We started off by waking up to another day in the beautiful town of Hoi An. With a nice buffet breakfast, we were all ready to start off our day venturing around Hoi An on bicycles – which we found is how many people travel in Hoi An. Although leaving the city was no easy feat, we soon entered the rural area’s of Hoi An. As we were riding our bikes down to the beach we observed all the different landscapes that we wouldn’t see back in Melbourne. We all noticed the wet pavements and affected areas remaining from the flooding that occurred last week due to the typhoon. We also saw the rice paddy fields which were home to many cows that made our bike paths quite difficult with those massive moving obstacles in the way! Our tour guide also informed us how the fresh produce in Hoi An is important because of the chemical free produce that is being grown. On our way to the beach we saw many developing sites and the true and ‘un-touristy’ Hoi An. We passed through villages with no English tourist signs and homelike temples. This way we knew we were in the truly authentic side of the city.
Once we arrived to the beach we sat down and enjoyed our ice cream whilst looking at the sights. We found that the beach water was similar to Bali’s water; strong, murky and with very heavy surf. The beach was unsupervised which showed how different the two countries of Vietnam and Australia view beach safety rules. After the bike ride, our day finally started to slow down. We had spare time to go shopping and have lunch. We all split up into different groups and wandered back into the main streets of Hoi An – this time seeing it during a week day. We all did some shopping before we went to the tailors. As soon as we got to the tailors we tried on our clothes for a second fitting and as a pleasant surprise for most of us, they fit perfectly! Our group was amazed at how fast the tailors made our new clothes in the space of 24 hours.
We all then went off to lunch and most of us ended up eating back to our western food because we have had so much Vietnamese food, and decided to try some Pizza’s to have a better appreciation of the Vietnamese food here. After a well deserved lunch we proceeded to finish our final shopping of straw bags, imitation shirts and banana hats (You’ll know them when we bring them back!). When we got back to meet at the hotel, all of us ran back up to the rooms for a cooling dip in the pool. The water was definitely what we needed after a hot, sunny day. After we all had nice warm showers we headed out to a custom silver jewellery shop were many people got custom jewellery ranging from rings, bracelets and necklaces. After that we headed out for a nice dinner at the Banana Leaf Restaurant which included a wonderful view of the riverside and the traditional Hoi An Longboats. Another great day in the city of Hoi An!
Cam C-A and Romane R
Ps Happy Birthday Rachel! Lots of Love. – Eva and Romane