Hoi An in a sentence: Arty crafty town that brightens up the mood no matter how bad you feel.

Thurs 6th Nov

Today we started our gruesome journey to Hoi An. So here's how it was supposed to happen: 13:00 bus to ferry, this was fine. Next bus to Haiphong to arrive at 3, was all good. Boring 3 hour wait until 18:00 with nothing to do until our bus to Da Nang, nope! Bus left at 19:00, picked up an unscheduled puncture at midnight (this proved to be the highlight of the journey), rude bus drivers making noise, not letting me move away from leaky air conditioning (moved to another bed anyway), they were always smoking on the bus, got annoyed at us playing games to pass the time, baring in mind we were supposed to arrive 13:00 latest, but actually arrived to Da Nang at 18:30! Nearly 24 hours of laying down on the bus from hell.

Then we still had to get a taxi to Hoi An, taking another 45 minutes. THEN we couldn't find a hotel, with us lads walking around half of Hoi An while the girls were chilling at a hotel we were thinking of staying at. So to cut it short, we stayed at this hotel and ended up missing the lantern festival that our entire trip here was based on. Luckily Hoi An itself is stunning with the thousands of lanterns that light the streets and the local people here are so nice.

We got talking to a guy promoting this bar called Tiger Tiger and he ended coming there with us hooking us up with some good tables, free sheeshas and free shots (albeit only cocktail shots). Safe to say we stayed here for a while and made up for the traumatic 24+ hours we all just endured!

Fri 7th Nov

Woke up nice and early and dragged ourselves and our backpacks across Hoi An to another hotel (Sunflower Hotel). This is really a backpackers hub, everyone is super chilled, decent computers, pool, pool table bar, clean the list goes on. Very happy here, especially when I found out we are now on a road where most restaurants/bars sell Fresh Beer (rice beer) for 3000VND...at 9p a glass it was be rude not too! Shame Emily doesn't enjoy the beer because cocktails are around 80,000VND,

While we were here we hired push bikes for a couple days and rode around, finding our way to the beach and cutting through a secluded path and having the beach almost to ourselves. FINALLY we are chilling on a beach, with blazing sunshine because it's high season here, and of course got burnt! Woops! We got to explore the old part of the town and biked through all the day markets. Got lost all the time, finding loads of small little side streets off the beaten track getting a feel for a more authentic Vietnam.

On a side note during our aimless biking around we came across a little restaurant called Le Crossiant 2 which was perfect for a nice lunchtime snack. This non-profit organisation is run by retired Vietnamese teachers who provide students from difficult circumstances with quality professional training to prepare meals etc. They will then be placed in full-time jobs throughout Vietnam after their training. This made us enjoy the already delicious food even more and came back everyday :).

Although we missed the main festival on the full moon the celebrations still continued over the weekend with the town being lit up by thousands of lanterns and plenty off night market stools to wonder around! We found a nice street vender that we really enjoyed, sitting right next to the river watching all the floating lanterns flow down the river.

The one evening we decided to get on a boat down the river with Alina and David so we could let off our own lanterns down the river. This was a really nice way to pass some time, although I do wonder what happens to them now.

On our last day we went a bit crazy, spending a lot of Dong at the day markets. Now we have to send a parcel home which costs just as much as what we spent. My favourite little purchase being Bamboo Borris - a carving done by a Vietnamese guy on the side of the street, made entirely from a bamboo root!

Tickets are booked for Nha Trang now, very sad to be leaving but we have to race around Vietnam to squeeze in all the places we want to visit. We have also decided now that we will skip Cambodia after finding it difficult to justify the gruesome journeys and the expense of the visas to visit only for a few days (this is however, on the list for our next travels).

C & E