8th Dec I got up just in time for my bus journey to Hoi An, despite sleeping through my alarm clock and I pretty much slept the entire way through, but we stopped a few times I got out and took the views in. At one stop, we found a land mine! There has been Typhoon (Durian) in the south and some of the heavy rain had washed away the mud, leaving this land mine on show. We contacted someone who then called the police and by the time we left, the area had been cordoned off!! Also on the way, checked out China beach, where the US Army used to take time off from fighting to have a few days drinking and surfing. After arriving in Hoi An went straight out to the shops with Ollie. The place is famous for cheap Tailors - you go in and look through a Next Catalogue, choose the suit you want, get measured up, choose the material and colour and they make it for you. The good ones cost around 25 pounds and they get cheaper! You can choose what you want suits, shirts, shorts and all that stuff. Being on a budget, I got nothing, but I was tempted to get a new pair of trainers! However, I decided my dodgy Indian ones were doing a such a good job I wouldn't bother. That night I headed to a jazz concert in town but it wasn't great so had an early one.

9th Dec, After a lie-in, I rented a bike for the day (costing about 50p!). It was a woman's bike with no brakes, but it did have a snazzy little basket on the front and I headed out, checking the local market and grabbing lunch. The river had flooded and along the front, all you could see was water. Then at around 2.30, I went on a tour of the back streets. By then it was raining quite badly and there were only two of us but with my trusty bike, my pac-a-mac and swimming shorts, I went off exploring. We went right out in to the sticks, down the small roads and along to the fishing port, which has been washed away. Then along to the rice fields. It then stopped raining and the sun came out while riding to the duck farming area. My bike did get a bit stuck at some points because the roads weren't really roads - they were just mud paths and I don't even think a mountain bike would have been much use. But I made it and my Indian trainers only got a bit muddy! On the way back, we went past a family building - a house where I helped them with some of the digging and shovelling sand. Gave my muddy bike back and had a well earned shower and chilled out, listening to my Dhoom:2 sound track. Later we went to a bar called Tam Tam and watched the Man U v's Man City then as I was about to leave the rain came down so had to stay there and met a couple of American girls from Chicago who have invited me to stay on their private boat along the Mekon Delta! Then the rest of the football started so I stayed for that before Ollie (the Veron Kay look a like) and me headed back at around 3am, A good night!

10th Dec: Up for about 10-ish and straight back out on the bikes. This time I even had a bell!! We headed down to the beach, which took longer than planned, but all good getting there. It was deserted - just sand sea and palm trees. It was quite windy Ollie went in but i just played chicken with the tide then tried climbing the trees for the coconuts, which resulted in failure. Headed back to town and said goodbye to the bikes and headed for Ho Chi Minh City.....