We decided to leave Daniel at the hotel today. He was a bit knackered from all the walking we've been doing and visiting the various old buildings wasn't his cup of tea. Sue wanted a coffee so we went next door and asked for a hot coffee with milk. She got an iced coffee in a tall glass with ice.

It was hot today and we got a bit sunburned. Its the first day of our trip that we didn't get a drop of rain. The streets were unusually quiet and even the hawkers seemed a bit lethargic. We were told however that this was their autumn and we saw girls rugging up in long sleeved sloppy joes and cardigans. Meanwhile Steve and Sue were sweating in the shade.

We bought some tickets to allow entry into various old houses and monuments around the city and the first stop was the Japanese Covered Bridge. This was built when Japanese traders were frequenting the area.

The area beyond that contained several old houses with a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese architecture. Some are about 200 years old and have much of the original timber. The area is frequently flooded (most recently 2011) and there is a wooden grate in the top storey so the furniture can be winched up out of harms way.

We visited a couple of assembly halls and decided by the end of it that after a couple of those, just skip the rest. A common expression here is "same same" and applies to many aspects of Hoi An.

We went for the fitting of Sue's dresses which was hilarious. All the women came around to see her trying on the sexy sleek little numbers she'd had made. There's no modesty when going through this process at the markets - off with the top, down to your nickers in plain site of passers by. We had another couple right next to us doing the same thing. At one point they realised the dress was on back-the-front to much amusement of the onlookers. The ladies were all making comments about how Steve was going to have to help her get dressed. They burst out laughing when he said he'd help her get undressed too. It was a really fun experience and we decided we will definitely come back to Cloth Shop 52 and visit Anh. There were only very minor alterations needed so we needed to come back around 4pm.

We didn't get past "Souvenir Anh" without another purchase either. This time we bought some laquered coconut bowls and Steve negotiated the price down. Anh said that because we were special customers and that it was "happy hour", we were entitled to a special price. Sue just laughs about how all the ladies sweet-talk Steve in order to get the sale. The silk lady across from Anh had tried to get a sale from us the previous day and insisted that we purchase something from her too so Sue picked out a lovely silk scarf. The lady that did Sue's nails was very persistant that she should have a foot massage. We argued for ages that we had to get back to Daniel and didn't have the time right now. We knew we'd be back later in the day to pick up the clothes so we agreed (in good faith) that we'd get one then. We knew full well that she was going to be on the lookut for us.

On to the next shop. The evening before, whilst Sue was getting her nails done by the nail/foot massage lady, another young lady from a couple of stalls away had tried to get us to buy t-shirts. Her stall was not very well positioned compared to some of the others and she seemed desperate to make a sale. Steve actually needed t-shirts so we figured we'd help out by getting them from her today. She was eating lunch with the next stall holder and literally dropped her bowl when we walked up smiling. It was only a relatively small sale but she seemed pretty happy that we'd chosen her over the hundreds of other places in this town selling similar t-shirts.

When Steve trallied up all the cash required to pay for the clothes, plus the expenses for the following day's communte to Hue, the available funds left in the cash passport card were looking a little light. It takes 2 days to transfer cash via BPay from our regular bank account into the passport ATM card. This is just a safety precaution incase the card gets stolen but it has been an inconvenience on 2 occassions now. Bottom line.... we didn't have the cash to pay for a foot massage or make any further impulse purchases. This was going to present a problem because we promised faithfully that we'd come back to the massage lady's stall that day. Plus, we knew she'd nab us coming back to pick up our clothes and hold us to our agreement. Sue and Steve decided to try and sneak into the market from the other side. Fat chance! Whilst waiting for the clothes to be bagged and paid for, the massage lady appeared and we were pegged. She smiled at us and we knew she'd be onto us the second we'd finished paying for the clothes.

Some NZ customers had come into the cloth shop area whilst waiting and looked just as overwhelmed as we did on our first day there. We told them about our experiences so hopefully put them at ease, just as the Aussie couple that spoke to us on the first day had done. Next minute an argument between a couple of the Vietnamese stall holders erupted. There was much shouting and waving of bits of paper in faces and everyone stopped and stared. We'd read that raising your voice or being aggressive in Vietnamese culture is considered very rude so this was very unexpected. The argument shifted down a few stalls but they were well and truly going at it hammer and tong for some time. Sue and Steve, having paid for the clothes bid the girls a hasty good bye, cut and ran out the opposite side of the hall in order to avoid being bailed up by the massage lady. Sue called out from behind for Steve to stop and see something to which he replied "doesn't matter, don't look back just keep going" and hot-footed it up the street.

Call it karma, but doing a runner came back to bite us on the arse.... one of the seams in Sue's dress has a minor fault so we have to go back first thing in the morning to have it fixed before our driver arrives. Steve wonders if the massage lady takes credit card...

Hoi An apparently means "peaceful meeting place". Things have changed a bit since it got that name. We all agreed that the hustle and bustle in the center of this town is because the whole city's tourist trade is pretty much condensed into an area of 5 x 5 blocks. An amazing place and we definitely want to come back here.

Whilst at dinner that night, we saw elderly ladies selling candle lanterns for people to float down the river. They sat there for hours and didn't make a single sale, all the time the candles burning lower and lower. Hard to imagine putting in all that time and effort to make about 10c.

General Notes

• Navigating: Don't trust the maps provided by hotels. They're not to scale and half the time there's no street signs anyway.
• Local water: We were warned not to eat salad, have drinks with ice or brush our teeth with tapwater. Steve has been doing the complete opposite of this advice without serious detriment. Most of the restaurants use purified water for ice anyway so unless you have a super sensitive tummy its probably safe. We brought heaps of immodium with us anyway, just incase.