So we had a 13hour journey to Hoi An, Mel was lucky enough to sleep 12 of the 13hours whereas Gill hardly slept at all and because it was a night bus they turn the lights off at around 9pm so people can sleep and it was just Gill's luck that her individual reading light was not working. When we arrived in Hoi An we were dropped off at a hotel on the outskirts (tour companies always do this is hope that those who have not yet booked accomodation, just choose theirs instead - but it is usually not in the centre), however it was 6.30am and we hadn't booked anywhere so we checked out the room, negotiated a price and went to bed. This hotel was really nice - it had the luxury of a swimming pool which was so amazing.

So Friday morning, after our nap, we headed into the town. Hoi An is beautiful - it became a world heritage site in 1998 (i think) and has therefore had some money spent on it improving the infrastructure and upkeep of buildings. The town was split over two sides of a river, with the buildings along the riverfront very pretty and colourful, most of them restaurants. The weather was really hot so we headed into a nice riverfront airconditioned restaurant and chilled, watching all the locals go up and down the river in their little boats.

After lunch/brekkie we went for a wander. All the little shops sold the most beautiful brightly coloured lanterns made of vietmanese silk (looked especially pretty at night when they were all lit up). Hoi An has a famous Japanese bridge witha small temple on it so we checked it out before having a relaxing evening in a bar :)

Sat (4th) morning, Gill wasn't feeling so great so we took it slow, had a chilled out breakfast and headed to the newer half of the town accross the river...it wasnt as large as we thought it was so in the end we sat under a tree read book and did suduko and crosswords for a while. Walking around in the heat is really tiring so it was nice to sit and watch the world go by. After feeling better we decided to hit the market - Gill had seen a bracelet she liked but wanted it as an anklet so some really cute lady cut up two bracelts and made Gill an awesome anklet of all the beads Gill liked - sweet!

We were then led to a clothes shop where you can havce wahtever item of clothing you want made for you in like 24hours. Hoi An is famous for tailoring so it seemed like a good idea to have something made here if we were going to have it made anywhere. Mel decided against having something made as she hadnt seen anything she liked. Gillhad seen a dress in another shop (really expensive) so described he dress to the ladies in the shop (BIG ERROR!). They measured Gill up, she chose a fabric and paid a deposit and we were to return the next day at 10.30am (our bus was leaving at 1.30).

That evening we were knackered so we stayed at the hotel for dinner then watched a dvd in bed - it was nice to have a relaxing evening in and we were both knackered.

Sunday (5th) morning we got up and headed into town in great anticipation to see Gill's dress....Gill hated it - it was like a prom dress that a 15/16year old would wear. it didn't help that everyone in the shop kept saying it was lovely but itwas nothing like what she had wanted. She told the lady to give her half the deposit back and keep the material as she just wanted rid of it. However lady stood her ground and said no we change for you, so they did but only had 2hours to do it in as we had bus booked to leave Hoi An. We returned at 123.30 as agreed and suprose suprise the dress was not ready! lady kept saying 5mins 5mins and it never turned up - we were getting angry ans so was lady....just as we were about to walk away it turned up on a moped an we left to head back to hotel.

Bus picked us up and 1.30 to take us to Da Nang, which was not far away (just a one hour bus ju\ourney). In DaNang the bus stopped and picked up two other people who were obviously going to next stop......we were waiting for our stop. We had the map out and saw the street our hostel was on, we passed it, we decided we would have to get a taxi from office as we seemed to be getting further and further away from it, then we left DaNang! It was so incredibly funny! it sounds ridiculous but whenever we have been on a bus they take you to their office and make an announcment for this stop but that just didnt happen this time. So we were on a bus, heading through some extremely winding roads around mountains not knowing where our next destination was! we didnt want to ask anyone at the risk of looking incredibly stupid, anyway we kind of like the suspense of k\not knowing (we had a rough idea anyway) and hey we were getting a free ride. The bus journey turned out to be 4hours when evewntually we arrived in Hue, which was going to be our next destination anyway!

As you can see, life is great we are having a ball. Hope you are not missing us too much!

lots of love Gill and Mel xxx