Hoi An - you buy from me?

Arrived at 5.55am in Hoi An, disorientated and in dire need of a toothbrush. So we sat at the Sihn Café for 20 mins to rejuvenate and then took a taxi to town. Hoi An has an Ancient Town which is heritage listed and the newer town surrounding it, the taxi dropped us off at the edge of the old town (no cars are allowed within the old town). After 2 seconds a woman approached us and asked if we needed somewhere to stay (backpacks say a 1000 words), we said YES and 10 mins later we were asleep. Our room was old, humble, large and rather charming…with yellow wooden doors, opening onto an ornate French colonial balcony. As always in Asia anything you need comes to you, you don’t need to put in any effort. Sometimes this means there are lots of things on offer you also don’t need! And in our case it was a very persistent lady insisting repeatedly that we go to her tailor shop…not what we really needed at 6am after a 11hour bus ride. 

A view down the street from our hotel balcony

After a nap we woke and walked the streets unfortunately venturing unknowingly straight to the market. Hoi An is the shopping capital of Vietnam and if you want a break from the selling you shouldn’t hit the market - we were bombarded with ‘Lady, you BUY from ME’, ‘Hello, Excuse me, Buy from ME’…etc etc. After 10 mins Dave asked what I thought of Hoi An, I declared I wasn’t impressed. However once we emerged from the hot stinky market we were blessed with the quaint streets and a SHOE SHOP! 20 mins later our feet had been measured and we had 3 pairs of shoes on order…(Hoi An started to look like a 10/10)…next thing we knew we were in a Tailors (the sister of our shoes maker) who were delightful, 1 dress, 1 coat and 3 shirts later walked on air home (well I did!)…after a 2 ½ month absence from fashion and shopping - it was heaven :) 

We returned the next day to pick up our clothes, further tweaks were made and we agreed to return again that night. We were also were invited to dinner, cooked by Tam’s (our Tailor) family…5 sisters, Aunt and Uncle. We were blessed with a lovely dinner that night with 10 people around a little table sharing rice, fish, tofu and delicious vegetables. All the girls thought Dave was hilarious as he had learnt some Vietnamese and was trying it out at every opportunity. It was a lovely night of genuine food and fun…we will be emailing Tam when we return home with more clothes for her to make for us!

Can you spot the Aussie?

The next day we hired bikes and rode a rather hot and sticky 5km to the beach. Once we arrived Dave realised he had forgotten his wallet, so he did the extra 10kms to our hotel and back to retrieve it. We needed money to pay for parking our bikes and it also costs $1.50 to hire a sunbed with a grass roof umbrella to relax under - we no longer lie on the sand!!

Our nights and days in Hoi An mostly consisted of walking around the beautiful streets and gastronomic delights - the food was beautiful, plentiful and cheap. 

One of the many Chinese influenced temples

 Amelia and a nice friendly Pheonix

In and around the streets of Hoi An

The Japanese covered bridge

Amelia by the river enjoying the architecture

Typical (and of course very beautiful) Hoi An Architecture

Dave again wondering the streets

Every morning also consisted of a breakfast at the Green Moss café, so I could have ‘Noir’ the perpetually trembling black Chihuahua sit in an awkward ball on my lap. Noirs's mum (the cafe owner) knew I loved him and would place him in my lap every time we came in - a daily highlight for me!

Noir, Noir Noir!!!