11th October 2009 - 14th October 2009:

After Hue we took a four hour bus journey down to Hoi An which is very much a sleepy town in Vietnam.

Our hotel was absolutely fab, with big clean rooms and a swimming pool - yep, we had really moved up to the big league this time. We spent our first morning lazing by the pool and decided to do some lengths to try and get fit although we are not sure if four lengths in a 10m pool, doing doggy crawl, can be classified as a work out. During our swim Sean tried a couple of dives but, despite his view that they were Michael Phelps-esque, they looked more like belly flops and so after a few attempts he gave up and meant we could leave the pool and go explore the town.

Hoi An had some of the most amazing restaurants all which had a French inspired look and most with balconies which we would just lounge about on watching the world go by. We took a liking to one particular restaurant - the Cargo Club, not just for their fabulous selection of food but due to the fact that they also had this amazing patisserie with a great selection of cakes. We did our best to get through as many on the menu as possible but as we were only staying for a few days we could only manage five - but don't worry, it gives us an excuse to come back one day to finish off the rest!!

Sean became fascinated by this scaffolding along our street which was "supposedly" supporting this hotel that was being built. It was made up of old planks of wood - yes wood - all different sizes, lengths and thickness etc and looked as though it had been stuck together using prit-stick and blu-tac, such that one gust of wind and boom, the whole thing would come tumbling down!!! Surprisingly, the construction guys were working away with no complaints - we might have to think twice before we complain about our working conditions in future - and amazingly despite Sean's disbelief was still standing on the day we left.

We also took advantage of this quiet town by renting motorbikes, something we would not dare attempt in the bigger cities such as Hanoi where you would literally be asking for trouble.

We drove out along China Beach to Marble Mountains and loved the drive so much we just kept going until the tank went down to half way and then turned around and headed back. We did think, rather naively, that because we were on motorbikes we would be safe from the constant avalanche of people coming up to you on the streets trying to sell you stuff……. boy were we wrong or what?!?! There we are going 60kmph down a motorway and people would literally be driving up alongside us and trying to strike up a conversation (we are not joking) ultimately wanting to know where we were going and offering to be our tour guide - we could all but laugh!!!

In addition we were also rather naïve in thinking that the motorbikes would make us immune from the sun and so one of us was quite unfortunate to suffer from very bad sunburn that day (no prizes for guessing who) and meant the rest of the evening involved lots of Aloe Vera and cold compresses to sooth the pain.

The following day we decided to treat ourselves to a massage, Liza opting for a foot massage as this was one of only a few parts of her body that weren't red raw and hurting!!!! The girls that were looking after us were very funny, they kept giggling and talking to each other in Vietnamese which initially made us a bit uncomfortable. However they eventually explained that they thought Sean was very handsome which in turn made Sean rather nervous that he might be getting more than a body massage and he joined in with the giggling, albeit his was more of the nervous "please don't touch there or my girlfriend will kill me" giggling kind!!!

However we are glad to report that we both had massages in the same room and they went by with no incident, apart from when Sean turned onto his back for the second part of his massage and the girls started laughing again…… no not because of that - get your minds out of the gutter - it was due to the fact that he had a hairy chest which Asian men generally don't have!!!

They were also very interested to know what part of the world Liza came from and whether there was any sun there because they could not get over just how white she was, however once we had explained how the weather in Ireland works i.e. it rains all the time, they soon understood.

At the end of our massage and after Liza had managed to get her masseuses life story (she has worked there five years, wants to own her own business……) we headed back to the hotel in a very relaxed state and ready to meet out sleeper bus to Nha Trang.