Even arriving at 6am Hoi An was hot. It got hotter as we decided to ignore all motorbikes offering us lifts and walk into town - it didn't look that far! After huffing and puffing our way through the beautiful old town we reached the river, where we finally decided to allow someone to help us - in the form of a crazy old man wearing a British (I think it was Celtic)football shirt. He helpfully reminded us about the Champions league final - on tomorrow - mental note - set the alarm!! It was a fair old trek round the river to the other side, but the guest house he took us to was beautiful and had only been open 2 years. It was more than we wanted to spend, but having got a bit into the flash packing trend we decided to go for it.

The first thing on my agenda was to get a suit made - so we asked advice from the hotel - naively maybe, but there were hundreds of places and I had no idea where to start. They got a guy to come and pick us up and take us to his shop. It wasn't dirt cheap, but massively cheaper than a suit in the UK so I decided just to go for it rather than shopping around. We went back to the guest house and hired bikes to cycle to the beach - about 4km. It seemed a lot longer in the heat, but I'd like to think that was due to the rubbishness of the bikes, not my lack of fitness. It was a pretty ride anyway, past some little paddy fields with buffaloes ploughing and lots of people working wearing their traditional pointy hats. We arrived at the beach, to find loads of school kids sitting under the palm trees or else swimming fully clothed in the sea. It appears we'd arrived on the last day of term before the Summer holidays so they were celebrating! the beach was really beautiful and pretty empty on the sand - most tourists had opted for the loungers further from the sea. We quickly realised it was pretty similar to Cambodia in regards to women selling things on the beach and I was soon cornered into buying a mango for an extortionate price from a little old lady who looked about 90! I eventually gave up haggling on the condition I could take her picture as she was so sweet (in Hoi An most locals would charge you for a picture anyway!) and it was luckily a very nice mango!

Our beach trip was a bit rushed - we hadn't expected it to be so nice! - so soon we were back on bikes heading into town. We made a quick stop off to get some lunch and both had cau lau, a local speciality that contains rice noodles, croutons, slivers of pork and a few other variable ingredients with an amazing dressing - yum! We then pedalled like the wind to get back to the guest house in time for our car that was waiting to take us to My Son - the local Cham ruins. On the way out there we saw even more paddy fields with buffaloes - I was definitely getting my fill today of how i envisage Vietnam to be! The ruins themselves were a bit similar to the temples of Angkor, but red brick and smaller - but apparently a lot older. They were scattered around a nice grassy area with lots of pretty trees and the whole area was in a valley between some stunning hills.

When we got back to the guest house we walked back into town to find somewhere for dinner. The old town looked beautiful in the dark as all the narrow streets were lit up with the lanterns that are made everywhere in Hoi An. We found a restaurant where there was a cooking lesson going on indoors so we sat spying on it from the verandah (unfortunately didn't learn much!) Attempting to eat more of the local food we shared a fried wonton, which came open, like a pancake - not what we were expecting! Then I had fish cooked in a banana leaf which was very tasty too. after dinner we spent a while wandering the little streets trying really hard not to buy loads of clothes and art from the surplus of shops housing them. We were so overwhelmed by the number of amazing restaurants we had to go to another for dessert, totally unnecessary, but very good all the same. By the time we'd finished I was stuffed and it was all I could do to stagger back to the hotel!

Our second day in Hoi An we were determined to go back to the beach as we hadn't had enough time there, but I had to go for a suit fitting first, so once that was done we headed out on the 4km cycle again - this time it felt a bit shorter! We spent a good while there, fighting off even more women selling things, although we succumbed to Mimi, a lovely woman who had a great sales technique and engaged us in a 15 minute discussion first before even mentioning her goods. Whether she was telling the truth or not, we gave up trying to decide and just bought bracelets from her anyway! After some clams for lunch, recommended by a Canadian couple who happened to be sitting in a road side restaurant, we attempted to cycle over the bridge to Cam Nam Island. The Lonely Liar had given us information that suggested there was some interesting stuff to do there, but there was nothing except houses, so we spent a good hour cycling through the little streets and watching locals go about their daily life, it was great! We got a few odd looks, but that was all. Finally we head back over the bridge and dismounted our bikes to push them through the bustling market street back into town. It was incredibly slow progress, even though we were being followed by a scooter, beeping its horn every few seconds! There were loads of white ducks for sale - we discovered later, for the holiday tomorrow. We finally made it out the other side, me with a small trickle of blood down my ankle from getting too close to another bike and my own chain! We then dumped the bikes and continued shopping in town on foot, meeting up with Charlotte (I'd met in Phnom Penh) on the way.

Back at the hotel I was sorting out all my junk and the staff got the men from the post office to come to me to pack it up and send, rather than me balancing it on my bike to cycle over there! It was pretty expensive, but after that and throwing out a load of other stuff - Gerry made sure I was ruthless - it made a massive difference to my rucksack!

We finally chose a little restaurant for our last dinner in Hoi An, and tried the last local speciality on our list - white rose. It was a kind of open dumpling type thing. We also invested in a bottle of Dalat wine (it was very cheap!) and had a couple of the local desserts that included a sticky rice thing cooked in leaves and banana cooked in coconut milk with sesame seeds. Yum!

Back at the hotel we went to bed, but I set my alarm, and managed to wake up at 1.45, for the football. A lot of dedication from a not particularly dedicated football fan! It meant by the time I climbed aboard the bus to Hue I was exhausted!