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Hellooo,
Writing this from Hoi An, a medium sized town in the middle of VIetnam next to the coast. We arrived here on Friday morning after a night bus, where we were both surprised that we barely slept at all. :-)
Hoi An though is a really beautiful town and walking around at 7am to find accomodation with no other tourists in sight was really nice. Hoi An is a town that has a small old town on the shores of the river that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so lots of old buildings are protected. We were lucky to find cheap accommadation right in the centre of the old town, although the place is a bit like a prison! But great location :-)
The old town is all painted yellow and white, with lots of alleyways and cobbled streets with flowers hanging everwhere. There are also really colourful chinese lanterns decorating loads buildings and Kate would surely have bought several by now if they folded down smaller.
We spent the first day just wandering around the old town, and a lot of shops burn incense on their doorframes for good luck, so the town smells really nice :-)
Hoi An is also famous for its tailoring. There are an estimated 300-500 tailors, for a town of a little over 100,000 so they are all there to serve tourists. Kate was looking for a tailored dress or two, but the prices were more than we ad thought they would be, and didnt make it worth it, but she did eventually decide on a tailored coat. A strange decision as its about 40degrees here! But i think she is planning for the English winter :-) Its a smart dark grey wool coat, with bright pink silk lining.
The next day we bought an Old Town ticket which gets you into 5 attractions from museums, old houses that have been in the same family for 7/8 generations and have changed little, to Chinese Gathering halls. We went to a temple which was very nice and had lots of tortoises, and then after some searching the Fujian Gathering Hall, which is probalbly our favourite building/temple/pagoda/wat of the trip so far. It had a relly nice front garden, with lots of flowers and a large red building with loits of intricate details, and lots of burning incense coils inside.
For lunch we had booked onto a cooking school for a few hours. We were cooking 5 courses, but they were quite simple and quick so only took 2 hours. The teacher was really friendly and funny and had great English. We made portions of Fried Wantons, Duck with Orange, Pho (noodle soup), Aubergine Claypot, and fish grilled in banana leaves. The portions were small, but very very tasty, and made a good lunch.
In the afternoon we conrtinued our tour of the old town, seeing another gathering hall, an old house, and a performance of traditional song and dance in the handycarft shop/exhibition.
In the evening Kate had another fitting for her coat, and we relaxed in a cafe with chocolate and passion fruit mousses.
Today we went to pick up Kate's coat which looked really good, had a wander around the local fruit and veg market, and then got motos to take us to the beach. Its probably the best beach we've been on, as it very wide, with fine sand, and absolutely no rubbish or sewage :-) We stayed there for lunch, and came back in the afternoon.
This evening we are going to eat at the night market, and catch the bus in the morning to Hue.
Bye for now!
Tom and Kate
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