24th December 2005 After a long night, feeling like we have been sleeping in a washing machine, we finally arrive into Danang at 6am. We exit the station into a melee of taxi drivers all shouting various prices at us. We think we have negotiated $8 to take four of us to Hoi An and then suddenly the price changes again. After much more bartering another taxi driver appears who agrees to $8. This is all fine until after driving for about 2 minutes he stops at his "office" for "one minute" and comes back asking us if we can pick up 2 more people (there is no space in the taxi). We all flatly refuse and he finally drives on. Once we reach Hoi An we are taken to the usual commission making hotel. The hotel itself actually seems quite nice, but we have no idea where we are so decide to check out the town a bit more first. The smiles stop at this point and we are ignored, so we decide not to go back even if it is the best option in town. We had already decided that we might splash out a bit in Hoi An as we would be there over Christmas, so we also turn down the next place (nylon sheets are not my idea of luxury!). We finally come across The Hoi An Hotel and decide to give it a try. Unfortunately they have none of their $50 or $60 dollar a night rooms available so the lady shows us the "deluxe" option, which I think was wrongly named, as it was more of a suite - IT WAS MASSIVE!! Stu and I just looked at each other and thought - we have to have it (there was a jacussi bath and the bathroom had two doors - not necessary, but sounds posh). We then asked the price. Apparently the room is usually $80 dollars a night. She said we could have it for $70. After some sharp intakes of breath she offered $60. We still pretended to be unsure and asked if we could get a bigger discount if we stayed longer. We finally agreed on $55 a night for 4 nights! Bargain! It doesn't quite fit into our budget, but it is christmas after all. We decide to try out the bed straight away and catch up on the sleep we missed last night. Finally get up around lunchtime and (after a 20 minute walk to the door of our hotel room)head into the centre of town. We are immediately greeted by tailor shop after tailor shop, interspersed with the odd gift shop. I was in heaven (this is Amy writing if you hadn't already guessed!). We go to a few tailors to try and figure out what the prices should be and then we just jump right in (how can you resist tailor made suits for $55?!)... suits, shirts, trousers... All would be ready for us tomorrow (Christmas day - great presents eh?!) We were due to meet up with Fergus again in Hoi An so emailed him to arrange a meeting point (a pool bar, of course). We then head home to smarten ourselves up for our big Christmas Eve night out, before heading to the pool bar. Have a few games of pool and realise that Fergus isn't coming - not sure whether we had offended him, or he just hadn't got our email... We managed to find a great restaurant on the river where we tried all the local specialities - fried wontons, Cao Lao and White Rose - all excellent. Up until this point there didn't seem to be many people about so we thought we should try some other bars to see if anything was going on. We finally stumbled across a bar playing some great cheesy music so decided to give it a try. We headed up to the upstairs bar, and who did we find - Fergus, in a santa hat looking like he'd already had a few. There were also a couple of Americans who we had met on the bus from Nha Trang, another Kiwi couple and a german guy. It was a great night. Saw a rat on the way home. 25th December 2005 Even though it was Christmas day we decided to get up in time for breakfast (it was included in the price of the room so we couldn't waste it!) but then went straight back to bed. We finally made it into town later in the day to start collecting our clothes. All were great so we ordered some more!! We spend a little bit of time looking for signs of a christmas dinner, but it just seemed to be any other day in Hoi An so christmas dinner was steak and chips for Stu and pasta for Amy. Make our phonecalls home for christmas which was very strange as it still doesn't feel like christmas here at all. There was a monster delay on Stu's call and the experience left us almost missing home. Almost. We spend most of the rest of the day looking around the shops as well as visiting a local embroidery place (which makes embroidered pictures of typical vietnamese scenes) and were shown how the silk is made. We get to see the silk worms at various ages (they only live a few weeks) and then we are told how they basically spew out the threads of silk to create a cocoon around themselves before turning into a moth. Unfortunately most of them don't make it to moths as the cocoons are put into boiling water to make the silk thread easier to remove! Was very interesting as we had no idea how the silk was made by worms. Meet up with Fergus again in the evening, but it is a pretty quiet night as we are all still recovering from the night before. 26th December 2005 The next day turns into another day of visiting our tailor shops to try on our latest purchases and get adjustments made and ordering a few more things. We do manage to see the Japanese Bridge and we peer in a few pagodas just so that we have done something cultural today. We are fed up of eating out so decide to buy some baguettes and cheese (dairlylea is the speciality here) and head back to the hotel. We are planning to watch the football in our room. We arrive at the hotel to find it in complete darkness. We finally make it to reception and are given two tiny candles to take to the room. While we are stood there another woman arrives asking for candles and is flatly told there are no more (no "sorry we don't have any more at the moment, I'll just go and get some more and bring them to your room" just a plain "no") so I give the lady one of my candles. We now have one candle. Suddenly being in such a massive room doesn't seem so great anymore. We manage to make it to the room and find our lighter and torch and it doesn't seem too bad. However, we are watching the clock for when the football starts. The electricity goes on and off for the next hour or two before it finally comes on just in time for the game. Unfortunately the spurs game isn't on, but at least we have some light. 27th December 2005 The next morning we get up early to go to our Vietnamese cooking class. We meet at a cafe in town before being given a tour of the local market and are told what a lot of the fruit and veg is that we didn't recognise. We also see lots of bits of fish that we didn't know existed.. We are also told that to get the best stuff you have to be at the Market for 3am!! Not for us really. We then get on a boat to our cookery classroom which is an open room on the bank of a river - a beautiful location. We are taught to make aubergine in clay pot, rice paper, fresh spring rolls and finally how to cut vegetables into fancy shapes. It was all good fun and we got to eat what we made at the end, plus more food that was prepared there. Note to all: Stu was pretty crap at cooking, especially the rice paper and Amy did most dishes well and obviously first time. We head back to town to pick up our final clothing purchases. I think our final tally on clothes was as follows: For Stu: 2 suits, 2 extra trousers, one cord jacket and 5 shirts. For Amy: 1 suit, 4 trousers, 3 dresses, 3 shirts, one bag, two pairs of shoes and a jacket!! Most of which will not be needed on this trip, so let's hope we don't change shape before we get home!!!! We decide to make the most of our room before we leave tomorrow so have another picnic dinner! We really liked Hoi An (and not just for the tailor shops). It has a really nice astmosphere and the buildings are lovely. Although we didn't see all the sights (we opted out of My Son as apparently it just doesn't compare to Ankor Wat) we had a really leaxing few days. Just what you need at Christmas!! Hope you all had great Christmases back home. Lots of love, Amy & Stu