Hoi An: Where Old meets New.

Here is a note to budget travelers: don't go to Hoi An! Actually this town, 30mins from DaNang, is a very beautiful place to spend a few days...if you can resist the 300-500 tailor shops for a protracted period. Just to clarify, I hate shopping as a rule and detest the buying of material goods that serve little purpose (and actually detract from personal growth) and even I survived only two hours before being talked in to commissioning a pair of calf-length red leather boots (with some insisting from my travel partner and the shop assistant). Don't misunderstand, shoes and clothes are cheaply made here and it is fun to walk past the hundreds of colourful coats and dresses – but if you buy one thing you will inevitably want another and so on. The quality depends on what you want to pay and whether you know the difference between 'italian cotton' and the regular kind. In my experience (I won't relate what exactly I bought because my mother reads this), a shirt will cost anywhere between $10 and $15 and jackets (wool, cotton, trench, cashmere – it doesn't matter) are typically $40 and do not go lower than $36.

So, the town itself is the only place in Vietnam that was not hit by a single bomb in the war. Thus the old quarter is replete with ancient and beautiful houses that are paired nicely with cobbled streets, and there is often classical music playing in the streets at night. Hoi An is also a city of lights. There is a school of disabled people that are responsible for making the various intracite lanterns that adorn every awning (and are sold in many shops) and at night the river that runs through Hoi An is a mass of these lights in every kind of colour. Eating dinner from a rooftop overlooking this river is a pleasure.

One day (while waiting for our clothes to be finished), we rented a scooter and headed up towards DaNang and the marble mountains. The marble mountains are composed of 5 seperate peaks representing the 5 elements (fire, wood, water, air and earth). The 154 steps up make for a decent view of nearby China Beach and there are some rather sombre caves you can explore. If you can block out the tourist chatter and just sit for a while in the shade of the Buddhist statues, you can actually enjoy the marble mountains. The local town is famous for their marble sculptures (previously made from the same marble as the mountains, but now imported from China as they realised they were running out!) and driving through streets lined with these massive 8 foot stone structures is also truly impressive. I also had my first experience putting my feet in the south China sea, and it was cold!

Fully appreciative of how nice it is to be in such a beautiful town as Hoi An and with our clothes ready, Dave and I next headed out on a sleeper bus (12hrs) to Nha Trang with a view to end up at the French colonial town of DaLat.