Hello!

I think I'm going to try and keep this brief-ish for a number of reasons. Firstly, I feel like I've done quite a lot since I last posted, but I also think a lot of my sentances will end up going something along the lines of '...we had lunch at x, y or z and wondered round for a while before getting dinner at x, y or z'. I've been eating a lot! But we have been trying the local specialties, including 'white rose', a kind of seafood dumpling and cao lao, a flat noodle soup that has to be made with water from a particular well in Hoi An in order to be authentic.

I got the sleeper bus from Hanoi down to Hue with a girl called Jen and a guy called Jarrett, who were both on the trip to Halong Bay I did the other week. The journey would have been absolutely fine, if it hadn't been for the water that was dripping on me all night, which seemed to be coming from the air conditioning unti. We also stopped at the worst toilets ever. (So much for keeping this brief, when I'm describing the toilets I've been peeing in). Anyway, we got to Hue, and had to stay in a $50 room because there was nowhere else available as it was a Vietnamese holiday. It wasn't even that great a room, although quite luxurious after staying in a dorm room with 12 other people for nearly a week. We decided to have a wonder around the citadel and the ruins of the 'forbidden city', which is the main tourist attraction in Hue, although we all ended up having to buy plastic ponchos because the rain kept falling on and off in spurts. The forbidden city was huge, you could easily spend a nice half a day wondering, if the weather was a bit better, we even saw some elephants in one deserted corner of the place. But the rain soon started absolutely bucketing it down, so we ran to a cafe we'd read about in the trusty lonely planet for lunch and ordered loads of different dishes to share (this is where the serious eating started I think). The food was absolutely delicious and the meal made even more enjoyable by the home-made bottle openers we were each presented with by the deaf/mute man who ran the place. He had loads of photo albums full of pictures of people posing with these bottle openers in different places - Canada, Australia, Scotland, Finland, London. When we'd finished (after ice cream, of course), we decided it would be best to get a motorcyle taxi each back to the hotel to try and dry off a bit. Then I don't think we really did anything (except book our bus tickets for the next day) until dinner (This eating thing is really bad!). We ate at a really nice French cafe where you could actually get some decent tasting wine to drink. I haven't had a glass of wine since the one I tried in Koh Phangan, which came from the biggest bottle ever and was awful, so it seemed like quite a luxury. Whilst we were in there, we bumped into a girl called Kate, who was also on the Halong Bay trip, and made plans to keep in touch when she got to Hoi An.

The bus trip to Hoi An was almost as bad as the previous one (just quite a few hours shorter, so bearable) but Jen and I were sharing the 5 back seats with 5 other people. Quite a squeeze! When we got to Hoi An though, we went for a wonder around the little old streets, sporting the ponchos again, and went to get lunch at a really nice place along the river called Cargo Club (which I mention only because we have had some form of dessert there pretty much everyday we have been here, bar one. they are delicious!). Hoi An is famous for its tailored clothes shops and there are literally hundereds in this tiny town. It is very dangerous, because everytime you go out you see something hanging outside a shop that looks nice and before you know it, you've picked the colour and the fabric and are being measured up. At dinner at one of the street stalls (see I can still eat at the cheapest places!) we decided to devote the whole of the next day to getting some clothes made each.So first stop was a shop owned by the sister of the woman who worked at the hotel we were staying in (I won't even start about the non-toilet flushing, non-hot water or even any water at all, freezing air-conditioning room we were staying in, but we had the whole 'Vietnamese holiday issue' again when we got there. And it was only $15). I picked out a nice little summer dress, Jarrett a shirt and Jen picked out so many things the woman got so excited she actually slapt Jen round the face. Yes. slapped her round the face. We were all a bit shocked by that! Then she hired out bicycles for us to go to the shop and pick out our fabrics. After lunch (in a nice place called mango rooms, and dessert in cargo club) we went to a clothes place that had been recommended to us by some people in Hanoi and I decided to go for a nice little black dress, Jarrett went for a suit and Jen went for loads of things (but didn't get slapped for it this time). By the time we'd all got measured up and picked out fabrics and the like, it was time for dinner. We were all pretty shattered from the night before, so we went to bed pretty early (we'd bumped into a couple of other girls from the Halong Bay tour...yes there are quite a few running themes in this post... and ended up eventually at a beach party. Most of the evening was spent in the club, rather than on the beach, but we went for a paddle in the sea at the end and saw something glowing in the water, which was quite cool.).

The next day we were booked on to a cooking course, which started with a really interesting tour of the market and a really scenic boat trip to the place. The guy instructing the course was really funny, and we leant how to make fresh rice paper from scratch in oder to roll your spring rolls, along with a 'claypot' dish, which was a like a stew, a cooked shrimp salad, Hoi An panckake rolls, and some other little bits as well. It was really good fun. The afternoon was spent keeping appointments with the tailors, picking up my nice yellow summer dress, asking the tailors to take in my black dress a bit more at the top and also ordering a pair of sandals to be tailor-made as well. I would like to point out that all of this is ridiculously cheap (but not when you order so much of it!). In the evening, since it was Jarrett's last night, we thought we'd break the trend and go somewhere nice by the river for something to eat in the evening. We ended up at a place called cafe Amis, where they don't have a menu, you just pick if you want meat, seafood and vegetarian, and the chef cooks the whatever dishes he fancies doing that evening (it's a set 120,000 dong, about 5 pounds, per head and you get 5 dishes plus dessert for that). We met up with Kate again, along with a couple of other people from the halong bay tour (clearly a very good way to meet people!), and went out for a few drinks at some of the nice bars, before ending up getting moto taxis to the beach party again. Well, attempting to before I realised I'd left my bag, so I had to hop off, get another moto taxi back, only to find that the bag was gone. Yep, I am an idiot. Once again I have a managed to lose another camera and another phone. And a purse with moeny and a card in it. And some sunglasses. I still ended up heading to the beach party (I'm glad I have friends who don't mind buying me drinks and paying for moto taxis!) and had a really good night, which included a quick dip in the pool. Perhaps one of the funniest things was the fact that, after we'd been back at the hotel about half an hour, there was a knock on the door, and the hotel staff delivered Jarrett's suit to the room at 5am!?! A bit wierd.

Next day, after my bag was returned to the hotel by the nice bar owner, but with nothing in it except my purse with my card (but no money), we spent most of the day picking up bits and pieces of clothing. Jen and I had a 9:30am appointment at the posher tailor shop to pick up our altered pieces, and we spent most of the rest of the day lounging around the pool in our new hotel, which was the same price as the old one now the Vietnamese holiday was over but much much nicer! After seeing Jarrett off on the bus, Jen and I went to get take away desserts from Cargo club and ate them in our nice plush room before going to sleep off out hangovers! The next day was much of the same, with some Jen still having to go to some appointments, and me having to go and get the strap fixed on my new yellow dress (I managed to break it the night I lost my bag). We ended up having dinner in a resturant called the secret garden (it took us quite a while to find it!) and we had quite a nice chilled out night, sharing a bottle of wine and just chatting. Today we've had a little chill out by the pool again, before getting all our stuff sorted to jump on the bus this evening to the beach town of Nha Trang. I'll be sad to leave this place, but it's definately time to leave before my bank balance hits minus figures!

Missing you all at home

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