After a five-hour bus ride, we arrived in Hoi An, a Unesco World Heritage site that is 45 minutes south of Danang. Rich with colonial history, it is a really quaint little town with French, Japanese, and Chinese influences.

We stayed in town for four days, and we enjoyed ourselves there. It would have been pretty close to paradise had it not been for relentless touts selling anything and everything, but in particular, clothes. Hoi An is THE place to get clothes custom made in Vietnam. There are around 600 cloth shops, and in the face of that kind of competition, salespeople are working incredibly hard to extract duong from tourists' wallets.

It actually is a cool little industry. Basically, if you can show the tailors a picture, they can make it. All you need to do is choose your fabric, and within 24 hours you'll be trying your new item on. We heard about a good place to go in Hoi An from a woman we met in Halong Bay on our cruise. It seems a lot of tourists have gone the opposite direction from us, so they started in Ho Chi Minh City and worked their way north. That means we could get a lot of good information from fellow travelers along the way. Anyway, we used her recommendation along with one other.

We got suits, pants, and shirts all made for us within 24 hours at ridiculously low prices. In the photo albums section, there is a picture of our tailor and seamstress making our pants. Oh, and we also got shoes and a pair of boots made. These are all wrapped, taped, and stuffed into a box that will be getting home in around 3 months, courtesy of sea mail (cheapest shipping possible).

During our time in Hoi An, we did much more than shop. We walked a lot and explored the old town and environs. We took a cooking class, which included a boat trip down the river to the cooking school, a tour of a local market, a walkthrough of the school's garden, and plenty of cooking and instruction.

We made fresh spring rolls with homemade rice paper, shrimp and vegetables in a pineapple boat, Vietnamese savory pancakes, clay pot aubergines, and Vietnamese style garnishes. It was fun and, of course, we tasted the fruits of our labors at the end of class. We also got to meet several interesting people, including a couple from Sweden visiting their son and a couple from Texas who run a consulting organization to help underdogs defeat incumbents in Texas primaries. The conversation with the Texans was particularly interesting and atypical for this trip, as we covered everything from election corruption to US monetary policy.

We also visited the Gubanyis (just Renee and Peter, as the girls had already left) at their resort in South China Beach called Nam Hai. I went solo to see the place, as Bev needed some down time after the relentless verbal onslaught (accompanied by touching and grabbing) from the Hoi An touts. We had dinner than night with Renee and Peter, and we all went back to the resort again to catch up and show Bev the bling bling. It was amazing. They had a villa with a goldfish pond in the front, pool in the back, living quarters with the latest technology (including complimentary iPods), and a separate bedroom with among other things, its own espresso maker. The grounds were fabulous, and they had pretty much any amenity you could think of, including a butler who brought tea, canapés, and desserts each day. It was swank.

Near the end of our time in Hoi An, Bev and I rode a motorbike out to China Beach, where we enjoyed cool breezes and sunshine combined with excellent surf on a wide stretch of golden sand beaches. We also took a more solemn moment or two to look out onto the jagged peaks of the Marble Mountains, as they loomed over the light blue water of northern China Beach and think about how 30-odd years earlier our GIs picnicked at that very beach at the tail end of their R&R. After their picnic, they would board a helicopter and go back to the front lines. What a contrast.

We did a lot out here, and we have decided to modify the plan. Instead of going to Nha Trang (Beach) and Dalat (Mountains), we are going to cut them out of the plan and head straight to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon). We are going to get plenty of beach time in southern Thailand and great mountains in New Zealand. The new plan will give us a little more time in Saigon and enough time to enjoy the Mekong Delta. See you in Saigon!