Hoi An

We left a rainy Hue at 8am on Saturday and after a 4 hour bus drive arrived in sunny Hoi An. We weren't quite sure we were in the right place, as there didn't seem to be much around the bus stop. Luckily it was only a 5 minute walk into the town before it livened up. We liked Hoi An after just a few minutes wandering around. The main bit of the town is right on a river and although it's not all that pretty, the buildings are beautiful and there's a really nice vibe here. On the first night we walked down all the streets and past the shops with all sorts of pretty, interesting things. The only annoying thing is that you don't feel like you can look at anything, because if you look the people think you want to buy something and then hassle you. It's so hard to be firm without being rude... Colin ignores them, I acknowledge them and politely say no, but then they only hassle me more and eventually I get annoyed from having things stuffed in my face and the people grabbing my arms to keep me at their shop. That evening we wanted to walk along the front of the river and find a nice restaurant, but the tide was so high that the road was flooded right up to the restaurants. We walked as far as we could before we had to go through the kitchen of one the restaurants and we decided to eat here. We sat right at the front, facing the river and had the water by our feet, it was lovely. The town was buzzing with music playing and people performing and singing and there were candle lanterns floating down the river. We ordered the Cau Lao, a local speciality, to share, but enjoyed it so much that we ordered a second.
Hoi An is the place to have tailormade clothes, so the next day we went to be fitted for suits. They took our measurements and asked me how long I would want my jacket. Colin was annoyed that I didn't use the obvious punchline. After this as it was such a nice day we hired some bikes and cycled to the beach. The water was glorious, warm and had nice waves. We spent a few hours just swimming and sunbathing on the beach (although Colin sat in the shade). We came back in the evening for dinner and to have our first fitting and our suits were beginning to take shape.
Woke up this morning to rain, but by the time we went to pick up our suits it had stopped. We are very pleased with the suits, the quality is great and the tailored clothes look really nice. We've spent the rest of the day just walking around, it's such a nice town to wander through.
We leave Hoi An this afternoon on yet another overnight bus to Nha Trang.