Hoi An

We arrived in Hoi An about noon. A woman told us she could find us a hotel for $5/person, great. Our new friend from New York hopped in with us and off we went...to the one place I looked up on TripAdvisor that had about 80% of the comments in the "Terrible" category. We walked in, and it smelled extremely mildewy; bad start. We see the rooms, and the shower head is broken and the scent of chlorine from the pool reached the room. We left. Our friend was meeting someone at another hotel, so we checked it out, and it was perfect, so all three of us crashed for $5/night (a/c, (extremely) hot water, great service). We stayed for two nights.

Hoi An is a beautiful, quaint, fairly touristy little town that's 30km southeast of Dalat, Vietnam's third largest city. It's on the coast, so it was a mere 5km ride one way and 3km the other ($1/day bike rental) past rivers and rice paddies, a fairly nice way to spend your day. The water was excellent, and weather was warm. It got hot on the third day, but it was still nothing compared to Cambodia, as there were plenty of sea breezes coming in from the east.

So, what was the first thing we wanted to do within 30 min of being in Hoi An? Go to the beach, of course. We rented bikes for $1 (for the day) and rode to the far beach (5km) all the while checking out the custom tailor shops along the way. We crossed the river...

...to get to the beach, and it was a fantastic view with an ocean breeze that I had been missing for sometime. There were plenty of uphill treks, but that just meant that the way back down would be that much more fun (and easy). We ordered amazing food and some shakes that were disappointing, because they weren't cold. The water was cool but felt so refreshing. I've felt so removed from Cambodia since coming here, however, my travel mates and I can't help but compare certain things (like the fact that a lot of the men we have encountered have been very aggressive, even so much to be considered rude [by our standards, at least, even comparing that to Cambodia]). A lot of the food is similar, so it's easy to make comparisons there, however, the food is much more complex here in terms of flavor/ingredients. For example, the pho (noodle soup) is very similar to goydeeyoo (Cambodian version), except that any added spice (hot) in the Cambodian dish is a simple red pepper or a sweet chili sauce whereas they have a spicy-buffalo-wing-like sauce that doesn't just add heat but adds flavor. It's a very welcomed change.

So, that brings me to some of the food we ate:

-Ban vac (or White Rose): small rice flour dumplings with pork inside

-Ban xeo (Ban Chaio in Cambodia): rice flour pancakes filled with beansprouts. You add various herbs (like cilantro and mint) in the "pancake" then wrap it in thin rice flour paper, dip it in a thin sauce, then enjoy.

-Ban Mi: again, a meat/pate/herb/chili sandwich (baguette)

-Ban something??: essentially, Vietnamese nachos (but on wantons)...so good

Clothing:

Hoi an is known for being one of the tailoring capitols of the world. It's its main attraction when it comes to tourism. You can come here and get custom-tailored clothing for cheap (a fitted suit for around $100). I ended up getting a nice black dress shirt and a silk white tie made (I'm in love with the tie). I'll post pictures of them later. Jill got a couple of dresses and a pair of shorts made, and to be honest, while she was getting them refitted, I had wished I had gotten another shirt and a couple of more ties made...another reason to come back to Vietnam. There are clothing shops everywhere. You physically can not go farther than 20 meters without running into a whole bunch of them, hundreds. Some are better than others, I can only assume; I think made a good choice.

Market:

The last day we spent in Hoi An, our goal was to just ride around and get a last go at some local food (after picking up our clothes). We found the market while riding around on bicycles. We found the market pretty easily (right on the river). The food was bountiful and ripe; the tomatoes were enormous. After scouring the fruits and vegetable, we found our home for the next 45 mins: the food stalls. We ate mi quang at the first place, and it was to die for. It was essentially pho but with crunchy wantons, a different type of noodle and a generous portion of boneless (yeah, boneless) chicken. The next stop was more ban xeo, except this time around, these "pancakes" were not sponges of grease (back story: we went to this sit-down food-court of local food [wooden picnic-table-like benches], and ordered ban xeo for a second time. The first time, they were fluffy, but firm and dense [all in a good way]. The second time around, they

were essentially sponges of greases, dripping with what could have been several clogged arteries. Did I eat all of mine? Yes. Did I also eat one of Jill's? Yes. I did that, too. Also, at this place [and in a lot of Vietnam], you can order what's called "fresh beer". It's home brewed and served straight out of a reused bottle [of what, I can't recall]. How much, you ask? 4,000 VND or $0.20. It was pretty good.), they were (did you have to go back and read the first part of the sentence? Yeah, I thought so) thinner and served with dried bananas and a spicy peanut sauce (drool). After this, we both got mixed fruit shakes, both served with dried banana chips, some jelly, and cherries. There were no scoops of durian in these fruit shakes (I kinda like durian, though). All of this cost us a mere $2 each. Vietnam is wonderful for this.

After the market, we got sandwiches made for the bus ride and chilled out until getting to the bus company office before, yet again, being treated poorly before reaching our next ride.

Ban Mi sandwich

Jill sporting one of her new dresses with the designer, Lina

Fruit shake

Market

Eating pho at a nice restaurant

River on the way to the beach

Our guesthouse

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Also, I got my camera fixed in Hoi An for $40. A bit pricey but better than buying a new camera. Yay! It was fixed. I took plenty of pictures for a day and a half, and then, it broke again. If only I had the determination to go back to Hoi An (I'm in Nha Trang, now) and demand my money back.