We met a man at the train station called Bjarne, a Swiss software developer travelling on his own for a few weeks so we all jumped into a taxi about 9:30 for hoi an centre. I had already done a bit of research and got a map so we were heading straight for breakfast at a place called the dingo deli, yet again another trip advisor suggestion and it was fab. We were greeted with an air conditioned cafe and lots of maps and info about hoi an. We had eggs benedict and phill supped two cafe sua da, his fave Vietnamese drink. It was a scorching day and we had already walked a good half an hour with our backpacks...I swear mine is getting heavier although phill says he is packing more in his and less in mine. A taxi was in order so we headed for our hotel, the southern hotel and villa. It is quite a French colonial looking building, it's very pretty and well located.
We checked in, dumped our stuff and grabbed my map and wandered out of the hotel hoping that we were going in the right direction. About an hour later we arrived at the tra que herbal village and had a stroll around it for an hour. It was a gloriously hot day and the place was beautiful.
I can honestly say I have never taken a picture of a cock before !! but I really like this, he was very photogenic and even stood to attention.
The rain water is collected in large baths to re use.
I didn't take my macro lens on hols but kinda wish I had as there were so many butterflies and dragonflies just sitting.
We got a taxi back into the centre as it was nearing four and I needed to find the vietcom bank, the only bank where you can exchange travellers cheques and me being me decided that American express travellers cheques are the way to go and I would still recommend them. I looked into all the different options, in morocco we took a pre paid cash card but in Vietnam it worked out cheaper just to take travellers cheques, yes you do lose a bit of money as you get them changed and then converted into dong from the dollar when you have already brought them from sterling to dollar but after spending hours researching the cheapest ways there was like pennies between them and travellers cheques meant that we have been able to manage our spending well and be secure. I would have been panicking like mad had we carried our spends in cash on the train.
After some arguing with the lady in the bank that my signature on the travellers cheques was indeed the same blumming signature we left after cashing our next lot of spends, hoi an had been mentioned to us as a good place to shop so I cashed double and we headed out to the shops.
I brought a lovely hand painted silk top and a necklace and phill got a couple of t shirts.
We were passing an art shop and phill stopped as he had seen a a painting that he really liked. We went in to have a look and half an hour later we walked out into the monsoon with an amazing oil painting of about one metre square for about £30. The shop owner took such care of putting tissue on it, rolling it, cutting a tube to size, covering the tube in plastic, tape, two more layers of plastic wrapping and then making a handle with some added tape for good measure. It was a work of art, it took a while like but it had begun to rain, the beginning of what was expected to be the typhoon that we had left in Nha trang and it was heading north to us.
The lady who owned the shop was called Phan Kim Chi, her family name means golden branch, it is a noble name as her great grandmother was a princess. Her father worked as a cultural minister, her nephew does the paintings. She used to work for the government and went to college to learn english. She was in her seventies and took great pride in her shop and the paintings and we really liked her.
So we had a wander around, I like hoi an.
We have actually brought quite a few bits on holiday and phill is panicking about space in the rucksacks.
Would just like to say a massive thank you to Sian and Rob for your holiday shopping gift, it was certainly put to good use.
As we spent so much time shopping it was getting late so we headed to a bar I had pre found..the white marble wine bar and had a couple of glasses of wine. Just outside was too much of a tempting sight..............so time for a bit more street food.......
As it was nearing six we decided that we have our drinks as the sunset and do a bit more shopping and then go straight out to eat rather than going back to get changed, the main reason for this being that we would be getting picked up at half seven the next morning for the food tour.
We went to a restaurant called the gourmet garden and had a whole array of Vietnamese dishes to share, it was really good.
Due to the early start and still shattered from the sleeper train we decided to head down to the water front to have a look ".........
and then we got a pedal-bike taxi back to the hotel, opened a bottle of wine that we bought from dingo deli and got into bed and blogged and then zzzzzzzz for our early half six get up.
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