Hoi An

After Saigon, we took an overnight train up to Danang, with the intention of reaching Hoi An. When booking the train tickets, based on recommendations we opted for the "Soft Sleeper" which was the most expensive ticket. Each room has 4 beds in it. Perhaps because both of us had taken overnight trains in Europe, we were a bit jaded. When we boarded the train and found our room, we immediately noticed some small cockroaches climbing on the walls near the beds. We were both on the top bunks, so we climbed up there to find some smelly, stained pieces of foam. There was a pillow, a flat sheet, and a blanket, but upon opening them, there were many long black hairs inside. During the trip, we discovered that they do not clean the sheets between each use, but just fold them up for the next rider...

Once we reached Danang, we got a taxi to Hoi An, which is central Vietnam, on the coast. Hoi An is the place in Vietnam to get tailored clothes for cheap. The small city has hundreds of tailoring shops, which seems to be it's main economy. Gerald got a 3-piece tailored suit, the design of which was selected from one of the many catalogs that the tailoring shops have. Flora didn't find any designs in the magazines that she liked, so she did some research on the internet. After finding a coat that she liked, she printed the picture and took it to the tailor, who made it in about 1 day, including fittings!

There is a lot of ancient architecture in Hoi An.

This is a cool looking restaurant/cafe/bar. You may notice that most of the buildings in Vietnam are tall and very narrow.

Bridge with many silk lanterns.

While waiting for our garments to be made, we rented some bikes went for a ride. Unfortunately, since most Asian people are shorter, it's extremely hard to find a bike that's big enough.

Here, we stopped along our ride to take a picture on a bridge.

Our bike ride paid off as we arrived at this nice beach. We went back there the next day too, and spent most of the day there.

Specialite culinaire de Hoi An, servi dans un restaurant "Ba le Well" qui se trouve au recoin d'une ruelle. Malgres la coupure de courant au milieu du repas, on s'est regale!

Here are some specialties of Hoi An. We found that the food was really good there, probably the best we had in all of Vietnam!