Days in Hoi An - 23/1/2007 to 26/1/2007

Milo says 'Hi from Hanoi'



Blogging from Hanoi tonight (29/1/2007) - so still trying to catch up on posts.


..and so,it's Leigh here...
We arrived in Danang at 5 a.m. I'd been awoken by a female guard on the overnight train twiddling my big toe from the end of the bunk bed. I woke Rita up and sleepily we trudged on to the platform.

It was our intention to take the bus from here to Hoi An, but a taxi driver persuaded us into his cab. Even then I asked him to take us to the bus station, but he kept right on driving all the way to Hoi An (20 odd miles?). As it turned out he did us a favour. He took us to an excellent hotel, charged us $10 taxi fare and we were comfartably ensconed by 6 a.m.
He asked our nationality, "English", "Oh English - football, yes, very good, Manchester United top, Chelsea 2, Liverpool 3, Arsenal 4". Turned out he supported West Ham - I couldn't fathom out why. When I told him of my allegiance, he simply laughed "Not so good eh?". He obviously knew his stuff.

Hoi An - great place for clothes shopping (not a habit of ours, I have to say).
Rita bought t-shirts, and had an oriental suit type of thing made for her.
We both had shoes made for us and I had a suit run up ($75 + $6 for hand-made shirt). The postage back to the UK was 20 odd quid, so a fair proportion of total price.


Toilet on the way to My Son.





On Wednesday (24th January) we went on a trip to My Son (pronounced Meeson, rather than in 'come on my son!') All to do with Ancient Cham temples. The Kingdom of Champa functioned from the 2nd to the 15th century. The Chams adopted Hinduism after having commercial relations with IndIa. No one can work out how they managed to build these brick temples without mortar - how did the bricks stick to each other? We had the converse problem with some builders at 104 - they used lots of mortar, but the bricks still fell apart.


Cham Temple - sack the brickie..





We did have a good time in Hoi An. The town is really geared up to tourism, which in a developed country might seem a disadvantage. Here in Vietnam, though, it was a pleasant change.
The shops were full of good quality stuff all at rock bottom prices. There are lots of art shops, sellng some really tasteful paintings and carvings. The clothes shops were bedecked with top quality silks. Even the usually tacky ornament shops were filled with good quality,original stuff. Unfortunately we couldn't carry a lot as we've still got too much travelling around to do.