Hoi An - The place where every hour is happy hour.

I'm way behind on the blog posts and most of the reason is that there just isn't time! I thought I better write about my time in Hoi An. I feel like these posts are pretty bland as you have my terrible descriptions of these places and no pictures and it just doesn't give the places justice. I realise that I miss out so many details when trying to write about everything. Like I forgot to mention about the Vietnamese woman who fell asleep on my shoulder on the way back from Ha Long Bay. I have no idea how long she was there, it was probably quite a while as I was asleep too. It's nice to have a new nap buddy though.

We had such a good time in Hoi An, it's a beautiful little town. We got the sleeper bus from Hanoi to Hue and then waited four hours for the bus to Hoi An. Luckily it was only a 3 hour journey so we didn't have to suffer too long on the pleather seats. We had booked to stay in a nice hotel as a treat to ourselves. When we got there they didn't have any rooms so they upgraded us to a "Deluxe Villa". It was just a nice hotel room but it was luxury compared to the dorms and tiny bathrooms we have grown accustomed to.

On the first night we decided to head into town to get a bite to eat and then get an early night. I ended up buying myself a tailor made winter coat. Hoi An is famous for their tailors and there are 300+ shops where you can have something custom made. Our hotel was bit out of town and we got lost on the way home. We were asking a guy for directions who clearly did not understand us. A woman called Lee comes over and gives us directions. She said she would give us a lift on her scooter. We kindly declined and thanked her for her help. She then suggested that we should go to her mum's shop the next day.

We walked for a couple of minutes when it started raining. Lee suddenly pulled up next to us and said she would take us back to our hotel, for free! We decided to accept this time so with both us on the back of her scooter she took us back. She offered to come pick us up the next day to take us to the shop but we said we had no idea when we'll be up. She wrote down the address for us as we thought we might as well go there as we didnt know which of the 300 shops we should go to.

When we were walking around town the next day Lee found us and gave us a lift to the shop where we were shown so many catalogues to see what we might want making. In the end I got a dress and some trousers made. Sarah got herself a dress and a coat.

With most people in Hoi An we seemed to have the same conversation it went something like this.
Vietnamese: Hello happy hour you buy something.
Us: No thanks.
V: Where you from?
U: England. Manchester.
From here it can go one of 3 ways.
V: Option 1: (while holding their hands over their heart) Ahhhh Manchester United! I love!
Option 2: I collect coin. Do you have England coin for me?
Option 3: Do you have boyfriend? (Usually from the women)

On our last full day we rented scooters and went to the beach. Neither me or Sarah had any experience on scooters. I'd been on one once before but that was pretty much going in straight lines. So we put our bmx helmets on went on our way. I can't describe how scared I was when we first set off but after a little bit of riding and navigating tariff I got the hand of it and I loved it. The beach was gorgeous the typical white sand, blue water. There's no better feeling on a hot day than being in the sea! We did manage to get pretty sunburnt that day though!

Hoi An was such an interesting city. We had chances to talk to locals and get to know a bit about their way of life and their dreams. I love this country and I can't believe we only have a couple of days before we leave.