Good evening, from a thunder and lightening storm - riddled Hoi An. A few minutes ago I told Ricky to get out of the pool since it was pretty much the worse possible place to be during this weather. However, the place itself - Hoi An - is pretty much the best place we could've come to right now. As you might've gathered from posts, Ha Noi was pretty stressful, owing to the fact that our days consisted of a lot of effortful schlepping around, while the city's traffic, people, crumbling pavements, and typhoon weather, all did their best to stand in our way. So Hoi An is a welcome antidote to all of that. Faded, gentle, languid, easy-going, friendly; these are all adjectives that spring to mind. Another UNESCO world heritage site, I believe, which explains why, like Luang Prabang, it is incredibly well-maintained and tidy, and all of the shops/restaurants etc have standardised signage. Very neat. I think it'd be a good honeymoon town, you could have lovely slow strolls through the old town or by the harbour. Just lovely!
We started with lunch, which was at a nice place called Streets - I was reading about it from newspaper clippings they had on display, and essentially it's similar to Jamie Oliver's "15" in Hoxton - that is, it's run by a generous benefactor (a New Yorker who was struck by the poverty he encountered on a visit to Saigon and who decided to set up a charitable organisation to do something about it), and employs disadvantaged youths, sets them up with jobs and skills, and gets them on a path to a better life that would've otherwise been out of their grasp. Oh and the food is delicious and reasonably-priced: I had my favourite food so far, some summer rolls with lots of fennel, prawns (massive prawns!!) and sweet chilli dipping sauce, and this was followed by a local noodle speciality. And the service is great. We then came to this hotel on recommendation from some backpackers in Ha Noi, and have found ourselves with an astonishingly good package for $13, including the aforementioned pool, plus FOUR HOURS of happy hour a night. A cursory meander round the town (there's no other way to get about really, everything is so relaxed!) has shown lots of tailors and clothes shops, plus souvenirs, restaurants, bars, and some very pretty museums and temples/pagodas. We've booked onto a cookery course for tomorrow, which I am very excited about - plus it's called the Red Bridge restaurant :D it includes a trip to a local market, a 25-min cruise to their restaurant and recipes etc to take home. And suddenly there's the rain - wow that is incredibly heavy! Maybe we'll eat at the hotel tonight...
So, last night.. The water puppet show was actually really enjoyable - the music was stunning and the show itself was cute, apparently the style of puppetry is of provincial origin, and came about during a time of flooding - very pragmatic! The traditional Vietnamese instruments and costumes of the orchestra/singers were gorgeous, too. And the train was fine - we shared a little room with four Vietnamese people who were pleasant but essentially ignored us, in the most pleasant way possible.
We're planning to stay here for another day or so, and then get a train to Saigon. I'm expecting Saigon to be stressful too, but I don't want to not see it so we'll maybe book into a slightly nicer hotel, or take an organised tour. Plus the food is apparently incredible there, so it'd be silly not to include it on my gastronomic pilgrimage. Speaking of which, I bought the coolest t-shirt ever, it's a parody of iPod stuff and says "iPho" with four cartoon squares underneath showing silouhettes of a bowl, cow, noodles and chopsticks. I think it was essentially made for me, and buying it has gratified me more than probably any material possession should =D
Lots of love/pho,
Louise xxx
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