Hoi An & An Bang

We boarded the bikes once again this morning to see the city and play Vietnamese Traffic Roulette. Tara abandoned her green Air Force F16 bike from yesterday for a comfy seat on the back of my rig. Our fist biking experience in Hoi An had the kids riding on racks while they sat on some folded up pants for cushion. This time we got the luxury edition with the sweet rack seat.  

We also began to dabble in the art of riding into incoming traffic, I think understand the logic now. When turning left, when you see a gap in the traffic coming at you take it, then run up the left side of the street until you get to your turn. Better to be in a head on, then a broadside collision. We did see our first near miss between two scooters today, they actually clinked bikes together. We saw this from the vantage point of our bikes, just feet away.

We saw a few more things in Hoi An such as an old Japanese covered bridge which was underwhelming. Many of the shops had blooming flowers in the eaves and that created a very nice canopy for a stroll after we parked the bikes. I also liked this lanterned street.

Hoi An is famous for it's many tailors who can make just about anything and we dropped an order off on our first day in town. We were not desiring, nor could we carry, custom suits and dresses in our backpacks so we chose to have some pants, shorts and a shirt created based off of some items we left with them. Picking clothing fabric is a bit like picking a wall color from a paint chip. We did get to see yards of the fabric but that was not entirely helpful either. Here are the girls picking out some of their finishing touches, buttons in this image.

We saw a reminder today of the material blessing that we Westerners take for granted. A women picked a half eaten watermelon rind from the garbage, brushed it off and ate it.

We checked out of our hotel at 1:00 and headed 4km NE to a house on An Bang Beach. Patti knows how to find some neat places and this is no exception. The kids were instantly taken with the functional and elegant bug nets over their beds. Speaking of bugs there have been very few bugs thus far in our trip and we are praying that it will stay that way.  

After we dropped our packs in the house we threw on the suits and partook in the kids favorite activity, swimming in the ocean. While it is warm by our standards, it is still a little cool for the foreign folks that visit the beaches of Vietnam. That said, the already virtually private beach was deserted.

We buried Tara and Riley in a deep sand hole which they enjoyed until Tara started shrieking that something was biting her. So we stared to dig and she was pushing sand off of her onto Riley who sat in the opposing direction. Things got out of hand to the point where they were so desperate to get out that Ms. Riley Hyde threw sand into Tara's face and mouth, adding insult to Tara's injury.  She was actually bitten by something deep in the sand and has the red welt to prove it.

This house is very interesting as you can really open it up to the outdoors, yet still maintain some privacy.  A good 30% of all the walls in this house were windows or full length glass doors that opened to let the cool, yup I said cool, ocean breeze in.  This also allows you to hear the hustle and bustle of what is a working fishing village on the outside while you are lounging on the inside.

We had dinner overlooking the beach for $13.

Tara had to go to the tank and point out the crabs that she wanted on her plate and Riley tagged along to see what was going on. When the crabs arrived Riley started putting it together, "Wait, so they boil the crabs to death?" It is kind of gruesome when you think about it.

Tonight the food delivery pattern was the same that we have experienced in our Asian travels. It seems to come out as it is ready, there is no coordinated timing to deliver the food all at once. There does however seem to be a conspiracy to always serve Riley last, which happened once again this meal, poor Riley.

It was a foggy day that cleared into the evening and as the daylight departed you began to see all of the fishing boat lights appear already catching tomorrow's meals.

It is now 8:45pm and I think we just heard the last pass of the moped powered mobile food lady. I have seen, mostly heard, this person in all of the cities we have visited. There is a public address system mounted to the moped and it blares out what sounds like this "Buni Choc Buni". As far as I can tell, they are selling food, but I could be wrong. It must be government controlled otherwise everyone would be blaring their own P.A. System.

O.K. Maybe it's time for some sleep.

Images in the Hoi An album linked at right.