We're loving Hoi An and have decided to stay a whole week - can't believe it - the longest we have ever stayed anywhere since leaving Sussex is 3 days! The town is utterly delightful - very old and all the buildings are painted a sandy yellow colour with dark wooden fascias and interiors and lovely tiled oriental roofs, many are covered in bright bougainvillea or honeysuckle. We took a city tour and explored a Fujian Chinese temple dedicated to a goddess who protected sailors, an ancient Chinese house which the same family has lived in for 6 generations, a cultural museum and the Japanese covered bridge which was built to link the Chinese and Japanese towns (Hoi An means 2 towns). The bridge is built of stone with wooden floors and ceilings and has a chapel and 2 guardian statues - it has become the symbol of the town.

The food here is the best - David recommended a restaurant near the bridge (Morning Glory) where we ate the second night here sitting out on the balcony watching the world go by. The meal was gorgeous and they do a cookery book so I think I might invest and can then treat everyone to caramelized fish pot with a side dish of aubergine and garlic and fried bananas in coconut milk. We also took tea in a Chinese traditional tea house which was quite an experience - it is run by staff who are hearing or speech impaired and are silent using word tiles and gestures to communicate.

The hotel has a great pool which we have pretty much to ourselves and so have been enjoying just chilling. So far we have made it to the beach once but the sea was very rough and there was no sun so we did not stay very long. On Sunday we took hotel bikes and rode down back lanes through the real countryside and small fishing villages - surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. Luckily the land is utterly flat which is just as well as Roger's bike was way too small for him and neither had any gears!

Did get involved in a drama however. We decided to take a boat trip up the river and were approached by this bloke and agreed to go with him. A nice Aussie couple, who had been waiting for someone else to take the plunge decided to join us, and we were immediately the subject of a very heated discussion between our guy and another boat woman - I think she felt that she should have got to take the Aussies but they preferred safety in numbers! Anyway we set out from the quay and had gone about 500 metres when the engine ground to a halt and were left drifting aimlessly in mid-stream. Our boatman got on his mobile and there was a lot of jabbering and yelling while we were now drifting sideways down the river! Another boat coming the other way threw us a line and started to tow us back to the quay when the original boatwoman appeared in her boat and we all transferred to her boat and continued our cruise. She was so pleased to have our custom that she kept squeezing Roger's nose affectionately. He didn't appear too made up with the fact that he had clearly pulled - in fact he looked distinctly frightened - it may have had something to do with her missing teeth! Anyway the cruise was good and we got to see some pretty waterways, Kingfishers and genuine fisherfolk casting nets.

Took an excursion to My Son (pronounced Me Son and meaning Beautiful mountain) which is an ancient holy land of the Cham people and consists of the ruins of temples and tombs of the god-kings between 7th and 13th century, when the Cham people left the area and were driven to the south of Vietnam. The ruins were very evocative standing in a lovely wooded area and contained a fair number of phallic symbols (linga) which seem to have survived the centuries and American bombing. We returned to Hoi An by boat and visited a woodworking island on the way where our bad luck with boats struck again as we became grounded and all the best efforts of crew and locals were ineffectual in getting the boat back into the river. That is, of course, until Sir Roger Galahad leapt out to help and with one gigantic heave they were able to push the boat free. I had to put up with a whole lot of admiring comments from the guide about his strength and how young he looked all the way back until I pointed out that it was probably due to the fact that his weight had been taken off the boat that they were able to free it, not his contribution to the pushing effort!

Cycled to the beach again on Tuesday and had a lovely day lounging on sun beds and enjoying the sea. Roger got into a long conversation with one of the beach vendors who spoke surprisingly good English, all learned from selling to tourists. She was all covered up with gloves, hat and 2 sweatshirts to protect her from the sun and told him that she had 3 jobs to earn enough to send her children to school (which unusually for a communist country is not free).

Hue next stop!