We came to Hoi An by road, it is a relatively short distance from Hue.
Along the way though we went through some beautiful mountains (3 passes) and a 6.4km tunnel built by the Japanese. We also did a quick stopover at China Beach and Danang on the way. China Beach is a beautiful, very long beach, somewhat reminiscent of what you would find on the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast.
Hoi An is a cute little town that has a Chinese and Japanese heritage. Most of the locals here are descended from the Chinese or Japanese though they have been here many generations.
The town itself is very big on crafts.
There are shops everywhere and they are very good by Vietnamese sytandards.
There are people working and making the products right in front of you in many of the shops.
You can also order just about anything and it will be made to your order, often overnight. Marianne & I have had sandals made, we ordered them yesterday and picked them up this afternoon. It was tempting to get a suit, or at least a jacket, made here. You just show them a picture of what you want and they figure out how to make it. There are heaps of tailors here, as well as shoemakers, jewellers, mat weavers, and other crafts. It doesn't always work out though, it is better if you have 3 - 4 days here. Two girls on the trip (late teens & early 20s) have had dresses made and they are very happy with them. Their Dad had a jacket and overcoat made, the jacket was okay but the overcoat was a disaster.
It's a really nice little town, easy to walk around and very pleasant with the river running through it.
Today was another excellent day.
We started off the day with a cycle ride around the town and the surrounding countryside which is really very beautiful and interesting.
We took the bicycles onto a boat and went up the river, getting a good look at the fishermen along the way.
We found a nice quiet spot and had a most delicious and wonderful barbeque.
Everything was really fresh and it was really, really good and we had a good quiet spot on the river. At one stage a number of boats came up the river beating drums.
Apparently this is quite common and these pboats move in little packs. They beat the drums to agitate the fish, which then obligingly swim into the nets they are dragging behind them. Sounds so simple!
We visited the beach but the sea wasn't very inviting when we got there.
We did see a fisherman out in a "basket boat", very reminiscent of the coracles used by the ancient Britons. These things are very difficult to steer and I would love to have had a good look at how they do it, but I wasn't able to.
After some more cycling around (and shopping in) town we went to a Vietnamese cooking class. The food we cooked (with a little bit of help from the instructor) was sensational. It would be fantastic to be able to reproduce this when we get back home!
Tomorrow we head out for Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.
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