helped make rice mild for our Ban Xeo pancakes. They had soaked the rice in water overnight. We then took it in turns to grind the rice and water in a big stone contraption which framed the milk and crushed the rice. We had to keep tipping the milk back in until all the rice had been ground. It was great to do yet tough on the arms! We were then taken through the massive vegetable patch to to kitchen are and greeted warmly by our teacher for the day. She was a lovely Vietnamese lady who didn't speak English so our guide translated everything for us. The two of them had a great sense of humour. We were give glasses of freshly squeezed passion fruit juice which was delicious and topped up throughout the day! First we learnt to make the broth for our Phò noodle soup so that could simmer while we were cooking, it was a bit of a witches brew with a pinch of this and a dollop of that all mixed in with the bones from the beef. Then we made fresh spring rolls with salad, vermicelli noodles, pork and shrimps and spring onions. It was a bit of an art form to make them correctly and we were petty proud of our results. We also make a peanut sate sauce to dip them in. We were allowed to eat them as soon as we made them and I was pretty upset when I finished mine, I wanted it to last forever . . . So tasty!! Soon enough we were watching the cook again to learn how to make the Ban Xeo crispy pancakes. These were pancakes made from rice milk and turmeric, the batter was poured into hot oil with pork and onions. Once the pancake was flipped a couple of times and nice and crispy we filled them with salad, shrimps and beansprouts. We made a nice ginger, chili and fish sauce dip and ate the pancakes by folding them in half with rice paper on the outside. It was super scrummy! We were starting to get full but we knew we still had two meals to go! Next was a beef salad with vermicelli noodles and salad with a yummy stock sauce with sugar, rice vinegar and soya sauce topped off with a garnish of fried shallots and ginger. It was fun making the salad all pretty on the plate and even more fun when we ate it! Last but not least was our Phò where we went back to our broths and cooked our meat, morning glory, bean-sprouts and noodles in a sieve in the simmering broth and when cooked we out them in our bowl with the broth, it was delicious, the flavours were fantastic. The whole trip was fantastic and we were so impressed by the detailed demonstrations and freedom to cook everything ourselves. We hooped in a minibus and made our way back into town.
An's was our next stop to see how our clothes were doing. It was so exciting trying them on, they were pretty much perfect but we asked for a few alterations and were told to come back in a couple of hours. Sure enough a couple of hours later the clothes were perfect and we went back to the hotel extremely excited about our new outfits! That night we arranged with a couple of girls from the cooking class and Christian and Jamie and their friends (who were also in Hoi An) to go out for drinks to celebrate Ruby's birthday as we hadn't had a proper night out for it yet. We had a fab time drinking cocktails, chatting and then having a boogie at a random club. It was a great night out.
The next day we awoke to My (the lovely lady in the hotel) knocking on our door at 9:55am making sure we made the most of our free breakfast!! We were feeling a bit hungover but it was torrential rain so we didn't feel so guilty about being lazy for the day.
Because we had stayed in all day hiding from the rain we decided that we should head into town for dinner just to do something. We got a taxi into the centre to stay dryish had some nice food with some friends we had met the day before. We ended up staying out late again as friends we had made the previous night and Christian a and Jamie were out again. Ruby was feeling a bit tired so headed back to the hotel early. I left just a short while after on a motorbike taxi. After only a minute the taxi stopped at the edge of a flood in the road and said the only way to get back is to walk. I assumed Ruby had done the same and it didn't look too deep so off I hopped and started wading up the road. Not realising that Ruby had had the same thing just before but was sharing a motorbike with our friend Rob, he told her (sensibly) not to wade through the flood but go back to there dorm room that they were staying in and text me to do that too. Unfortunately the text got delayed and I didn't receive it until a few hours later! It wasn't to hard walking back in the flood but it was tipping it down with rain still and I stopped every so often to shelter with locals watching from there shops and houses. One lady gave me a poncho to at least protect me from the water above! At one point the flood was waist deep but it got shallower again and by the time I got to our hotel the flood was only ankle deep on the road and hadn't even touched the pavement.
