Saturday 10th November

We arrived in Hoi An bus station at 7am & got a free taxi to a hotel that we didn't fancy staying in so got breakfast in a little cafe & discussed where we wanted to stay. Berg & I found a little hotel for $8 per night, Brett & Suzanne opted for a little luxury at $20 per night but their room would cost hundreds per night if it were in London!

We took a mid morning stroll around the old town, basically a square with lots of little alley ways, boutique shops, a market & some gorgeous eateries. The only things to do here are eat, drink & get measured up at a tailor for suits/dresses/coats. Every other shop is a tailor! We checked out the 18th Century Japanese bridge & took a river cruise for an hour with an esky (coolbox) of beers. We met a German couple on the boat in their 70's, they were really nice.

In the afternoon we crossed a small footbridge over the river to an island called An Hoi, stopped in the best restaurant for food & ate & drank for hours! It was called Man Nguyen, the food here is the best we have had to date & they have lots of unique dishes only made in Hoi An it seems. Shrimp fried wontons, Cao Lau, wonton soup & white rose were a few of the dishes we sampled. Google them if you want a better description of what they are. Oh, beers were 12p each too lol.

In the evening we walked to a bar to watch the Everton game which wasn't showing so we had one drink & called it a night.

Sunday 11th November

Today we hired pushbikes for 65p & cycled the 4 mile main road to Cui Da beach. It had rained in the morning, first rain we've seen in roughly a month, so it was a bit cooler. As we approached the beach, a guy with a baton/truncheon thing stepped out of his road side booth & told us we had to leave our bikes at his place, pay 20p for the privilege & explained that bikes weren't allowed to the beach. As he was explaining & demanding money from us people were cycling past so we literally just ganged up on him & cycled on through. A few others followed our lead.

We found a completely deserted beach & had it to ourselves for 3 hours until the heat was just too much. We swam, Brett made a sand sculpture of a naked lady, called Sandy & we found suitable items to use as a bat & ball for a game of cricket! It were right good fun. On the way back we stopped in a riverside bar for a milkshake & then back into town.

As we love food so much, we spent another 2 hours in Man Nguyen restaurant, meeting a few older Australian couples, had banter with some street sellers, watched on as a street seller had her goods seized by the police - she put up a hell of a fight too, then walked along to a bar to watch the Liverpool game. Again the game wasn't being shown so we just abused the free pool table & the youtube music setup where the customers are the DJ. We wrote messages on the walls, Brett drew some terrible caricatures of us & we danced a lot! Time flies when you are having fun, we left at 3am, knowing that a hangover was waiting for us the next morning.

Monday 12th November

Luckily we didn't see morning so the hangover didn't really happen. We woke up just after 12 & went for lunch in the town - a big fat pizza was placed in front of each of us & everyone went home happy! Not a lot else to report really, we watched some stuff on our laptop, Carly & I went for dinner up the road from our hotel & we had an early night. Tomorrow we make the 4/5 hour bus journey to Hue (pronounced H-way), just along the coast.

That's it from Hoi An. We really enjoyed ourselves here, this place has real charm & although there isn't a massive amount to do & see, sitting on the riverfront eating some seriously good food is our idea of heaven!!

We hope everyone is well back home, thank you to everyone that has commented on our blogs - it's good to know that people do read them!! Can't believe 7 weeks have passed already - another 7 weeks & Christmas will have passed. Get shopping people!! xxx

Modes of Transport so far - 2 planes, 1 Taxi, 9 Tuk Tuks, 3 VIP Bus, 2 shared taxis, 5 minivans, 2 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 3 ferries, 2 pickup trucks, 3 sleeper bus, 1 kayak, 1 moto

Countries Visited - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam

Beers Sampled - Chang, Tiger, Leo, BeerLao, Namkhong, Angkor, Anchor, Klang, Green Saigon, Red Saigon, 333, Larue & Caroune

Miles Travelled - 9,554