Hoi An is a very pretty town, and it has a great beach too, making it rather popular with all kinds of tourists in contrast to my previous stop Phong Nah, which was largely adventurous backpackers.
I spent my time in Hoi An hanging out with a Canadian girl Stacie and Breanne and Sarah (also Canadians, see my last post). Also met a dude named Charlie whose from pretty near me back in the UK.
First night DKs hostel (part of the Vietnam backpackers chain) led a bar crawl, which me and the above 3 went on, so that was a good drunken introduction to the city.
However the city is not all smiles as I met a girl who had her money stolen and her arm and leg injured as a motorcycle thief grabbed her bag and then drove with her trying to keep hold, dragging her along the floor. Sad times.
Next 2 nights were spent staying at Under The Coconut Tree out by An Bang beach. It’s a really nice laid back hostel, really nice just to chill out there outside of the city. The beach is nice, the water is pretty powerful so there’s no one really swimming or doing watersports and at night it’s cool to hear the ocean crashing onto the shore and the sand is luminescent in that when you brush/kick it you can see specks of it glowing.
The major thing in Hoi An town is all the tailor shops, you can get dress’s, suits and so forth made or customised for you. Not really my thing but a lot of people were going for it!
Hoi An traditionally was a major international trading hub and you can still see many of the original merchant buildings, though I decided to not go inside them as that requires payment and I wasn’t in the mood.
There is also the ‘Japanese Bridge’ that was built in the Sixteenth Century to link the Japanese community to Chinese community.
The only things really did in Hoi An was wander around the city and suit on the beach, and it felt pretty damn great!
