Hoi An

Saturday, March 7th

Today was our first free day (or "day at leisure") since we arrived in Vietnam a week ago, so we decided to make the best of it and do as little as possible.

After a relatively late breakfast, we walked in to town, did a bit of souvenir shopping, and found a coffee shop with an outlook onto an unusually quiet stretch of the pedestrian only area.

The canal had the usual activity, despite being Saturday - I doubt the Vietnamese distinguish one day from another, except lunar or religious holidays and celebrations (they're probably the same anyway).

We crossed from the old town to the new town to get another perspective on the Japanese bridge.

The absence of hoards of tourists probably means the Chinese tour groups are doing a changeover, the hippies are still asleep, and the grey nomads (by far the largest demographic) are having their second latte for the day.

We had seen this place earlier and marked it as a possible lunch stop - the chicken mayo baguette sandwiches were a very welcome change from noodles. And what else to wash it down than a local beer? (me that is, still too early for Prue)

There are always interesting signs and unusual translations if you look out for them - who know what the Department of Managing and Gathering Swallows Nests actually does?! Given the number of swallows, perhaps that's not a bad translation after all...

We walked back to the hotel, had a swim in the pool, had a rest, and walked back into town for our last visit. Of course, this meant a G&T in a bar we had seen earlier. Unfortunately, while the atmosphere was good, and the drinks acceptable, it appears happy hour didn't make the drinks any cheaper (by Vietnamese standards, of course).

Prue had noticed that some boats have their own Happy Rooms on the back, so I had to take this picture for the blog:

It was still too early to eat, so we returned to our favourite bar for another G&T, this time genuinely "two for the price of one".

Our table overlooked a Chinese tourist family and we were amused with the way they spoiled their children, how they played with their phones the whole time, and the way they interacted with the local hawkers:

Two of the women had coffee served in interesting metal filters which we later realised were very popular:

We had dinner in a restaurant recommended by our earlier guide (called Fai Fo, another ame for Hoi An), but missed out on one of the two balcony tables.

But the food and presentation was excellent.

 

And so to bed.