Hoi An - what can we say about Hoi an?  this place is amazing, we arrived here 17th May with the intention of staying 4 nights.  We were meant to leave this morning to head to Hue but Simon has been ill all night with a touch of food poisioning so we have re-scheduled till tomorrow depending on how he is feeling. 

Hoi An is a quaint little old town built in the 17th century next to the thu bon river.  Luckily it was not touched by bombing in the war.  It is pedestrian friendly and if full of little cobbled streets through the old town, the shops house everything from beautiful artwork, books, chinese lanterns, bars, cafes and tailors. 

The food is here is the best we have had so far in Vietnam (although si might not agree with you at this present moment).  Hoi An has its own signature dishes that you can only get here.  They are cau lou - noodles with lettuce, mint, bean sprouts and pork, white roses which can only really be described as wonton dumplings - all for 50p each!    

We met back up with the aussies as they were staying at the same hotel as us and decided to book a trip to My Son which is Vietnams version of Angkor Wat.  It is Vietnam's most important centre of the Champa ancient kingdom built in the 4th century.  it served as the political centre of the kingdom of champa and a burial palce for Cham monarchs.  It was a good trip but the are not many buildings to see anymore thanks to the bombings in the war that destroyed the majority of them. 

It was high up in the mountains and the scenery was amazing but was another scorcher and we were all exhausted by 2.30pm when the boat dropped us off on the pier so we went in search of a well earned drink and found numerous bars along the front of the river offered a glass of draft beer for 3000 VND (10p!)  needless to say we all stayed there a while!  that night we ended up in a few of the bars and a nightclub in hoi an and again didn't roll home till 4am! 

19th may - nan's b'day - happy birthday nan, love you and miss you lots.  we went and seen the japanese covered bridge and a walk around the old town before booking ourselves (me, simon and sam) on a cooking course that evening.  The difference with this course was you could pick which dishes you wanted to learn how to make, so we decided on the infamous Cau lou as thats all we have been eating, deep fried shrimp and pork sring rolls and sauteed chicken with mushrooms.  Wow - it was fantastic and really easy and we got to eat it all afterwards!!  Si was especially pleased with his spring rolls!  photos are quite good!  we will definitely be making them for people when we go home!  Mum you would have loved it.  went and had a few 10p beers to celebrate our few found skills! 

20th may - The aussies lads left the beautiful Hoi An at 11am for a 17 and a half hour train ride to hanoi! - didn't envy them, they have to go straight to hanoi as Richo has to fly back to oz on 23rd back to the real world.  So we said bye to them (we will meet up with them in hanoi) and then rented a motorbike (sorry again parents!) to go to marble mountains and china beach again. 

Marble mountains was amazing - these mountains consist of 5 sizeable rocks obvivously made of marble.  each mountain is said to represent a natural element, the largest and mot famous Thuy Son (Water) has a number of natural caves in which Hindu, and later Buddhist sancturies have been built over the centuries.  The caves and the carved buddahs statues from cham origin were pretty imprssive and views from the top, of the mountains and china beach were impressive. 

we then went for a drive along china beach and eventually found Hoa's place as reccommended in Lonely Planet however entered incorrectly on the map and had a great lunch of spring rolls, lemon fish and fried rice - go there if you ever go to china beach!  this isn't where we think si got ill, we think it was our evening meal that made him ill.  the spring rolls here are different from what you get back home as you have the normal sring roll but you have a piece of rice paper and you place the spring roll inside it along with mint, jasmine, lettuce, and tomato and then roll it before dipping in either fish sauce or peanut and chilli sauce! 

well that brings us all up to date i think, except that i gave it to the tailors yesterday and had 2 skirts and a pair of shorts made for me in 2 hours for 12 pounds! mad hey? 

im going to go and check on simon then later hopefully download the rest of the photos! 

thanks for all your messages and email, miss you all xxxx