I travelled from Hue down to Hoi An with Jenny and Liz (whom I had met in Hue), which was only four hours on the bus, arriving there at midday. This was by far the best journey I've had as I was able to relax and read my book for the entire time. We made only one stop, which was right next to a bay. It was a beautiful day (only the second during my time in Vietnam) so the sunlight glistened off the surface of the water. Unfortunately there was a lot of trash that had been thrown on the shore, which completely ruined what would have been a really adorable spot.

When we arrived in Hoi An we were recommended to stay in a hotel where the bus stopped (it wouldn't surprise me if there some sort of agreement between the hotel and the bus company) however we all felt that $20 was very expensive and chose to search elsewhere. We finally settled on a hotel after about 45 minutes of searching. To be honest it was quite a nice little place, with nice rooms and located on the river. Hoi An is well renowned in these parts as being a bit of a Mecca for getting custom-tailored clothing made quite cheaply, so after dumping our stuff and grabbing some food, the girls wanted get some dresses made as they were only staying for two nights. Unsurprisingly, this did not interest me at all and instead gave me a chance to have a wander round the town.

I found Hoi An to be a really charming little town. It doesn't seem to have changed one bit from when it was a trading port. All the roads are very narrow (you don't see too many cars about) and it seems as though nothing was built before the turn of the 20th Century. There are also a few pagodas dotted here and there within the town, which highlights that it still retained some its Vietnamese heritage, despite there being influences from elsewhere. What surprised me about Hoi An was the large number of tourists that were there and that there were more holidaymakers than backpackers. It is not a big place at all, so I would have expected it to have drawn so many holidaymakers. However, this didn't have any effect on my attitude towards Hoi An, it was a place that I fell in love with instantly. I think it's fair to say that I became even more enchanted by the town at night when lanterns of all colours brightened the streets. There were also statues that lit up the river every evening, which also created a great atmosphere in the town. Something that all three of us were delighted by was the amount of good places there were to eat. We didn't eat at the same place twice while we were there, and I have no idea how long it would take before someone would have eaten at every restaurant. However, the downside to all of this was that there weren't too many places to get drinks.

About 4km down the road from Hoi An is Cua Dai Beach. I found that this was a great place to visit when you want to get away from Hoi An (for all of its qualities there is only so much you can do there before you start to get a bit bored). It cost Liz, Jenny and I 20,000 VND (or about £1) each to hire a bike for the day and cycle to beach, which isn't bad, but the bikes were in awful condition (I suppose you get what you pay for)! They were rusty, they had no gears and they had hard seats (plus mine had a bell which made a really pathetic sound!). Despite that I did enjoy the ride as we spent the entire time adjacent to the river. Even though we spent the day lying on the beach, it was something I relished as it was probably the first time I had a chance to truly relax since I'd started travelling.

The girls checked out of the hotel one day before me and were heading straight to Ho Chi Minh City. This gave me a whole day to myself so I chose to head to the market to buy some souvenirs (I hadn't actually bought any yet), plus I wanted to test out my bartering skills. As turns out I think I'm rather useless and it's definitely something I'm going to have to work on! All I bought was a tie and some chopsticks, but I can't help but feel I overpaid a bit. For my final evening in Hoi An, I went to a bar just expecting to be by myself not doing a lot, but actually ended up playing pool (with a few guys I met and even a couple of locals) until the small hours.