Phuoc An Hotel Hoi An

As hard as it was to convince Catty to leave the beaches of Nha Trang, we caught an overnight train to Da Nang and then a taxi to our next destination Hoi An. We boarded our train in Nha Trang only to find someone had already decided to use our beds as a bag rack. We'd booked 2 upper berths (there are 4 beds in each compartment) and the old lady in our carriage didn't speak a word of english. So, after realising there was no guard onboard, and not knowing who the bags belonged to we decided t...

In the morning my throat was still horribly sore and my left tonsil was badly swollen. Boo. I had breakfast then got a taxi to the airport at 9.30am. There was a shitload of traffic and I started to get worried that I'd be late, just like in Bangkok, but fortunately I still got to check in with just over an hour to go before the flight left. The flight was with Vietnam Airlines, who have lovely big planes and a great service. As I'm short of time I booked the flight, instead of the bus, as it...

In the morning I got up at 10am and was still feeling ****, with painful glands and ears, though my throat was slightly less sore than the night before when the pain levels had really reached their zenith. However, on waking my lip felt weird. When I then walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, I saw to my amazement and horror that the whole left side of my lip had swollen to twice its normal size - aagh! I looked ludicrous. On going downstairs I learnt annoyingly that breakfast was ...

Didn't really do much today. I got up in time for breakfast in the hotel, which was fairly decent, then did some blogging. For lunch I of course went to Cafe 43, and had another lovely meal, then did some more blogging before going to my room and watching TV for a bit as I was still feeling a bit rough. Five minutes before my suit fitting at 4pm I took a free bike from the hotel's supply of rather decrepit and antiquated collection and sped off to the tailor. To my amazement in only twenty-fo...

Getting here was a nightmare. Overnight bus - no problem! We left Nha Trang at 7.30pm; by 10.30pm the bus had broken down in the middle of nowhere! We were stranded for 2 hours while they fixed the broken part of the bus - and to their credit they got it going again! But you couldn't sleep. Apart from what seemed to be synchronised snoring by the bloke behind us and the bloke halfway down the bus, with the odd **** and grunt checked in for good measure; when you were drifting off either the ...

DAVE -- Our second morning waking up in Hoi An, Vietnam! We have a very nice hotel, the Phuoc An, with a comfy room, nice queen-size bed, small frig, and private bath with good water pressure and heat for the shower. There's a swimming pool (haven't used it yet) and decent restaurant, plus very friendly and helpful staff down at the front desk. The street outside gets pretty loud with traffic around 6:30a, lots of scooters honking. But the AC in the room is nice and cold and very quiet! Quite...

We had breakfast in the 8th floor restaurant overlooking Da Nang town, another scorching hot day. Below us we watched a funeral procession pass by, bus-loads of people wearing white headbands, and lots of colourful decorations and flowers. We checked out of the Golden Sea Hotel and set out to get a taxi to the bus station to get a bus to Hoi An. The taxi driver said he could take us straight to our hotel in Hoi An for 260,000VND and that sounded like a good deal to us, ten pounds door to door...

Hoi An is an old river town that used to act as a merchant port. Colonised by the French, it seems much of their architecture can be seen in the ancient part of town. Yes the old town does have an ancient town within! Today we decided to buy two combination tickets for 110,000 VND (£4.00) from the tourist office at the bottom of Le Loi street, A combination ticket grants entry to one museum, one temple, one cultural show and one old house. Although it was so hot today (33°c) that we would try...

Over a moment of madness yesterday, we decided to book up a tour to the ancient Cham site, and most important, My Son (pronounced 'me sun') . The twist being that the tour started at dawn, which in Vietnam is 5am. An early night, 2 alarms later (one slept through), and we woke up around 04:15am. A nice shock to the system. It was a good job that we laid out all of our clothes for the day ahead, as the brain wasn't quite functioning yet. Around 04:45am we made our way to reception and sat outs...