The overnight bus to Hoi An seemed like a good idea; however, this had to be one of the most uncomfortable ways to sleep/travel. The bed I was assigned wasn't even close to being long enough for me but thankfully there was one empty long bed left so I got to take that, but even then sleeping on a bus that was driving on a twisting road and constantly honking its horn gave way to very little sleep.
Once I arrived in Hoi An though I wandered around the old part of town, a very section of shopfronts and no motorized vehicles on the roads which was a very nice change. The town of Hoi An is famous for its tailoring stores and for any person who loves clothes this place would be a dream. There are so many tailor stores in the old part of town that it's hard to find anything else other than the odd restaurant. The first day was spent just wandering around the old town and going into some of the historical buildings.
Outside of Hoi An there are a few sites that are located within 15km of the town according to the guide book so I planned on renting a bicycle to visit a few of them. When I asked the hotel reception how to get to these places on bike they looked at me like I was crazy and informed me that it was more like 25km to the nearest one, I still didn't think that was too bad so I went ahead with my plans and rode out of town towards the Marble Mountains and China Beach. The cycle trip was fairly pleasent riding through the country and after a while I started to actually feel like a celebrity as every kid that I passed felt the need to say hello to me, and judging by the number of kids that I saw I think that I must have ridden by a couple of schools. The Marble Mountains were fairly spectacular, there were about 5 of these "mountains" jutting up from completely flat plains and aside from these mountains there wasn't any topography anywhere nearby. On top of the largest mountain was a few pagodas and some nice viewpoints so I made the trek up it. Just as I was leaving it started to rain, the effects of the typhoon, so I decided to head back to Hoi An and pass on the beach. During the ride back the rain became quite heavy and needless to say I got soaked, even wearing my raincoat.
The next day the rains continued so the day was spent relaxing around Hoi An and not getting up to very much in terms of tourist activities.
About an hour bus ride from Hoi An is a famous site of Cham ruins called My Son (pronounced Me Son) and on my last day I arranged a tour out to them. The site is a world heritage site and very extensive, there are 7 seperate sites where temples were built (all within a couple hundred meters of one another). The entire site itself had been built over a span of 11 centuries, as a comparison Angkor Wat in Cambodia was constructed in 3 or 4 centuries. However, due to wars only 1 of the sites at My Son remains in decent condition with most of the others only some walls or foundations still exist. The site though is still impressive and set in some beautiful hills (My Son means beautiful hill) and is definately worth the visit.
After Hoi An I took a bus to Danang where I was to spend a day before taking the train to Hue. In Danang there is a well done Cham museum that contains loads of artifacts. The artifacts are mostly parts of temples from around Vietnam that had been partially destroyed. The museum was well set up and there were lots of signs in english explaining the different figures seen, so it was well worth the morning walk through before my train to Hue.
The computer I'm on doesn't have an accessible USB port so I'll upload the pictures for this post the next chance that I get.
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