Up early to fly north to Da Nang. The airport was built by the Americans and some of their hangars are still in use. It was 39C at 10am but there is a breeze and the humidity level is lower than in the Mekong, where it was about 100%. We stopped to see the Cham sculpture museum, where the pieces excavated by the French at My Son temple complex are displayed. We'll be going there later. After a brief stop to paddle at the beach, we climbed the Marble Mountain to see the Buddha inside the mountain, where Vietnamese hid from the Americans during the war.

We're now in Hoi An, a popular R&R destination for GIs during the American War (as the Vietnamese refer to to it). We drove through rice fields and orchards into the Old City, which dates from the 17th century and the houses were built by Chinese, modified by the Japanese invaders then had Portuguese touches added when Hoi An was a major port trading with Macau. Traffic is banned in the centre of the old town, it was lovely to wander round without watching for scooters. Each house has stuff laid out on tables on the pavement or in the ground floor room. Silks, bamboo carvings and lacquer bowls are the local crafts but half the shops are shoe makers or tailors. Tourism is the main industry, it's 6 hours from Western Australia but there are also large numbers of French and German tourists, Spanish and Americans.

Our guide here is Phour, he recommended a place to get clothes made as those we have are far too hot for the climate, which is much hotter than usual. This evening we were measured and chose fabric, tomorrow we return at 4 pm to collect 3 shirts for Andy, a dress, top and shoes for me. Wish I'd left my coat and cardi in Shanghai!

The Ancient House Hotel has a pool shaded by coconut trees and bamboo and the rooms are furnished in the 17th century style of the old houses in the town centre. We have a four poster bed with pretend mozzy net. I have several mozzy bites from a couple of days ago so have to remember to spray insect repellant on. This is not a malarial area luckily.