We were back in Hanoi for one more night and then it was time to get somewhere warmer. We hopped on the Reunification Express and headed down to Hoi An over night. We were prepping for some intense shopping. Even the men that we had met said that they couldn't restrain themselves there. It's the prime spot for having clothing tailor-made. They're known specifically for silk, but many people also ordered suits, cords, fleeces, even woolen winter coats.

We got really attached to one specific restaurant (we love you, Miss Ly) where we tried Cau Lao, a local noodle dish that is made authentic by using the water from one well in town. Hoi An is also well known for superb fried wontons and white rose (shrimp dumplings). YUMMY!!! If it hadn't been for the shopping, I think we may have done nothing but eat!

The town itself was lovely, but the tailoring became quite tiresome. We had more appointments for fittings and material selections. It's amazing how busy you can be when you're on holiday! The other unfortunate discovery we made was that Hoi An had even more beautiful lanterns, and apparently the ten we had each bought up North just weren't sufficient, so another 7 or so still had to be purchased to complete our sets.

We went on a day-trip to My Son. This is a set of ruins from the Cham dynasty. We were told they would rival Angkor, but having been to Angkor a few years ago, I beg to differ! It was very lovely there, but certainly took a beating during the "American War".

When we were done with the shopping and had shipped off a couple of boxes to ride a slow boat back to Canada, we took a 6 am tour bus out for Hue. It was a hot stuffy bus with horrible touristy stops, but we did get to see the infamous China Beach. We felt just like Dana Delany!

In Hue we had one fun-filled afternoon of running around and trying to organize our crossing into Laos. We discovered that not only did a bus to Laos from the nearest border crossing involve the worst possible roads, but that it was 5 times more expensive than we thought (we'd been ripped off a lot in Vietnam and were getting frustrated!! We were really starting to wish that we had taken a friend's advice about getting our own motorcycle. Relying on public transportation was difficult at best.). After much agonizing and planning, we decided to head up to Vinh for the less frequently used border crossing.

We never were good at following the masses- fingers crossed!