Day 5 Saturday 28th March, Goodbye Hanoi, Hello Hoi An

Rob has made a speedy recovery and is nearly back to normal….although he hasn’t had a beer yet! Just a funny story from last night which happened to Trevor, the man from Mackay who I have previously mentioned in the blog. Trevor visited the markets with us but decided he wanted to look around for a bit longer. He decided the easiest way to get back to the hotel after his walk was to take a rickshaw. He told the driver, the name of the hotel not realising that there were 3 hotels with that name. The driver took him to the wrong one and while the driver was inside the hotel getting directions for the correct hotel, a pretty young woman approached Trevor sitting in the rickshaw, asking him if he would like a massage with extras. Trevor could not believe it and could not stop laughing when he told us the story. (He did decline the young lady’s offer and said that nothing like that had ever happened to him before!)  Our morning started with our guide meeting us at the hotel and taking us on a wonderful walk through the historical streets of Hanoi including the historical Old Quarter, where I was in raptures over the architecture. We also walked around the beautiful lake, visited a temple, saw the Hanoi Flag Tower built in 1805, and saw numerous statues. Our walk took us along the narrow streets over-flowing with cafes, food markets and people just cooking on the street. We watched women cutting up meat on tables, out in the open ready to sell. Following our walk, we went for a rickshaw ride around the streets to experience more of the area including Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. The rickshaw ride was quite the exciting experience considering the absolutely crazy traffic here. Our ride finished near the famous Hanoi train street where a huge train runs down a tiny street every day at certain times. Our guide had organised for us to have food, coffee and seats right up close and personal. I was actually so close I had to swish my knees around to the side to make sure I was safe. We then hopped back on our coach and were driven to the airport to catch a plane to the Da Nang. This was an easy flight of only one hour. Arriving in Da Nang, we met our new guide, a lovely lady called Lien. It took about an hour to drive to our next hotel, located in Hoi An. Traffic and general way of life in Da Nang and Hoi An seems to be not quite as crazy as in Hanoi. The roads and infrastructure are better and the area of Hoi An is a beautiful holiday destination. We are staying in a magnificent hotel with exceptional facilities and have three nights here. We’ve just returned from another exceptional dinner, spread over two restaurants, followed by a beautiful boat ride on the river to release floating paper lanterns. The boats looked so pretty, decorated with colourful lights and lanterns. Our guide had organised all this as an extra activity and the tuk-tuks, meal and lantern boat ride cost each of us $35. We thought it was exceptional value. My only issue was that there was too much food and I just couldn’t do it justice. (Rob is completely back to normal and now drinking beer and making up for lost time. J)


















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