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After a reasonably comfortable 12 hour sleeper bus we arrived in Hoi An- historical Vietnam.
We were greeted by a very polite lady who talked us in to staying at her hotel. Just $6 for a room inc. tv, mini bar, bath , air con and swimming pool! After double checking and triple checking the details and price with her we were sold! This had to be too good to be true!
We caught the hotels free minibus service into town (the price was becoming less believable all the time) which dropped us at one of the many tailor shops in Hoi An after briefly flirting with the idea of getting a fitted suit we declined and moved on, the small town was easy to navigate and small enough to cover on foot. We passed the market and walked along the riverfront, the buildings were beautiful and untouched from as long as 200 years ago (this is owed to their status as UNESCO protected) we saw an elderly lady in a small wooden boat who gestures us over and showed us a sign offering a boat ride for 20 thousand Dong - about 1 US dollar - we decided to give it a go, as we got on she passed me an oar and told me to sit at the front, she went to the back while D sat in the middle, we began to paddle and the view from the river more beautiful than any of the views from the roadside, after a while I felt the paddling was getting more difficult, I looked round to see the old lady had stopped!! She just laughed and gestured for me to carry i
on!! The rest of the journey was much of the same theme, me paddling with occasional assistance from the lady while D relaxed! Tiring but still an interesting experience and a different way to see much of the town!
After a quick walk back to our place and realising there was actually no swimming pool available to cool down in! (1st lie) we settled for a shower and headed back in to town for dinner.
The town had totally changed by night. Everywhere was lit up with multi coloured lanterns and thousands of fairy lights it was really beautiful. Ate at a NGO place that helps the local people. We decided to be brave and chose 3 Vietnamese dishes to share, we didn't know exactly what we were ordering but the meal was fantastic, we polished it all off and after a quick stop at the bakery for dessert walked the 15 minutes back to the hotel.
A comfortable night in what was a very nice room, we woke in time to catch our bus onto Hue. We went to check out and I noticed the bill was larger than expected, I questioned it -to be told it was $6 each and not $6 for the room, I argued that was not the case but unfortunately they have your passports so there is not too much you can do, we paid the bill before catching our bus outta there. It's a shame our time ended on a sour not as we loved Hoi An, we'll just stay somewhere else next time!
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