What a crazy 24 hours! Arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City from the Philippines, 2 flights & 10 hours passed to arrive at the hostel. Had another flight mishap when I looked at our flights for the following day & realised we'd booked completely the wrong flight!!

I now know what happened but my god did we feel like right numpties. We'd typed Hoi An into sky scanner and gone through the motions. We hasn't realised the search had bought back Hanoi instead and we'd booked to go there !! Argh, we were so annoyed at ourselves as the airport we needed for Hoi An is in the next town called Da Nang so even typing Hoi An in the first place was wrong. We couldn't find any solid information for the night bus and the airline wouldn't change flight. We went out to find a travel agent who could give us some last minute options. We managed to get a flight around the same time the next day to Da Nang. We spent the rest of the hour berating ourselves over the mistake but then had our favourite smoothie from the street stall by our room and was just happy to be heading to the right place again.

An uneventful (thank god!) flight, apart from some really strange noises during take off. We were picked up by the hostel & were very glad when we arrived.

They were hosting a dinner for all the guests to try local food & meet each other. We were instructed to leave our bags and get stuck in so that exactly what we did! The food in the Philippines didn't inspire us at all so we were happy to come back to a cuisine where we could enjoy. 7 courses later after gorgeous spring rolls, banana flower salad, curries, fish dishes & fresh fruit we were suitably stuffed.

First job on the agenda tomorrow was to check out the recommended tailors. Hoi An is well known for its tailoring skills so both Sy & I were going to use that to our advantage. Sy needed some suits for when we get back. We felt really happy with the service in Kimmy's so decided to go with them. I only wanted one coat but Sy went shopping crazy with 2 suits, 2 shirts & 2 ties. The woman we dealt with there, Thu, was funny, bolshy & was fantastic. She was honest & brutal which is exactly what you want. You don't want someone telling you something looks nice on you if it doesn't.

Sy had also found a shoe shop where you could have your shoes made. He ordered a pair of work shoes & I had a pair of rocketdogs copied. I have tiny size 3 feet & in the UK the size 3 heels are too big so I relished the opportunity to have some made to my feet. I advised them to add in some extra padding too!! What a chance this was, made to measure shoes! Brilliant!! The next few days were a bit of a blur. We alternated sight seeing with fittings at the tailors. She was blunt when I wasn't 100% with my coat pointing out that the model is skinny and it wouldn't look exactly that same. She pointed out our Buddha bellies & told me to put a baby in mine instead!!! It was this night I became very conscious of my size & made the mistake of jumping on some scales. Hey ho, deal with that problem later, the drive is there, the tools I need aren't available whilst I'm away.

We enjoyed a day looking around the historic sites of the town, it's so romantic in the evenings with all the multi-coloured lanterns lining the riverbank, restaurants & bars. It was a very relaxed place.

It's a proper shoppers town, lots of local craft, art & so many shops!! We knew we were going to be posting a box back with the stuff from the tailors so figured our last day we'd do some shopping!

We also took a trip to the BaNa Mountains. Instead of joining a tour we just got a taxi there and explored ourselves. The cable car ride was mental, apparently I have done one before (in utero) so this was to be my first. It's in the Guinness book of world records for being the longest & highest at 5km and 4,230ft high. The day itself was quite cloudy in the hills so the cable car just ascended into the clouds and soon we were surrounded on all sides by thick white cloud. Every few minutes another cable car would magically appear through the cloud as you passed each other. It was a bit scary but ultimately very peaceful.

We reached the top and had fun exploring, laughing at the monkeys up there poking their tongues out. Someone decided to build an amusement park going down inside the mountain so we thought we'd go and have some fun. We watched some 3D, 4D & 5D films. The 5D was hilarious riding mechanical moving horses whilst shooting targets in the 3D western film we were watching! We went on shooting trains, off which it turns out I'm not a bad shot!! We played arcade games and chuckled at the locals trying their hand at the more modern ones!

We climbed to one of the viewpoints where a large marble Buddha was perched looking over the mountains, it was beautiful. To get there we walked through lovely gardens with large koi ponds, all built into the mountainside. We saw what I thought was a large bee head for the bright flowers until I realised it wasn't a bee, it was a tiny bird. It was way too quick for the cameras which was massive shame.

The cable ride back down was just as good and we enjoyed the experience. On the way we saw 2 employees resting on a steel girder all the way up the top of one of the cables pylon. One waved as my mouth hit the floor in shock & I fumbled to take a picture. Crazy, crazy men!!!

We had finally decided how we were going to get up the country but needed an extra night. Unfortunately our hotel was full so we moved to another but Madame An offered to help us with our post and asked us back for dinner that evening.

We picked up our things from the tailor, finally happy with how they looked & felt. With bags in both arms we returned to the hotel from the shops & prepped it for posting. It was a great service in that the post office came with boxes, packed it, weighed it & then took it away again with them. At 15Kg it was our biggest parcel yet!! That was heavier than the bags we've been carrying! After another glorious dinner with Madame An & her family we went back to our new hotel to prepare for tomorrow's adventure.........motorbikes!