Day 21 - Hoi An

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We set off early on a three-hour bumpy bus ride to Hoi An - even though the bus driver announced it was a direct trip, it didn't stop him from cruising around nearby Da Nang for at least an hour, randomly picking up and dropping off groups of locals. Eventually we made it to Hoi An, and we were fortunate enough to score an $8 room at the hotel where the bus dropped us off, which was only a few hundred metres away from the centre of town.

Arriving in Hoi An was like taking a trip back in time a few hundred years. The architecture is completely different to the gaudy concrete-clad rest of Vietnam. Instead of narrow, garish square block houses painted only at the front (and left dull grey on the sides and rear), the buildings were quaint yellow stone structures with chinese-style rooves. It's arranged along a little waterway filled with old-fashioned boats, with a market dissecting the centre of town.

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But the best feature of Hoi An is what's actually inside the buildings - rows upon rows of cute little shops selling everything from silk scarves to beaded handbags to beautiful furniture, lacquerware and paintings. I could have shopped endlessly, but was obviously restrained by baggage allowances and luggage size, so I did the best I could in the situation. We went to one of the 200 tailor shops, and got an absolute motherload of clothes made - I ended up with 2 jackets, 2 skirts, 2 dresses and 2 pairs of trousers, all for $250!!!!! We also had shoes made, although the results were decidedly more varied than the clothes - which turned out really well.