Hoi An

It was late when we arrived at the Hoi An Trails hotel. Our room was in Block 4, 'Bamboo' on the third floor (room 410) which meant quite a walk from the main reception and dining area passing the bar and swimming pool. Once again we had a nice room even though we had to climb many stairs to reach it. No lifts at all. Outside the complex to our left was a small restaurant and although it was late we went to try their food. Excellent. Across the road were two ladies advertising 'laundry' which I will check out tomorrow.

Our guide for this trip is Long and once again he had us up early to travel about 55km south east to the World Cultural Site at My Song (prounounced Me Song which suits my Yorkshire accent!).We were due to watch a cultural dancing show and then look around the sites at this ancient temple. The show was cancelled for the next few days. It had been raining heavily most of the night and this morning, but now the sun was attempting to come out and the rain turning finer. We learnt that this area was heavily bombed during the Vietnamese War as the Americans suspected there was a large contingent of the enemy here. Some of the temple ruins were under scrutiny from French archaelogists and so we could not visit them, whilst others had to be supported by scaffolding to prevent them falling down. These buildings were built of red clay bricks many centuries ago and the plants growing on them did not help matters. I could not help but think a lot of the carved friezes resembled the statues at Abu Simbel in Egypt.

Back in the bus we passed through villages where the children were just leaving school. Because of the shortage of teachers the schools run two sessions a day. The village children must attend until they are 12 but can go on with further education if they are bright enough and their parents don't require them to work the fields. At 18 the boys must do 20 months in the army unless they have passed the entrance exam for the University. Checks are made and there is no escaping this period of their life. However, because there is such a large number of boys today some may fail their medical and the entrance examination as they require a certain standard of soldier in today's army.

We stopped for lunch on a 'floating restaurant'. It would go nowhere as it was made of concrete!

For convenience Long suggested we had the set lunch but with so much pork, which we do not eat, we chose from the a la carte menu and were served much quicker that the rest of our party. The place was very busy with lots of tour buses stopping off here and it was very expensive.

Back in Hoi An we had a sort of guided tour around the old town after visiting a handicraft factory first. In the old part we crossed 'Japanese Bridge' which in times past separated the Chinese section from the Japanese section. Wanting to do business the Japanese agreed to have a bridge built. This was one of the 850 buildings, temples, bridges etc recorded by UNESCO. With the crowded streets and everyone wanting to look at different things we soon lost sight of each other. One couple returned to the hotel before we had reached the market area. We lost Keith too but I told Long not to worry he would find us eventually. We paid a visit to a Chinese Temple dedicated to women, which Keith and I found unusual, before returning to our bus that would take us back to the hotel.

I went to check out the laundry prices at Miss Lan which Liz went to Miss Van. I was told the price of 1$ for 1 kilo. Good deal I thought. Miss Van was by price list but still very cheap. Where is this hot weather as it is still very cool and breezy!

No one wanted to take the long trip to Hue and the Perfume River north of Hoi An. No one wanted to do the cookery class at a restaurant about 2km away. We all wanted a lie in and do our own thing. Keith had checked the weather and said it was going to be 81F and sunny. Wrong more rain and still cold! We waited until late morning when the rain had stopped and walked into the old town again. The streets were still crowded but we found one or two less crowded. Some lovely old buildings and shops which we were not pestered to "come have look." We came across a building housing 'The Department for collecting Swallows Nests!' We crossed a river to a section of restaurants and newer buildings with older places fronting another river where tourist boats were touring up and down. With the wet weather the ground was very muddy in places so we had to tread carefully exploring the area. Here small fishing boats were tied to rickety jetties and dogs and chickens wandered around aimlessly. We did get some lovely views of the larger fishing boats and buildings of the old town as we returned to cross the large bridge with a marble surface that was not slippery despite the drizzle.

We needed an early night as we depart early for our 8am flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Once again we chose to eat in the small restaurant. It was very busy and after waiting 2 hours for our grilled fish Keith was loosing patience. They had brought one in a sweet and sour sauce which was for another table. When it did arrive it was not grilled and it was very tough and dry. By now it was late - so much for our early night.