Hoi An Hotels
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Bankrupt in Hoi An
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(Em here. Dave is doing the photos if you are wondering)
We actually did leave Hue in the end and got the bus to Hoi An which was only a few dollars for a 4 hour bus ride Dave was looking forward to the views over the mountain range between the two to find that the road tunnel had been completed and we went straight through the view! Arrived in Hoi An and found a nice hotel (we promised ourselves a nice one as we are staying a few days) not far from the centre called Thanh Binh II which has a pool next door and includes buffet breakfast all for $13. Wandered into 'town' which would take about a 5 minute walk but there are loads of tailor and shoe shops on the way and they smell fresh blood so it took us a while to get to the centre! Hoi An is a world heritage site and deservedly so although it only consists of a few pretty quite streets (3 main streets are the world heritage bit) it is full of character with old traditional houses, temples and a lot of the architecture reminded me of Havana in Cuba. The riverside is a lovely place to sit for a meal or a drink and watch the world go by; although it gets annoying the number of kids trying to sell you postcards or tiger balm (actually what annoyed me more was their mothers being on the other side of the road waiting for them to see how much they sell). Apart from that the place is great and we spent a lot of time wandering the streets and getting prices for tailors and shoes.
The food is also fantastic and all the restaurants we went to were great although particularly liked Cafe Phon on the river. Hoi An is famous for its cuisine with a lot of local specialities - cao lau noodles (flat noodles, croutons, pork slices in a herby/soy sauce), white rose (shrimp wrapped in rice flour and shaped in a rose), fried won ton - all very yummy! Also great place for cakes was Cargo Club - had a fantastic chocolate truffle (helped even more by us not having chocolate for ages). Forgot to say that most restaurants have a set menu for about 40,000 VD to 70,000 (about 2-4 quid) each and one menu is enough for two of you!
Having said we would have nothing as we hope to lose weight plus what is the point on getting a suit made when you don't have a job to wear it to?! Logic went out the window.......we eventually found a tailor shop that just left you to it when you went to have a look round so we decided to get stuff made with them. Anyway we ended up with a suit, a winter coat and 3 shirts for about $160 each (about 90 quid) - all from Nhi Trung tailor on the same road. We also got shoes made - Dave had two pairs and me one for $20 a pair. We had a couple of fittings and all went very smoothly and shipped the stuff home so fingers crossed it will all be too big for me when we get back!
(Dave here) Following from my lead, Em decided to have a haircut. It turned out a little shorter than she expected but she got a free head massage, so that was OK! She was worried that she looked a bit German - this was compounded when in a restaurant on our last night, we were asked if we were German (TWICE!) - upon asking why, they said beacuse of the short hair! More thumbnails ...
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