Hoi An owes most of its charm to the fact that the river silted up, so it wasn’t a useful enough port to bother bombing during the war. Nowadays, the various boats and bridges are big tourist draws.
A busy morning at the Hoi An market.
A cloudy day at the beach. This particular spot has a pretty bad reputation for aggressive touts, but there were absolutely none to be found on a blustery day. It was 25 degrees, nice waves, so we jumped on in, much to the bemusement of the Chinese tourists who came wandering past, dressed for wintry conditions. Also, on the evidence here, we can confirm Apocalypse Now’s contention that surfing is not a popular sport in Vietnam.
View from our window: Earth Villa Hotel, Hoi An, Vietnam. 11:23 am, 30 November 2013.
Hoi An is famous for its tailor shops. I’m not yet sure whether that’s because they’re good, or simply because there are loads of them (I believe over 500 and they certainly seem to make up around half the total businesses in town, including one with the somewhat controversial name of My Lai). With all that choice, selecting a shop was probably more difficult than the fabric or cut, but we both ended up getting a few pieces from the ladies at A Dong Silk. So we’re now in a position to settle the quality issue.
Hoi An’s streets — a World Heritage Site, and beautifully vibrant, even on a cloudy day.
Da Nang — Vietnam’s fourth-largest city. We were only here for a morning en route to Hoi An, but a stroll around yielded a pretty cathedral, a busy market, a cool suspension bridge tricked up as a dragon (the head breathes fire on big holidays), and very good, very cheap, coffee.
View from our window: Rainbow Hotel, Da Nang, Vietnam. 07:56 am, 28 November 2013.
Angkor Wat. Blimey. Possibly the single most “Thing You Must Do” thing we have indeed done on the trip. And worth just about every minute. Given the flood of tourists here in peak season, it’s somewhat remarkable that there was only one point where we cracked — the top of Bayon is a funnel point that simply cannot handle the dozen or so tour groups cramming into it, and we had to bolt for quieter environs. But that was the exception that proved the rule: the temples around Siem Reap are so huge, and so numerous, that the hordes don’t
Flight eight. Looking forward to a reprieve from the heat.