Han and Vern's jaunt round the globe together! - Aug 14, 2007

So the past week and a half has mainly consisted of sitting by the pool/sea, layering on the sun cream, marvelling at the tiny bottles of sun cream you can only get, moving into the sun, out of the sun, into the sun, out of the sun, as the sweat builds up and the sunburn sets in. Difficult times. For the last week our main concerns have been what shall we have for dinner, and shall we get a deckchair on the beach today.

We arrived safe and sound in Hoi An on the bus and immeditaly checked into the crappest hotel in Hoi an. i wont go into too much detail, but we left an hour later having to pay 10 dollars to get our passports back off them. Bastards. Anyway we moved to a really lovely hotel that had a pool and a veranda overlooking rice paddies and was staffed by lovely vietnamese who laughed at my hand held electric fan whenever i got it out. (Best 15,000 dong i ever spent!) Hotel a bargain at 7.50 pounds a night. Anyway, Hoi An was hot hot hot. It didn't matter what time of day it was, early morning, midday, middle of the night, it was the same temperature. The first day we dived into the pool and stayed there. then the next day we hot footed it to the tailors. Hoi An is the tailoring capital of vietnam, with tailors lining every road. And it is so cheap and so addictive. They sit you down, open the magazines, you mark what you want and they make it for like, cheap cheap.

compared to some people we met i think we were quite restrained. I got two pairs of linen trousers, two tops, a skirt, a pair of leather knee high boots, and the biggest wooly coat i could buy. vern got three suits, and he doesn't even wear them to work! apart from a few probs with the style of my trews all turned out great. though trying on the coat in 38degrees was not fun.

We did do some cultural stuff in Hoi An too. We did a tour of the old city on foot and took in a chinese assembly hall, a traditional house where we were shown around by the seventh generation family member living there, a museum, and saw a japanese bridge. Hoi An is very pretty and apart from the tailors is full of great restaurants and cafes. One morning we did a tour to see some Cham ruins dating abck to the 2nd century. they were ok, but had been completly destroyed by American bombs. Instead of marvelling at the sites it just made me sad to see how much of vietnam has been destroyed by the Americans.

after more chilling out by the pool and a night of kareoke...ahem, we took a taxi to Non Nuoc beach. It was only 10km up the road from hoi An, but was the most beautiful deserted beach. We satyed at Hoa's place, a guest house that has got legendary status amongst backpackers. There is nothing to do there apart from sit on the ebach, eat food at Hoa's place, chat to him, drink beer and do nothing. Hao was a really small and friendly man whose motto was 'take it easy man' and 'happy days'. no phone, no internet, just beer, travellers, cards and the beautiful yellow sand and clear waters. we stayed for three nights and had a great time. Unfortunately, the area is under going huge developemnt with resorts being built up and down the beach back to back. Hoa has had the land he lives on sold from under him by the government to make way for more 5 stars. he's gutted he has to move and so are all the poeple who go there and all the poeople who could have gone.

we are now in Nha trang, 8 hours down the coast. Another beach resort, but this time bigger and developed with loads of tourists. its nice but its not the secluded bathing of Hoa's place. So far we have booked diving (tomorrow), booked our onwards travel to Ho Chi MInh city (on monday) and spent the day realxing in like this 5 star beach side pool club for 60p.

We're living the dream.