Hoi An Hotels
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ooh, suits you sir
Entry 39 of 149 | show all | print this entry |
First of all, I'm trying to keep these shorter, so I'm just gonna but the basic details down here now.
Hoi An is a pretty little place, tiny french colonial-esque streets lined with tailors, bars and other assorted shops. The town itself also has world heritage status i believe. Shopping is the main thing on everyones agenda here, and there are over 400 tailors here. In the evening i walked past a bar and randomly the 3 danish girls i met in Halong bay were sitting there having a meal, so went for a drink and some cake with them ( thats right i broke my eating healthily obsession and had a cake, a passion fruit and chocolate cheesecake. It was well worth the guilt I felt afterwards.)
Met Taylor and Louise in the cake place ( a couple who shared the bus ride with me), and as the danish girls were off to use the Internet and they were going for a drink, they invited me along.
The next day i went to the my son ruins, a fine example of the ancient Cham architecture in Vietnam an itself, a world heritage site. They were pretty cool, and they are apparently similar in design to the ruins of Angkor, though in much worse condition and much less numerous (obviously). The day was really spoiled by the fact that it was just too hot to do anything, and i was glad to finish the tour so i didn't have to walk (and drip sweat like a fountain) anymore.
The plan for the rest of the day was just to veg out and do nothing, however i ended up jumping on the tourist bandwagon and got myself a suit made, which should be on its way home now (fingers crossed it gets there). Went to a restaurant for some food and met a few guys who had been eating there religiously since they arrived (after tonight i would join them and do the same for the remainder of my time here). Had an excellent 3 course meal for $2 then the group of us (Matt, Isabelle, Ria and Emma) went for a few drinks then continued the party like its 1999 (i.e like 14 year olds) by buying a bottle of vodka and sitting by the river drinking homemade vodka red bulls. Ria, i was delighted to discover, is an actress and has just finished filming 8 months worth of a tv series for Disney! It gets better:- the tv series is... POWER RANGERS! She plays Mirrortrix, their evil enemy. I was so excited to hear this.
Next day we all chilled out at the beach in between fittings with our respective tailors (i told you, everyone is getting clothes made here). I also discovered that somewhere the day before i lost my camera, so i wasn't too pleased (even putting on a tailor made suit couldn't cure those blues). Don't really wanna go into detail as to where when and how i think i lost it as its too depressing, especially as i hadn't put any of the 1000+ photos on the memory card onto cd yet. Bollocks.
On the way back from the beach our motorbike got a puncture, and this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as i met a man who i can only describe as the 1st genuine Vietnamese man i have met (with the exception of those in families like in Sapa etc). He spoke French and a little English and quizzed us on things like the capitals of our respective countries and the usual questions, but didn't then try to rip us off once he had finished. Lunch was at a restaurant on the beach called Mama Lees, who was recommended to us by two ex pats in the beach resort as 'a dirty old Vietnamese lady serving great seafood'. Can;t miss out on that can we.
Mama Lee was a legend, she looked exactly like Songsree from Ayuthaya and was a similar sort of character. The guys (i had already eaten, sadly) ordered a huge grilled fish for 100000 dong (about $6) and it was damn tasty (Mama Lee made me try some, literally feeding me it). After the meal she kept bringing out more and more fruit:-mango's, pineapple and bananas, and refused to let us leave until we ate it, physically forcing food into Matt's mouth. What a fantastic lunch!
The evening followed a pretty similar theme, dinner in the same place then drinking in the same bar again. Pretty lazy of us really.
Next day was a veg out day before the nightmare bus ride to Nha Trang, though i did bump into Maryelle just before i was due to leave for my bus. Small world, i reckon shes stalking me! (only kidding)
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