We had planned to have a lie in this morning but were woken up at 7.30am by a phonecall from my mum, who was panicking about reading the last blog entries about the buses! I assured her we were fine and we had a chat so then I couldn't really sleep properly after that. We got up at 10ish, and walked to Minh and Coco, where we had lunch yesterday, for breakfast. I had a mushroom omelette and a hot chocolate, yummy.

We then walked back to the hotel to check out and left our bags in reception before heading out to see the citadel. It was in a walled section of the city with a moat, and there were loads of bullet holes from the Americans in the war which was sad and strange to see.

We walked back to the hotel one more time to catch our bus to Hoi An. It was a minibus full of Westerners and felt quite luxurious compared to our previous modes of transport. The guy sorting out the bags had terrible B.O though!

The journey only took 3 hours, through some incredible scenery, and we saw the sea for the first time on the whole trip!

When we arrived in Hoi An we traipsed around for what felt like forever looking for somewhere to stay - everywhere was either full or extortionately priced. An old man wearing an ill fitting suit followed us for ages, trying to get us to stay in some hotel for $10, good price but something is a bit dodgy when they have to beg you to stay there. When he eventually got the message he grabbed the hotel business card back from Vix and stormed off in a huff. We eventually found somewhere for $15, and we have a huge room, although the toilet and shower doors are kind of see through which is weird.

We went for an ice cream and then came back to use the internet, although once again it was way too slow to upload any photos!

Afterwards we got changed (I borrowed a non-stretch size 8 Topshop dress of Vix's and it fits - it definitely wouldn't have done two weeks ago!) and whilst I waited for the others to finish getting ready I spoke to Ed and some friends on Facey B. People keep messaging me saying they are out here or heading out soon - so many people are travelling!

We looked for a restaurant in the Lonely Planet guidebook where you can pay $2 on top of the price of your meal and have a cooking lesson! The streets were full of lanterns for Tet, and the atmosphere here is much nicer than in Hue, which was much bigger. We found the restaurant, which was shut for Tet unfortunately, so we ate somewhere else, which seemed quite nice, if maybe a little pricier than some places. We ended up having a lovely meal and a bottle of wine for £4.10 each which is cheap on Western terms but more than we usually spend on food here!

We were planning on taking advantage of happy hour at Retreat, a restaurant/bar around the corner from our hotel, but we missed it by about 5 minutes so we had milkshakes instead of alcohol (although even not in happy hour cocktails were between £1.26 and £1.58 each!) - tomorrow we are planning on making happy hour (which is actually 6 hours) and having a bit of a night out to celebrate Vix lining up an interview for when she gets back.

On the way home we saw a cockroach in the street which wasn't very nice, but even worse, there is a lizard in our room! And a dead baby cockroach! I am now slightly worried about being woken up by a lizard or cockroach on my pillow tonight.

We are going to explore the town a bit more tomorrow and maybe rent bikes (without motors!) if it is cheap.

Night night!

xxx