Hoi An and My Son

Our days in Vietnam are drawing to an end. We have passed Hoi An, are presently in Dalat and have just booked onward travel to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) where we will spend a few days before flying to Singapore from where Gert and I both fly home again at the end of the week. But first…

Hoi An is a town which is hard to describe but better explained in pictures. I can only describe it as the most beautiful town in the whole of Vietnam. It is a town where Chinese traders settled a few hundred years ago and brought their culture with them. This is evident when you look at the style of buildings and architecture. The town is also known for its silk and lantern industry. At night the town is lit up by hundreds, if not thousands, of lanterns and lights displayed on the river. The only downside is that in the middle of the day this is a very hot place to be. The best way to cope is to copy what many of the locals do and have a sleep for a few hours, but that would be wasting time!

You can visit Hoi An on your own or with a friend, however especially at night this is a very romantic place best visited with your partner/wife/girlfriend etc. Many newlyweds choose Hoi An as a destination either get married or have their honeymoon there. Several times we ran into couples or small groups dressed up and accompanied by photographers.

We rode our bikes along a narrow road to a deserted beach area south of town. A few fishermen were on the beach fixing a boat. Gert went for a walk and I stripped down to my undies and went in the water. A man in a basket boat attracted my attention and waved at me with his hands pointing downwards which means in all of Asia, come over here please. He asked me to help him drag the boat through the sand ready for launch. I have no idea how they steer those things but once he hit the water he was gone in no time.

One day we went west to the area of My Son. This area is famous for its old temples - Impressive for people seeing them for the first time. Pity the USA saw fit to throw bombs on it during the Vietnam War. Restoration work is still being done and I hope the USA is paying for it. The ruins date from between the 4th to the 13th century and are Hindu in origin. Although the war finished many years ago the area is still not safe and is not totally de-mined as yet.

The temperature reached about 37 degrees judging by the fact that riding with the visor down felt cooler than with the visor up, so our visit was brief.

For people who may be thinking of going to Vietnam but are on a tight budget, here is a tip to travel almost free throughout the country. Several countries in South East Asia operate sleeper buses These buses have three rows of narrow beds which are fairly comfortable. If you travel distances of 8-9 hours apart you can do this by overnight travel. The bus fare is about equal to a hotel overnight cost which, in this case is not needed.

Food is good and cheap. A large bowl of meat and vegetable filled rice-noodle soup costs about, $1.00-$1.50 and a nice fresh crunchy bread roll filled with a mixture of vegetables and a fried egg also costs about the same. A good hotel is about $10 a night and if you want to use hostels, you will be looking at about $4 a night.

When buying a bus ticket it nearly always includes a pick up from your hotel address by a mini bus which collects passengers and drops them off at the large bus parking area. We left Hoi An at about 6 pm and arrived in Nha Trang at 6 am. A two hour break until another bus collected us for our ride to Dalat.

By the way- For the Dutch readers- I should have mentioned that earlier, Gert is doing his own blog as well and can be found at www.travelpod.com/members/gertroos . For the non-Dutch readers I suppose you can read it via "google translate" but text often gets misinterpreted. Pictures are different though.