Hoi An

We had a leisurely morning today, with Paul and Louise spending time by the pool, my Paul was on the beach and I was on our patio blogging and reading.  I could see Paul from where our bungalow and he was sun-bathing for a while, then going into the sea for a swim.  He's a very confident swimmer and never seems to tire at all.  I could hear the lifeguard blowing his whistle like crazy.  Apparently, it was for my husband!  He'd swam too far out for the lifeguards liking and he was gesturing at him to come back to shore - you can't take him anywhere without him getting into trouble!!
After lunch, we took the hotel shuttle bus and went to the neighbouring town of Hoi An (means Peaceful Meeting Place).  

Hoi An is an ancient town and has taken advantage of it's location on the South China Sea to be renowned as a main trading port dating from the 15th century.  It is registered as a World Heritage site because of it's history and architecture.  It is certainly one of the more peaceful towns and cars are banned from the town centre.  The scooters were also conspicuous by their absence and must be banned between certain hours, they couldn't be seen or heard until later in the evening.
Hoi An is also renowned for it's silk crafts and tailors.  Apparently, you can show a design of any dress or suit to a tailor and they will produce a made to measure replica ready for you to collect the following day.  This also applies to shoes and handbags.  The tailors had some different designs on display at the front of the shop and then reams of material for you to choose from inside.  We had a look around a couple of the places, but decided that the quality of the finished article would probably be a bit suspect!  We were also concerned as to whether the suits would be sewn by under-age girls.

The shoe shops were really strange.  There were rows upon rows of shoes and sandals, but they were all old and worn.  Apparently, you could pick and design and they would make them in any colour you wanted.  Although we had spoken to a guy at the hotel who had a pair made in Hanoi, only for a buckle fall off and the sole start to peel away!  Needless to say, we didn't bother with shoes either.

I'm not sure if there was something auspicious about the date whilst we were there, but we saw four bride and grooms!  They just seemed to be wandering around the town with their official photographer having their pictures taken.  We managed to get pictures of a couple of them as they were posing.

It suddenly started to rain, so we dodged into a wine bar/restaurant and spent a very pleasant hour with a bottle of a wine and a few beers watching the world go by!  

We found it a bit strange that the street traders were allowed into the restaurant to sell their wares.  Mostly fruit and nuts, but also the "Del Boy" of Hoi An selling umberellas and ponchos!
Hoi An also has a complicated river system of many kilometers, which services the town and the neighbouring villages.  There were rows upon rows of boats trying to tempt the tourists on river trips.  

But we were quite fascinated by what appeared to be an improvised fishing system.  Whilst we were looking at the boats and the bridge, four larges poles appeared out of the water at the corners of a quadrangle.  The base of the poles stayed in the water, and there was a corner of a net attached to the top of each pole.  A large net was then fully raised out of the water.  It probably measured about 20 feet long at each side.  I'm not sure how effective it was though, there were no fish in the net when it was raised!

We then called into a traditional tea/coffee shop, which was run as a charity by speech and hearing impaired staff.  The serving girls were lovely!  The tea and coffee was served in traditional china and the whole experience was quite humbling.

After tea, we carried on sight-seeing, including an impressive Chinese Cantonese temple.

and a Japanese covered bridge, which is quite unique, because it is the only one which is covered and has a pagoda at the side.

  We had our evening meal in the town, it looked like quite a nice place, but was perhaps the Wetherspoons of Hoi An!
The highlight was the cutest little Vietnamese boy selling little aeroplanes.  We just gave him some money for being so cute, but didn't take any planes.  We are so gullible!