A little Oasis in Vietnam

Sorry that it's taken me so long to write in this entry. The internet was down for most of the time that we were in Hoi An so it was difficult to do anything.

We arrived in Hoi An on Tuesday at lunchtime and it was hot. It remained hot for pretty much the whole time we were there. Hoi An was poorly designed in that all the streets run parallel to the river and that means that they get full sun for almost the entire day. For a good 4 hours each day they have no shade at all. That combined with the large amounts of concrete means that it gets completely unbearable in the old town by about 12 o'clock. So struggle that it was Mum and I had to return to the hotel and have a rest every afternoon until it cooled down a little bit.

We didn't do much on Tuesday afternoon, just wander around the town a little looking a dress shops that had potential. We had a quiet evening and an early night.

Wednesday we hit the shops and went in the end to a shop recommended to us by some people from New Zealand who we met in Halong Bay. It's called Hoi An Cloth Shop and I'll write a separate review about that with some photos of the clothes that we had made. We spent most of the morning there going through fabrics and designs and getting measured. So by the time we finished it was time to prop Mum up with another ca phe sua da (vietnamese ice coffee, the only vietnamese words that Mum knows!). We spent the afternoon in the pool at the hotel because even the locals were starting to wilt in the heat.

Thursday we went to Cham Island on a tour. It was $18 for the trip and it went for about 6 hours and included a really nice lunch. We went over in a speedboat which sure as hell beats having to go on the slow ferry and were over at the island in about 20 minutes. We briefly got off at the main village and went to see the displays at the MPA building. The kids were on the wharf to greet us and try to sell us hats. I was pleased to know that they still remember me. After looking at the MPA we walked through the village to one of the pagodas (I hadn't visited it before) which was really pretty. On the way we got to get up close and personal with a water buffalo who had been rolling in the mud. Got some good photos of that. The pagoda was really nice but in need of some repair. I suspect that they do it up every year but then the typhoons come through and spoil it again. We then got back on the boat and went around a couple of bays to go snorkelling on the reef. Unfortunately the water was a bit cloudy so you didn't get a great view. The coral is fairly dull but the fish, sea urchins and starfish are all really lovely. The water was also cool which makes a big difference. After nearly an hour in the water we continued onto another beach for some more swimming and lunch. It was a really nice meal in a hut on the back of the beach. After lunch we got to lounge around in hammocks under the trees and go swimming again. It was a really strenous day that we had. We then got back onto the boat and went back to Hoi An. We both had a really good time and while you didn't get to spend a huge amount of time in the villages, it's worth it to go to a quiet and beautiful beach for the day.

That night we had dinner with some people that we bumped into in Sapa who Mum knows from Kempsey. We took them to the Cargo Club and got a table on the front of the balcony. It was a really nice dinner and it was nearly 11pm when we finally went back to the hotel. We definitely slept well.

Friday morning we got up early and went to My Son. We went with Mum's friends from Australia and a couple from Wales who had been on our tour in Halong Bay. We had bumped into them on the way back to the hotel on Thursday.

My Son was totally different from when I went in March. My photos have a background of mist and you can't see the mountains at all. Friday it was sunny and everything was clear. It wasn't as good for photos but at least it wasn't so humid. It did get hot really quickly though. My Son is really nice and it's terrible to see what the Americans did to it during the war. There are massive bomb craters around a lot of the buildings and some are all but destroyed. They are working hard to try and repair a few of them at the moment, or at least preserve what is left.

We were back into town late in the morning and got straight into the pool. We were so hot and sticky. In the afternoon we had to do more dress fittings which is terrible when it's hot. Some of my dresses look quite different when you try them on when you aren't covered in sweat. We went out for dinner with Dani and Scott (the Welsh couple) in the evening and went to Ba Le Well. It's a Vietnamese place that is down a dark little alley but does really good and really cheap all you can eat Vietnamese food. I'll write a separate review for those who are interested. We had a really nice meal and then waddled back to the hotel. We contemplated dessert at Cargo Club but decided that there was definitely no room for more.

Saturday morning we did a cooking class with Ms Vy from Cargo Club. She has now moved the classes into her new restaurant 'Morning Glory' which is across the road. It was really good fun and I learnt a lot about Vietnamese cooking in the morning. We then got to eat what we had prepared for lunch. So I now know what it is that they put into Vietnamese food that makes it taste so good. After lunch we ran around like headless chickens in the sun trying to get the last of our souvenir shopping done and pick up the clothes that we had had made. Just as we were going to pay for our clothes the power went out so we had to stand around and wait as we didn't have that much money in cash (in any currency). Thankfully the power outages in Hoi An are short so we didn't have to wait too long. Not that we could go anywhere anyway because we needed to pay for the hotel on the credit card as well.

We then walked back to the hotel and I packed the new shopping into the suitcases. I was very surprised that it fitted at all. Then we jumped into a car and headed to the Malnourished Centre to visit the kids. The kids are all looking well and I'm sure that Truan recognised me (either that or she's started smiling like that at everyone!). Mum was very taken by the kids and would have liked to take Le Le home (she is very cute). She was sure that Dad wouldn't have minded. The kids really enjoyed the rambutans that we bought and I don't think that anyone ate any of the seeds. The kids were also taken by all of our bags and had great fun playing with the locks on them all.

We went to Pizza Plus to have dinner and the staff of course recognised me and were very excited to meet my mother. We then headed off to the airport in a taxi. Luckily we went early because we found that the flight that we had been booked on no longer existed (if it ever did in the first place!). It wasn's listed on any of the departure boards so I went to the desk and asked. The woman looked very confused and then said that we could get on the 7.30 flight to HCMC which was leaving in 35 minutes. So we rushed into the queue and checked in our 60kg (yes that isn't a misprint) of baggage and raced onto the plane. It was just sheer luck that we hadn't dawdled to the airport or we would have been on the 2200 flight instead.

So we were slightly less late into HCMC than we expected and made it to our hotel at a reasonable hour. We didn't really do anything in HCMC except repack our bags and get ready to go to Da Lat on the plane the next day. We went for one brief walk to a cafe for something to eat and that was enough for us.