Hoi An is the place in Vietnam that nobody seems to miss on there journey up or down the country. Pleasant scenery, nice weather and ridiculous amounts of shopping opportunities. There are only three types of business in Hoi An: guest houses, clothing shops and restaurants, it took us about an hour to find a cheap room.
After dropping our bags in the room we decided since the weather was amazing, that we should rent bikes and head to the nearby beach as quickly as possible. Despite the one-geared junkers that we rented, the 5km ride was still done with relative haste (with me the most eager to finally get to lie on a beach). The beach near Hoi An is beautiful, but this time of year the waves are pretty big, and there weren't too many people venturing any further than into knee-deep water.
After realising that our peaceful afternoon at the beach would be anything but peaceful (see dozens of women trying to sell us anything from a pedicure to a bobble head bulldog) I decided I might spend the afternoon in the water. I left Yann to deal with the old ladies.
It turns out swimming (or wading) in really rough waters isn't really alot of fun. I lasted about 5 minutes. When I returned to find Yann lying in the sun, it wasn't long before I realised that I was sitting in a soggy bathing suit full, and I mean full, of sand. Everytime I moved not only did it feel like I was rubbing sandpaper across my ass, but the old ladies thought I might be expressing my desire to purchase tiger balm or a nail clipper.
The five kilometers back to Hoi An feels much longer when you are sitting in a wet bikini bottom full of sand. After returning our "all-day rental bikes" (no you do not get money back if you last less than an hour), and having a shower, we had now spent a precious two hours of our three days in Hoi An. So what's next? Shopping and eating.
2 comments:
Was Hoi An insanely overrun with tourists when you guys were there? We were there about a week ago and lasted less than 24 hours - it was a total circus! We joked that there were more tourists than locals, in the downtown anyway, and everywhere we went we saw tourists, every street, every alley - like being in Thailand (possibly worse?)! Hotels were more expensive than other cities, but for some reason the central market food stalls are really cheap - unfortunately everything we ate there was pretty bland. You would not be proud of us - we paid 15k dong for a doughnut! Can you believe it? We knew it was a total rip off (we paid 5k in Saigon with no bargaining), right in the main old town area, and I wanted to refuse, but Arif said he really felt like a dougnut, and since he so rarely asks for stuff (and 15k dong is less than a dollar), I could not refuse him. For the record, it was a terrible, terrible dougnut - we threw it out after a few bites. Bleurg!
Just re-read your best-food post - one thing I did not mention, what we thought (especially me) was the best part of our Hoi An visit - the Cau Lau - loved it! Had it three times in 24 hours. Tried to order it in Da Nang when we were there after, but the places that advertised it never had it available. Also tried the white roses, they were mediocre to us, but we ordered them at the central market where everything else we ordered was also blah, so it could be due to that.
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