We think we've hopefully turned a corner on the bad stomachs and general ill feelings we've been having recently. Hopefully two days of bed rest has done the trick. Armed with optimism we boarded our bus to Hoi An. Four hours later we were dropped off at some hotel on the outskirts and promply set upon by its inhabitants with offers of rooms. We bartered hard and got them down from $15 to $10 dollar but then they decided they had no double rooms left. Un put off we decided to head into town and see what else we could find. An hour of searching showed the going rate seemed to be about $15 dollars per night. After seeing a few rooms we've settled on the Hoa Binh Hotel, its has the cleanest room we've had in a while and definately the softest beds so were pretty happy. Theres also a pool which we might check out later, its pretty much in the lobby though which seems a little odd!

We took a wonder into town and Hoi An really reminds us of Luang Prabang, these streets are quieter (padestrianised in places). Much less hassle and generally seems a lot more laid back than a lot of Vietnam has seemed. Now the main attraction of this place is Tailors, this means every other shop is offering you a cheap suit or dress. We were hungry so headed into town for some food, we stopped at a promising looking place offering beers for 5000 Dong. We had all the local specialities White Rose ( Shrimp in Rice Parcels), Wontons (Crispy fried packets of something) and some Cao Lau which is a special kind of noodle dish. It was really tasty and quite resfreshing to have something other then the usual noodle soup!

We tried to take a wonder round the town but the lack of moving air just made it feel too hot. We grabbed some fruit shakes at a nice cafe and chilled out for bit before deciding to go take a siesta.

Hoi An is beautiful at night time, they light the waterfront up with chinese lanterns and have these floating animals on the river in the middle of town which represent the different years, year of the cat, dragon etc. Women sell little floating candles as well, although we've never seen that many of them on the water. Also we've just noticed that a lot of the street signs seem to be playing music which is pretty nice when your wondering around old town. Charlie rekons she heard one playing a lounge piano version of Lion King. Restaurants here seem to have discovered Happy Hour, they all seem to offer a glass of beer for 4,000 Dong, which is good for us! We had a cod fish hot pot at a restaurant on the waterfront and tried their interpretation of Wontons. Very tasty and washed down by a few beers. We rounded the night off wondering around the waterfront and had a couple of disapointing ice creams at a place, full of ice crystals and not the tastiest.

Next day we were keen to do a bit of shopping, we'd been saving our spending for Hoi An since we knew we could get a lot of things here. We took a wander round to try figure out where the best shops for what were. It all became a bit to much though and we ended up spending most of the morning having awesome Vietnamese coffees and reading our books in a place in the padestrianised old town. We then decided it was time to start getting some sovieners. We've enjoyed the locals coffees so much that we decided that we should invest in some for when we get home so we picked up two coffee filters and some grounds for enjoying when we get home. Next stop Charlie got drawn into a tailors shop by a green dress on a model outside, and a ridiculous puppy that wouldn't leave her alone. He was soooooooo cute! Going for rides on my flipflop, then following me into the changing room and curling up in my shorts. He then decided i wasnt allowed to put my top on, as we wouldnt let go of it! Cheeky thing! Then he moved on to harassing Tom and things turned sour as he ripped a hole in Tom's favie shirt...

Having left the puppy behind we found another shop that had a few beach clothes things that Charlie wanted to pick up. I ended up striking a deal with the woman there and she is going to copy my favourite shirt for me so I can have two on this trip! Fingers crossed it works out ok.

We took a break from the shopping so took lunch at the same place as yesterday. Charlie then get lured into another tailors and spent a while trying on various full length dresses. Unfortunately they didn't have the colors Charlie wanted so it was a non starter.

That evening Tom managed to find a place to finally download the photos of his dead camera so that Ha Long bay photos are now up. The camera itself is in the interesting position where everything seems to work apart from the screen and data download. Pretty much making it useless!

We had dinner at an awesome street food place right on the waterfront. We both had the local speciality of Cao Lau although Tom had two servings as he was still hungry, at 40 pence a bowl you can't go too wrong though! We rounded off the night with a few happy hour beers and then a dodgey Mojito which Charlie liked for its lack of ice but Tom didn't.

Next day we decided to hit the beach! We rented bikes from across the road from the hotel (1 dollar each :-)) and rolled the 5km down the road to the beach. It was a pretty good day for it with only a few clouds in the sky and fairly warm. We both agreed this beach was the best we had ever been on. Crystal clear water, golden sand and best of all zero screaming kids! It was amazing and we chilled out there for the day until Tom got prickly heat in his legs and it was time to head back for a cool shower.

That evening was a our last night in Hoi An, Tom picked up a shirt he had ordered the day before and was pretty stoked with the results. We weren't feeling all that hungry so went to get a small meal. Ended up getting badly ripped off at a restaurant that charged for earth for tiny grilled fish. Feeling cheated we went in search of desert and found the most amazing bakery. Charlie had a chocolate moouse cake, that wouldn't have been out of place in a pattiserie in Paris, and Tom had a brownie, they were both fantastic and super cheap.

The next day neither of us were feeling too hot so we took it easy in the morning and only ventured out for some food mid afternoon. Had lunch in another little bakery and then went back to the hotel for the sleeping bus to Nha Trang.