Hoi An

March 27 - 29

Our first day in this delightful little lantern-lit town was spent cooking and shopping!

We went to Gioan's Cooking School to learn all about Vietnamese food. First we were taken to the local market, where we bought veggies and tasted snails! Delish.

Our chosen dishes were beef pho, savoury pancakes, chilli & lemongrass chicken and spring rolls. Everything was incredibly delicious and seemingly easy - though I'm sure it won't be so easy to replicate back home!

Hoi An is famous for its tailor-made clothes and shoes. 

You can get just about anything made in less than 24 hours. Phoebe went in with a picture of a prospective dress and I took an old dress (that is getting a little too well-worn!) hoping to have it remade in a brand new pattern. Success!

Many drinks followed by many bahn mi made for an excellent night out with our hostel crew.

In the morning we took advantage of the hostel's free bike tour. We cycled through town, stopping at many key points. One that I particularly enjoyed was an ancient family home. It was one of the oldest buildings in town and has been occupied by the same family since it was built. A beautiful place.

Going a bit further out of the city, we found ourselves at an Eco-farm surrounded by huge open fields filled with buffalo. 

They even let me have a go at watering the crops.

After a short stop at the beach we cycled back into town.

We ran into forceful fruit-ladies who shoved their fruit at me, asked Phoebe to take a picture and demanded 50k dong (a bit over $3) ..I gave them 20k and scored two oranges!

As lovely as Hoi An is during the day, we discovered that it really comes to life at night! There's street food all along the river front and lanterns lit up absolutely everywhere.

We roamed around for hours, tasting every kind of food available and admiring the colourful lanterns.