Hoi An "I Love You"

It is a wonderful place but lord knows why our tour guide kept referring to it as Hoi An I love you, when it is clearly just Hoi An on the map. It was a welcome break after 3 1/2 weeks on the road to check into a very pleasant hotel with a fresh water swimming pool and a view overlooking all of the activity on the street below as well as time to catch up on the chinese laundry for $1 per kilo. This charming retreat is about 25 km south of Da Nang (see locator link) and about 4 km inland from the never ending white sand beaches on the shore of the China Sea.

This charming retreat is a mecca for made to measure silk suits. $95US for a two piece custom fitted perfectly styled, perfectly fitted Moores suit. Jennifer took advantage while we were here, to update her wardrobe. I, on the other hand was bartering with the merchants at the local market for the daily shirt specials as they weren't going to be here tomorrow to offer me that ever elusive deal. Looky, looky, cheap, cheap!

I went for my first run in about 4 weeks and managed to get lost. You know the motto "Don't leave home without it". Well I left the hotel without the business card of the hotel as there was no pocket in my running shorts. I learned the hard way but that's a story for another day.

Bike rental was the order of the day with three separate outings through the rice paddy fields to the beaches. This area is about to explode as a resort destination. The charm of the locals is evidenced by my restaurant video. http://youtu.be/E9ntOTtmpNg and a visit to a lantern store where the mother and daughter taught Jennifer the art of lantern making. They invited us to dinner at their home/store that night but alas we had already made arrangements to meet up with the group to do a sunset boat ride on the Song River. I organized and negotiated the 30,000 Dong per person ($1.50) excursion which lasted about 45 minutes.

We hated to leave, but alas we headed out for the spanking brand new International airport in Da Nang for our 1Hr 10 minute flight to Ho Chi Ming City aka Saigon.