Hoi An - officially in the South!

So we jumped on a bus early this morning headed to hoi An. Its like 200km but again was a 4 hour journey due to dodgy roads and a infestation of crazy motorbike drivers.

Hoi An is a lovely spot- the centre of the town is like a French village with narrow streets and French style buildings along the river. Beautiful Vietnamese lanterns line the streets. We hired some bikes and decided we would ride the 5km out of town to the Beach (it is called Cau Dai- but runs in the famous China Beach down to Danang- American soldiors used this beach on their r and r). We had a very limited map and thought we were headed in the right direction- after about 10 kms we kind of thought we would have seen some trails of sand or something! But it wasnt all a loss- we cycled through some great country side and stumbled into a little handicraft village that specialises in pottery. Here we stopped because Jenny rang and while tim was chatting on the phone I chatted to three mischevious boys of about 4! Well I hope we chatted- they talked in Viet and I spoke in English and they seemed to think it was hilarious- they kept singing this song to me and laughing and running around excitedly- they could have been singing "ugly white tourist" for all I know - but I thought they were pretty funny and cute. No video games to ocupy these guys- sticks, dirt and song! good times!

So when we eventually realised we were headed to Danang and not ot the beach we turned around. Eventually we made it t the beach and sat down to chill out- it was about4pm- cold by this time and no good for swimming. We were seated for about 2 mins when a woman came and joined us trying to sell us some cheap wallets and other crappy items- I swear these people need to get an idiots guide to marketing- if they were selling drinks and icecreams we would have bought up big- no point buying purses you can get in Clints Crazy Bargains back home. She tried every trick in the book- flattery, guilt, blackmail and bribery- but we didn't give in! We were forced to move and went for a walk along the beach, padding our feet along the way.

We went to this hilarious restaraunt on the river for dinner. It is run by this guy called Mr Kim. There is no set menu- you just choose vegetarian, meat or seafood and he serves you a 5 course meal of whatever he fancies cooking that night. He has had food exhibitions in Europe and is very proud of the little book that tourists write in praising his food! As soon as you go inside he asks where you're from and presents you with the countless testimonies from your national commrades. The food was great and we are now getting into the Vietnamese food with gusto. Its a nice change from Thai as the flavours are a little more subtle.

When we left the restauraunt we foudn that the King tide had swelled the river up to lap at the steps of the restaraunt. No one seemed t care- waking through it up to their ankles.