Hoi An- Yes there are Lanterns everywhere!

Lucy and I arrived in Danang and were picked up from the train and taken to our homestay in Hoi An. We were pleasantly surprised by how clean the house was and how big our room was. We had two double beds each! It was very late so we went to bed after discussing Lucy's need to buy lots of tailored clothes.

The next day I came down to breakfast only to discover Lucy arguing with the woman about breakfast. We had paid for breakfast but apparently that did not include drinks. We could not understand this and after arguing our point of "breakfast included" we ended up just having a pancake and going out for coffee. Not before the woman's sister tried to take us to her family's shop to buy clothes. After a firm no, we walked along the narrow winding streets

until we arrived at the tailor Lucy had picked to get her clothes made. She was a lovely lady named Helen and I got caught up in the moment and had a jumpsuit and maxi dress made for me. She had tonnes of fabrics and designs and we were in there about 2 hours. It was fine though cause we discovered there wasn't a whole lot to do other than wander around in Hoi An.


After our clothes fitting we wandered round the markets and shops which sold the same stuff over and over again and had locals pestering you to come in and try their "one of a kind" items. We had a look for a teapot for Lucy's friend and had some fun haggling along the way.

We stopped off and ate lunch overlooking the water which was very pretty with boats rowing up and down with tourists.

Then we were forced into buying a ticket to look round the centre of town!!! Apparently tourists need to buy tickets to preserve the historic old town but we could only choose 5 things to see.

So we saw the Japanese covered bridge

an assembly hall

and a temple on the first day.

We then had a lovely vietnamese coffee (which is the best coffee) and some dinner and headed back to our homestay while looking at the lovely lanterns in the dark.

The next day we went to pick up our new clothes. We needed more fittings done so we had to come back later.

We then went to use up the rest of our ticket with more temples.

Afterwords we walked through a market selling lots of fruit and veg and meat (which had flies all over it)

Then we finally picked up our new clothes. I really liked my jumpsuit but not my maxi dress. I don't think the material I picked was fitting of a maxi dress. Lucy's coat and dresses were lovely though.

We then went back to our homestay as we had an early flight to Hanoi tomorrow.

I liked Hanoi and it was very pretty with the lanterns. However, it was very touristy and lots of locals harassing you and paying to see the historical town was a bit of a rip off!