Silk lanterns a red bridge and a pig

Am loving the midday checkouts in the hotels in Vietnam as it gives us the opportunity to spend a bit more time in each location before having to move on.

Today Kevin spent the morning heading of on a wander on his own, only to get lost. He could not remember the name of our hotel but luckily with the help of a kind person in another hotel and the hotel keycard, they were able to determine where he was staying. I'm the end he was only 500 meters, as the crow flies, from our hotel. He thoroughly enjoyed his swim in the rooftop pool on his safe return.

A pre-organized private driver picked us up from the hotel and wishing an hour and a half we arrived at our new destination of Hoi An.

Zen Hoi An Villa

As we drive into a new city or town we keep remarking 'I like the vibe here'. After only being in large city's it was definitely nice to be in a place with very little height rise buildings and then of course as we started to look around the old town we just fell in love with the many ocre yellow colour buildings. Curiousity got me wondering why these buildings have this colour. Google tells me that yellow is as locally it symbolizes good luck, royalty, pride and prosperity. As we wander through the streets we have also noticed yellow flowers used in their Buddhist shrine offerings.

Hoi An during the day verses the night has a totally different vibe to it as the riverbank comes aglow with lanterns. It's just like a magical land with reflections of light on the river and the many lantern boats ferrying groups of people around.

The area was also extremely touristy, actually very over the top, a bit cheesy which is not our style of travel but at times you have to give in to the 'tourist trap' hype and accept it. This is so far the only place that we've found the sellers pushy but we just politely, with a smile say 'no thank you'. We also had our worst, overpriced, shitiest meal hear also. Overpriced and underwhelming were words I used in the google review I gave them.

Earlier in the day we accidentally came across the historic Japanese bridge which was build in the 17th century. The entrances to the bridge are guarded by weathered statues: a pair of monkeys on one side, a pair of dogs on the other. Personally the dogs were my favourite.

Just remembered I forgot to mention the pig.

This was no suckling pig! Nothing like roasting you pig on the foot path of one of the main roads in Hoi An. Kev was fanging to carve off a slice for himself but alas it wasn't to be so.

Today was a pretty big day and tomorrow is another big one in Hoi An.

Thanks for reading.

tạm biệt

(Goodbye)

Donna & Kev.