Hoi An and Nha Trang

Colourful lanterns in Hoi An
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Could easily have spent a few days in Hoi An but I would run the risk of depleting the touring funds in the tailor shops - it's amazing what they can do.

What we'll always remember:

• Wanting to buy everything in sight (stunning paintings, gongs, lanterns, food....)
• Tailored clothes ready within a few hours
• Quaint, idyllic Ancient Town
• Personal tour guide on Xe om for a fiver

Wish we could forget:

Ancient town
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• Being taken for 100,000 dong by a little old man pretending to be a monk... (and we didn't even see it coming)

Details

We had heard that Hoi An was a great place to get clothes tailor made and with over 200 tailor shops in a city with only 300,000 people you don't have to find the shops, they find you. Within 2 hours of the bus dropping us off we had ordered a few suits, some shirts and a dress - all of which were ready to be fitted 4 hours later.

My Son Cham ruins
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We were both absolutely amazed at the fit of the clothes ,the only change that had to be made was the buttons on one of Shawn's cuffs needed to be moved slightly. It is so incredibly hard not to order a dozen items but already the extensions in our backpacks had to be let out before departing the next day.

Hoi An's old city is a beautiful quaint area filled with historical architecture and packed with arts and craft stores, tailors and galleries. We spent a few hours strolling around before having dinner on the waterfront.

Posing at temple
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Day 36 was the first rainy day we've had but luckily it wasn't heavy enough to stop any arrangements going ahead. We had booked ourselves onto a tour of the My Son Cham ruins (a world heritage site) and the rain broke long enough to tour the ruins, which were bombed in the war and sections entirely destroyed. They were stunning and typical of the kind of temple you expect to see in a jungle in Vietnam. When we boarded our boat to return to the Old Town the heavens opened and we were soaked by the time we reached the other end. There was of course no option to cancel the boat leg of the journey as that meant someone would have lost out on money and that just isn't on here. Anyway we survived and dried out in time to catch our next night bus to Nha Trang.

Raining in boat
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We arrived in Nha Trang at 6:30 am on the morning of day 37 and booked straight into the hotel we were dropped off at. After catching up on a few hours sleep we walked into the city along a section of the 6km long beach. Because of the rain yesterday it was incredibly humid and that was on top of the extreme heat. We hired ourselves a motorbike with driver (or rather eventually gave in and agreed to hire them), to show us the sights. It's a good thing too because walking in this weather would not have been fun and the sights were actually quite far apart. Besides the normal tourist sights we got driven to some out of the way spots, watched some ladies weaving mats in their back yard, passed rice paddies with buffalo wading and walked along a 500m rickety wood bridge apparently reassembled after every flood. Although I was always keeping my eye on Shawn to make sure we were being kept together it was incredibly enjoyable.

Nha Trang bay
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Getting dupped out of 100,000 dong ($6) by a man posing as a monk and showing us what is actually a free sight put a slight dampener on the day but that was just because we were so angry with ourselves for falling for it. We've learnt our lesson and hopefully that won't happen again  - I can't help but think of the 15 or so ice-creams I could have had with that money.