Hoi An

On the way from Danang airport to Hoi An there is a lot of construction work, building new resorts for Hyatt and Meridien so we thought that would carry on into Hoi An. We were wrong as Hoi An is relatively untouched by modern resorts and comprises mainly of boutique hotels. After consulting Tripadvisor we are staying at a French colonial style hotel and on the way to breakfast we are expecting Inspector Poirot to be sitting in the lounge area.

Old town Hoi An is very nice with lanes and alleys leading down to the river where there are rows of restaurants but on your way down there you have to pass countless shops vying for your trade, from tailors to shoe shops and of course the inevitable t-shirt and polo shop. There are very cheap restaurants where you sit on long tables like Wagamama, you can eat and drink all night for less than £5. Cars and buses are banned from the old town so there are strings of rickshaws lined up carrying tourists around.

One night on the way to the restaurant we decided to cut through the market and it was a bit busy, a cart pushed it’s way through and unfortunately Sheila could not manage to get out of the way and ended up sitting in a basket of vegetables and couldn’t get up, the real pity is that she had the camera so I couldn’t get a shot of it.

The food here is outstanding and really cheap. I tried some of the local ‘Bia Hoi’ which they call fresh beer, it’s an acquired taste but only 20p per glass, drinkable if there’s nothing else available.

On the way back we passed what we thought was an impromptu concert but turned out to be the Vietnamese version of bingo where they dish out papers with letters on them and start singing as a man gets a member of the audience to pick a stick out of a bamboo tube, this has a number of letters on and this is shouted out. If you get three of these on your paper then you win a Chinese Lantern. The video below should make it clearer although I was laughing quite a lot when taking it.

There are also a lot of strange signs and names above shop doors that mean something quite different in English.

An hour trip on the river was negotiated at £3 and on the way out we saw some Vietnamese fishing by the old method but came to the boat for payment after taking photos, all very well staged and worth the 33p tip.

I still can't get used to the money here like drawing 4 million Dong from the ATM or paying 300,000 for a night out, which is all of £11.

Hanoi tomorrow and a trip to Halong Bay.