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Ok, I know I haven't blogged for a while so I thought I'd fill in the gap. Hoi An is where we headed after Nha Trang. We travelled by sleeper bus. I will try and give you an idea of what this entails; a standard coach the size of a double decker with three rows of bunkbeads down it and 5 along the back. Each 'bed' is like a coach chair but goes almost all the way back to horizontal. Your feet and bag go under the seat in frontin an encased section. Not a perfect description but I hope you get the idea (we will show you pics when we get back). So after our fun 12 hour journey which involved a long wait due to roadworks and a coach repair we got to Hoi an. We firstly had to find accomadation. On the way in I had spotted a hotel we had seen online with good reviews and Jane made a dash a couple of doors down across the road and reserved the last room - Yay!! So with this we headed for breakfast to wait for our room to be ready and with smug faces as travellers from our bus went in and were turned away. Good Times!
Hoi ann is an ancient town which has been unchanged for hundreds of years and it is a bit like movie set. No cars are allowed in the old town and at certain times 'only walkers and primative vehicles' as the signs put it. Our first day was just a day of exploration, seeing the Japanese bridge which is the towns symbol and wandering the Old Town. For tea we tried White Rose (shrimp filled dumplings) and then tried some local draft bear for 4000 VND ($1 - 20,000VND). Good TImes!! We were so tired after our bus journey; sleeper does not necessarily mean more sleep we headed to the hotel where I beat Janec the 's***head' tournament of tournaments and have now been declared Queen of all such things before sleep. Ahhhh a bed!
Our second day in Hoi An and we bought a ticket to go into some of the old buildings of the Old town. With a system where a ticket allows you into one attraction in each category it is a complex system which could have only been devised here and too be completely honest I'm still not really sure how it worked. But we saw two of the Old Houses, a few pagodas and Meeting Halls. They were beautiful buildings; combinations of Vietnamese , Chinese and Japanese architecture. The ticket also allowed us to see a traditional music and dance show which was really good. The dancers looked so graceful and amazing and we got several solos from various musicians. In the late afternoon we strolled over to an over a bridge to one of the islands in the river in hoi ann to the Sleepy Gecko bar (Janecs favourite name again) where we had beers and played pool. This bar though gave you a free shot of rum with every drink - not necessary. The pool was therefore more terrible than usual. Truly terrible but I won a game. Our way back took us past the centre of the Old Town where they were leading a game completely in Vietnamese; it involved much singing and cheering. After watching for a short while I established that it was Vietnamese bingo. Brilliant. We then went to a very romanic street stall where all the tables were by the river lit by chinese lanterns, just by the Japenese covered bridge; here we had Cau Lau which is Hoi ann's fried noodles but a bit more like soup made with water from a well in tjhe Old Town. It was the yummiest thing ever and really cheap. I then suggested stealing some Japenese Bridge as you are meant to have a ticket to crioss it but we went in the night and did it anyway. Hehe.
Our final day involved hiring bikes to ride to Cua Dai beach about 5KM away. We ended up going about 7-8KM away due to a bit of confusion but got there in the end. It was a beautiful beach with very soft'run through your toes' sand and surrounded by palm trees. We chilled out on the beach and read. and I collected rally pretty shells and paddled. After lunch which was pork cooked in bannana leaf we headed back to Hoi an. For tea we headed back to our Cau Lau lady which was again yummy. We then as it was so cheap we decided to go on a street food binge. At stall two to try black sesame seed soup; a sweet dish which had the texture and a bit of the taste of semelina. It was so yummy!! Then stall three for Banh Dap; sticky rice pancakes which you crunches and dipped in chilli sauce. After our stupidly cheap dinner we were given the green tea you get at the street stalls free. The lady placed the cups on the table with a basket of paper. Janec and the lady then exchanged some hand signal language and Janec dipped a piece of the papar into his tea and proceeds to nibble it. The lady and I laughed so hard. Janec presumably thought it was rice paper but alas he had just eaten paper. The lady and I could not stop laughing. I think I can still hear her laughing now - ' daft westerners and their inability to know what paper is'.
Hoi ann is beautiful but it a bit like a film set; a bit unreal. Our next stop is Hue for some more ancient history.
xxxxx
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