I got to bed, received Ruby's text (so I knew she was safe ok!) and checked my internet for a bit. Just before dozing off I was lying in bed and I heard some rustling on the floor. My immediate reaction was to think that it was a mouse or something so I looked down to see that our room was already about 10 inches deep in water with our clothes and belongings floating around the room (along with a few cockroaches!)! Next thing the receptionist from the hotel was banging on all of our doors on the bottom floor to wake us up and telling us to take everything upstairs! It was a bit of a panic as the water was rising quite fast and I wanted to make sure I got all of Ruby's things too! It was lucky really that I didn't get Ruby's text earlier as I probably would have stayed at the backpackers and our belongings would have been completely ruined. After taking all our belongings upstairs into a spare room me and a few other guests helped the hotel staff take all the mattresses, bedding, kettles, televisions and fridges upstairs to protect them as much as possible it took hours and by the time we finished the sun was rising. I sat on the balcony with an Irish couple I had made friends with during the night called Claire and Lee. We watched the flood rushing down the road like a river gradually getting higher and higher and truly realising the extent of it when we saw a boat going down the road! At this point I started to really worry about the fact that ruby and I were separated that the rain wasn't stopping and I couldn't get hold of her (she was asleep). The hotel staff were amazing and they made us breakfast in the hallway of the hotel. It was so amazing that there customer service was so good and that they still took time out and spent so much effort making sure all the guests were happy. After breakfast My arrived from her house, she had spent all night with her family moving all there belongings to the top floor as it was neck deep in her home! She still came to work though and she was such a great help to get me in contact with Ruby. The electricity had gone by this point but luckily Ruby had texted me the name of the hotel where she was staying. My phoned the hotel and I knew the name of the guys she was with so the hotel were able to get her to the phone. I spoke to her and we (My) organised that we would go and collect her with a boat!? The boat came into the reception to collect us!! We stepped off the stairs into the boat and were on our way. At this point the flood was still rising and it was still raining but our hotel was about waist deep in water. It was such a surreal experience floating down the road and seeing people walking neck deep in water, the shops and houses we're completely flooded. A lot of the locals were either on there balconies or roofs watching and waving at us. My told me that this happens about once a year so even though it is bad and hard work, once people have all there belongings safe they are happy and wait it out or help others out. When we got to the end of the flood it was really strange as half of Hoi An wasn't flooded! We got a. Taxi to get Ruby. It was such a relief to see her and I automatically felt relieved. We headed back to the boat but just as we were wading out to get on we were stopped by the police. They did not speak that much English but they told My that only locals were allowed back into the flood not tourists as it was too dangerous. This was bad news for us as in my lack of sleep I had not bought anything with me. Our passports/ money and all belongings were in the hotel. My was very apologetic as she didn't realise that this was the case either. She asked us to speak more to the police ourselves and explain but after about 10 minutes of us explaining and showing that we had life jackets it was obvious that the police were not going to budge. We were stuck in the pouring rain and had no idea what to do next. My took us round the corner to some shelter and away from the police and was on her phone for a long time. Eventually one of the boat drivers came to meet us. My told us to follow them 10 meters behind and not look at them, it all felt quite dodgy but we trusted her and she had done so much for us already. We walked round a maze of back ally ways, wading up to our hips in the pretty disgusting flood water. Then we saw the boat. We hopped on. My and the boat men offered to cover us with waterproofs, at first I thought they were being kind, I offerd the drivers back as I was already wearing one but he shook his head and said 'police' then we realised that we needed to hide to get past them. It was a bit scary but after about 5 mins we were told that we were ok and soon enough we were back at the hotel. It was petty crazy for Ruby to see the flood so deep but we were happy to be back with our belongings and together! We actually ended up having a great time. We made some good friends and after a nap we hung out on the balcony and even went into the swimming pool (which was raised) for a swim, it was our only way to clean ourselves as now there was no running water and even though we had to wade in the flood to get there is was still nice and a very surreal experience! We spent the evening playing card games with to candle light. There was 7 of us sat together (Irish, English and Canadian) and after a couple of hours another group of four came over to chat from Holland and asked us if we wanted to play 'Werewolf'. We had no idea what it was but they said it was a fun game and you needed at least 8 people to play it. We said yes and found out that this is a Dutch game where normally you have specific cards with characters on them. But they said we could use normal cards instead. It sounded so complicated at first but it was so much fun! It's kind of like cludo/murder mystery. Where you are randomly dealt characters and without knowing who is who you have to guess who are werewolves and who are the villagers and try to kill the wolves (or pretend not to be one). Quite hard to explain but it was quite addictive and we had a great night.
The next day we had our bus booked to Hanoi and then another to a cruise trip at Ha Long bay. We were so relieved to see that that the rain had stopped and that the flood had dropped considerably. My assured us that we would be able to get the bus at 1pm. We helped My and the hotel staff wash out the floor of the hotel. The flood had left the hotel but it was slimy and extremely dirty. They had big hoses and the women (us) had brooms to sweep the grime out of the door. Yet again it was an amazing team effort and they really appreciated the help from Ruby and I. We realised that we did not have enough cash to pay the bill for the hotel so we had to wade and boat to get to an ATM and when we got back to the hotel we realised that the bus would not be able to pick us up from the hotel so we quickly packed, said goodbye to our friends and waded and boated to the bus stop. We managed to find a public toilet to wash our legs off before getting on the bus as we felt pretty disgusting. The bus journey was ok, we met a couple of nice Dutch guys and had a bumpy half sleep to Hanoi due to the fact we were at the back of the bus and there was next to no suspension. We arrived in Hanoi on time luckily so it gave us time to get a taxi to our pick up and to the next bus to Ha Long. Our stay in Hoi An is definitely one we won't forget, we are so grateful that we were able to experience the beautiful town before the rain came. Looking back at the flood it was a pretty unique experience and in the end we ended up having a fab time in the flood!