Bad night (not good morning),Vietnam

Wednesday 21st April - Hue to Hoi An - Bus journey accross mountain roads with breath-taking scenery took 5 hours. Hoi An is a lovely little fishing town with lots of small streets to amble around and clothes shops galore. Get yourself a made-to-fit suit here for 20 pounds all in - ready in about 6 hours! Found a nice bar selling half-pints of fresh local beer for 10p. Romantic walk back to our hotel along Chinese lantern lit streets.

Ancient buddha at My Son

Thursday 22nd April - Hoi An - Hired bikes and pedalled our way up to the beach where the temperature was a balmly 35C which became more pleasant on the sand with the sea-breeze. It was hard to find a moment's peace as we were constantly harassed by local hawker women.There seemed to be more hawkers there than actual visitors to the beach. The hawkers like to keep their skin as white as possible and so are walking around dressed in about 3 layers of clothes including woolly gloves and jumpers, 2 hats and scarves to cover their faces. Very bizarre looking but no doubt Michael Jackson lookalike competitions would have many would-be entrants!

Boat people at work

Friday 23rd April - Went on a day trip to the historic site of My Son (My Son means beautiful mountain). These are old ruins that date from the 2nd century. The heat of the morning meant we didn't enjoy the site perhaps as much as we might have done. It was just too hot to be walking around. Luckily we'd booked a boat back instead of the sweaty bus - we had lunch aboard and stopped at a very impressive wood carving village. Spent the afternoon drinking more 10p beer back in Hoi An before catching the overnight bus to Nha Trang. The journey was fine to start with as the air con was on and we had a seat each so we settled in for the night. An hour later the air con is switched off, the door of the bus is opened and it just got hotter and hotter. Derek asked the driver to close the door to no avail as he shooed him away so he could light a fag! It didn't help that in Vietnam they are closely affiliated to the driving school of India - overtaking on corners and hills, playing chicken with on-coming lorries and constantly blowing the horn for no obvious reason (apart from to keep us poor sods awake!). Also the bus had the squeakiest (and it seemed at times the loudest!) seat in the world on-board which did not help matters! Anway in the end we managed to finally nod-off about 2am for about 3 hours sleep.

Dressing for 35C on the beach

Sue at My Son

The ancient ruins at My Son