I eventually slept for a few hours and woke up to the morning sun and we were not far from Hoi An. It was gorgeous. We seemed to go from the city, to the mountains, to the beach and now we were on the flat with lovely greenery and lakes. People were on their boats on the lakes and working in the fields already and it was 5am. We stayed in the Seastar hostel. We headed off for a walk to the old town and it was amazing. It had these old style French houses which hold restaurants, shoe shops, tailor made clothes and souvenir shops. There were loads of Pagodas which were gorgeous and a lovely Japanese bridge. We picked up the Vietnamese hats on the way as it was scorching and there was no wind at all. Aimee was torn when looking at all the lovely clothes and shoes and wanted to buy loads. Hoi An has a lovely river beside the old town called Thu Bon river which held a market and had a pretty bridge so we ventured across that. Along the way we met two women carrying their fruit who offered to take pictures of us with our hats and carrying the fruit. Happily we partook and posed with them. Then they seemed to offer money or fruit for us to take a picture of them. We obviously didn't want any of that. When we were finished they asked for money and showed us a 100k bill (which was quite a bit as the day before Aimee had paid 14k for both watermelon and mango). We said we did not want any fruit and wondered off before they nabbed us. It was quite amusing but obviously the way they make their money. On the way back we saw a motorbike accident. They collided and then one of the guys made a poor attempt to hit the other creating a crowd. A women intervined and it was soon over and the poor guy who was whacked had to literally pick up the pieces of his motorbike. Later that night we headed for a bar and met an English guy called Simon who was from Suffolk and was traveling on a tour for 4 months and was doing a further 6 months in South Africa. He spent half the night trying to convince us that a girlfriend he met in Laos was 'legit' and pretty much told us his life story. It was very sweet and I hope it all works out for him. The bar staff were trying to convince us to head to a beach party but we decided to give it a miss for that night...
We headed for our second day in Hoi An to the beach which was gorgeous. We decided to rent bikes for a $1 as it was only a 5km ride..Sadly the weather was not on our side (it does seem to be the common factor so far) and it rained on and off so after a few hours so we headed back to the hostel. The thing is it is still so warm and it is quite nice being in the sea when it rains :) We went out again later that night on our bikes for dinner and drinks and bumped back into Laura and Hugo from Saigon. I can't remember if I mentioned much about either of them but Laura is from Perth so we are meeting up when I head over. She is gorgeous, fun and lovely so we hit it off with her. Hugo is from Holland and he is very sweet...We ended up creating a group at the bar that night of Frenchie, we called him Pierre (he was French- obviously and he told us his name so many times but we could not understand him) He spoke very little English so it was quite hard. I only did French for a short time a long long time ago!!! It was hilarious as we might ask him a question like "So how long are you in Vietnam for?" He would not understand Aimee and I. Hugo would then turn around and 'translate'. He would be like "When do you leave Vietnam" (In ENGLISH). Sometimes in a French twang to Pierre. CLASSIC! Pierre would then answer. Honestly are we that hard to understand?? We also then met Daniel from Darwin who was on holiday who was a real darling and very funny. We also had two friends join our group from America called Paul and Trish. So it was a really good and funny night. We ended up leaving our bikes tied up outside the bar and headed after the bar shut to the beach party where we had a few drinks, yes a Jaeger was involved and danced under the strobe lighting..that lighting really does mess with your head..Q- Check out the picture of Pierre's face. The original plan was to get a 2am bus back so we could collect the bikes and ride home for our 7.30 bus to Hue but we left at 3ish in the end. When we got back Daniel and Hugo came with us and the bikes were MISSING! (s***!) We walked home with Aimee and her bad leg. She seemed to develop a dodgy leg over the last 2 nights (poor Aimee) We decided our best tactic would be to say we brought them back and then say they must of got stolen from the front of the hostel. (I know I know its bad) So we headed to bed about half 4 ready for our 6.30 alarm call. The next morning we headed to reception where it got a bit messy. Understandably they weren't happy and wanted a million dong in compensation for new bikes. They held our passport hostage and our bus driver was waiting and threatening to leave us as time was pushing on. That's about £50 each but we negotiated it down to a mill and a half for both and they forgot to charge us for our washing and away we went. Our conscience was terrible and we did feel so bad but it really wasn't our fault. We reckon the bikes were locked up inside the bar but we were leaving so early we could not check it out. We finally headed off to Hue which took about 4 hours. Honestly I cannot rave enough about the Vietnamese landscape, it is a stunning country. We were both wrecked by the time we arrived, sleep deprived and a bit hungover ( I am getting to old for this s***) We headed for a look around Hue and was guttered to find the Imperial City was shut, we forgot its Sunday today- DOH! We looked around then took a long walk back to the hostel but we got lost, I blame the lack of sleep and it started to rain so we jumped in a cab and eventually found it. Tonight we have been so monged out we have chilled out and just watched tv, yes I know a bit boring but we have another long day tomorrow and need an early night.
Tomorrow we are heading on a tour up the Perfume River to see some more Pagodas and Tombs so it should be interesting. We then have a 6pm bus to Hanoi which will take us about 15 hours-This should be fun!! We are hoping to get on a tour when we arrive Tuesday morning to go to Halong Bay for 2 nights on a boat. Unfortunately its a 4 hour bus ride from Hanoi to get to the bay so we may miss out and only do one night but we shall see. It is meant to be stunning so we are pretty excited about this. Our plan is to be back in Hanoi for Thursday evening, spend the night then leave the next day. Aimee is booked to head back to Bangkok and I think I will be flying onto Laos either Friday morning or hang out in Hanoi for a few nights. Although I am a bit concerned as Paul was telling me the weather is meant to be bad in Laos now but I still want to go and check it out :) Will keep you posted about my plans as I move on..