Vietnam Day 6

Hoi An

Woke up to the sound of birds, which is unusual so far. Breakfast at the hotel, the only thing I recognised on my plate was fried rice! Also, they unfortunately serve Western coffee, not Vietnamese coffee. I LOVE Vietnamese coffee - same as Malaysia, it is served super strong with condensed milk. For Western coffee, the sugar packets each hold 2 teaspoons of sugar, not one.

We quickly dropped in to a little cafe next to the hotel for some real coffee and free WiFi, and talked to the proprietor's brother. He said his sister rents the shop and does all of the baking and cake making.

Hoi An Museum of History and Culture

 

Bells from various eras.

We walked into Hoi An to do some of the museums and cultural attractions today. We saw the history museum, a temple, the folklore museum (which was really abut traditional handicrafts), and the Japanese covered bridge.

Dogs and monkeys guard the Japanese Friendship Bridge

A temple we found on our way back - it doesn't seem to be in use, or upkept.

Today was the first day it got quite hot and muggy - by lunch, Sarah and I had had enough, particularly with the nagging from vendors. It got to the point where we didn't even want to reply hello, because you know that engaging in conversation will inevitably lead to "you come see my shop?" I know it is nowhere near as bad as it is in other places, but we were both fed up. I get that we as tourists are creating the situation, so we can't have everything - it's part of the experience. On the other hand, we have met plenty of Vietnamese people who are friendly, welcoming, and really like engaging in conversation about a whole range of topics.

A moat around a temple. Men were fishing in this water.

We came back to the cool of our hotel room (Ancient Hotel) and watched movies for the afternoon, after picking up our freshly washed and beautifully folded laundry from Mrs Anh, next door to the hotel. Hotel prices: $2 for 1 pair of pants; Mrs Anh prices: $6 for 3.5kg washing. The rub had been that while you were there, one of her friends or daughters tried to talk you into going to look at her shop, but that said it is an easy price to pay to have clean clothes again.

Still so much space left for more wires and boxes...

Don't trim the trees - use them to hold the wires up!

We then caught a free bus back into Old Town for dinner (I was up front with the driver, we had a good chat, and Sarah was talking to some American tourists), but we couldn't find the restaurant - or actually, we found too many of the same named restaurant. Lonely Planet and Google Maps disagreed about where it was, and when we got into the town, we saw at least 3 restaurants named the same, and none were at the addresses we thought it should be! We gave up and walked into one called The Little Menu, and had a Hoi An specialty called White Rose, which is like a rice based ravioli with pork, as well as some Saigon and Tiger beer.

I love Tassie - but I'm not sure why you'd travel to Hoi An to learn to cook "Australian"!

Leaving early tomorrow for Ho Chi Minh City.