Hola, Hoi An and Hue

We left Sa Pa glad we had been able to catch a glimpse of the Vietnam we had always pictured in our heads. Instead of catching the train back, we opted for a VIP bus, and were quite surprised to find that instead of seats, it was full of two storeys of semi-reclined beds. Now, the average Vietnamese person is slightly shorter than me, so these weren’t quite long enough for me, but we managed to get comfortable, and watch the valleys fall away behind us as we rolled downhill again.

We were back in Hanoi (for the third time, if you can’t keep up - I don’t blame you), and glad to have a night to chill out before travelling onwards, south again. I know people will scoff, but travelling is quite knackering! Not the sitting-by-the-pool bits, or the enjoying-tasty-food bits, but in the arranging transport, remembering the conditions of your visa and what the exchange rate is bits, all along with keeping an eye out for further shoe-related scams. So, pity us and our great ordeals.

The next day, we flew down to Da Nang, in the middle of the country. From there, it was a short taxi ride to Hoi An, another part of Vietnam that we were particularly excited about. We were staying in a lovely place just a short way out of town, called the Golden Rice Villa, overlooking the rice paddies and home to some very welcoming hosts. After making use of the pool to cool down by a few dozen degrees, we wandered in to town for our first night...

Hoi An is laid back and gorgeous, oozing with history and just a short distance from some promising beaches. It used to be a bustling trade town, and as such has taken influence from many surrounding cultures. The buildings are beautiful old warehouses which have been reimagined as tailors, tea houses, shops and restaurants. A huge part of the Old Town is pedestrianised a lot of the time too, which really added to our enjoyment of it - being able to let your guard down a little and not having to be prepared to lunge out of the way of a motorbike at any given moment allows a lot of pleasure to be found in ambling about.

And, saving the best for last, the place is famous for being decorated with hundreds or thousands of pretty lanterns, scattered around between buildings like bioluminescent bunting. I spent a long time trying to capture just how pretty it all was, but still feel that my pictures can’t do it justice. I’m sorely tempted to cheat a little, and use Google Images instead of my own.

We spent a couple of days exploring the Old Town by bike, seeing such treats as the Japanese Covered Bridge (complete with mini-temple at the halfway point), and a quite impressive merchant house. But our favourite aspect about the place was just wandering around and drinking in the atmosphere.

That night we were invited to a party! It was hosted by the owner of our hotel (Van), and she had invited all guests to come along to encourage us to mingle. A big part of it was that this place had only been open for a couple of months, and they were excited to start seeing good numbers of guests staying, after the first intrepid explorers had left glowing (and deserved) reviews. We ate tasty local food (including deep-fried wontons, a new favourite of Zoe’s), had tasty local beer, and had fun getting to know some of our fellow guests. Here, we got some good tips for future travels in Laos and beyond, and also re-learned the lesson that, no matter how long you’re travelling for, there will always, ALWAYS be someone who can say, “oh, that’s lovely! We’re travelling for four times that long”. It’s the way of the world - there’s always a bigger fish.

On our third day, we took ourselves on a nice cycle through the paddies to the nearby beach (An Bang, if you’re curious). There’s not much to say here, except that somehow, after travelling for over a month at this point, this was our first beach! We had a pleasant day shade-bathing, and I even managed to entice Zoe into the water, after she had performed a thorough visual patdown on the water to convince herself that she wasn’t under threat from a million jellyfish. We had a good swim!

Stoic cow, admiring the views

Zoe met a nice dog, and wants me to record it for posterity's sake.

In the end, we stayed in Hoi An for 6 nights, instead of the 3 we had originally booked. We were really happy with the place, and happy to stay a little longer somewhere after feeling like we had rushed a little around the country so far.

On day 5, we took ourselves on another pretty cycle, and had another day of worshipping the shade at the beach. It was, and no doubt remains, very nice.

Look, just LOOK at how hard travelling is!

We made friends with Stoic Cow!

For our final full day in Hoi An, we had treated ourselves a little, to a cooking course! It came highly recommended, and we were very keen to be able to bring back some tasty recipes for our friends and families. We were collected, along with 10 other tourists, given embarrassing hats, and taken to the morning market to find our ingredients!

This was a nice opportunity to see some of the everyday lives of locals. The markets were packed with stalls selling all sorts of fresh and tasty goods, and divided up into sections - rice, fruit and veg, and the ‘wet market’, where seafood and other meat were sold.

The wet market was surprisingly eventful - for some reason, the sight of a zillion carcasses in various states of undress, combined with the heat of the morning sun, led to not one, but two of our group to faint in the street. Oops! I scurried over to offer what assistance I could, and achieved little except for knocking over a mushroom display and encouraging the girls to drink water. Thank goodness for med school!

After that bout of excitement, they were taken off to a nearby cafe to recouperate, and we pressed on into the wet market. Zoe, in particular, pressed on ahead of all of us (including our guide), and was lost in her own little world following another group of tourists in embarrassing hats. After shouting a gentle enquiry at her, she snapped back and joined back in (a good job, otherwise I might have had to rename this blog).

To cover the rest of the day briefly, it was a lot of fun. Each of the 12 of us had chosen a different recipe to learn, and our instructor talked us through them. Some of our group had gone for particularly adventurous dishes (stuffed squid? Beef bone stew?), but me and Zoe went for stuff we felt would be more realistic - chilli and lemongrass chicken stir-fry for me, and BBQ pork with satay sauce for Zoe).

Everyone spent a while preparing their dishes, then one at a time we were brought in front of the group to cook it. Once the applause had died down, each dish was shared amongst us, which yes, meant another 12 course meal. It was gorgeous, and everybody was rightly proud of themselves. Once finished, we were gifted recipe books, then rolled ourselves home, happy and stuffed, unlike our friend the squid, who was not so happy about his stuffing.

The next day, we boarded the train, to Hue, a city nearby, and thus still pretty central in the country. This had previously been the capital of Vietnam, and was pretty much the front line during a lot of the American war. Our train journey was pretty, hugging the coast and giving us lush views of the coast. And, as was becoming alarmingly normal by now, it was punctuated by someone else fainting. After that slight kefuffle, were in Hue!

We stayed there for two nights, before we were due to fly to Laos. It was a nice place, and on our full day we went to explore the old citadel, which was still very impressive, even though a lot of it had been flattened by bombing during the war. They are gradually rebuilding, but I really liked the contrast offered between delicate architecture, and overgrown ruins.

After a hot day of exploring, it was time to say goodbye to Vietnam, and make a move for Laos!