Hoi An, Vietnam

The journey down the coast up the Hai Van pass is possibly one of the most beautiful coach journeys I've ever been on. Out of the right windown the rolling green fields roll up to peaking hills to the Laos border and on the left the sparkling blue coast winds as far as the eye can see. It leaves you uncertain which way to look! Top Gear described the journey (and road) as one of their all-time favourites.

The train would be equally as nice I'm sure

We checked into the only remaining hotel in Hoi An, the Dai Long ($15 for an a/c double) for the first night, as it was a public holiday and swarms of Vietnamese descended on the town!  It's a picture postcard shopping mecca. You can have anything you want, handmade, in a day. Hundreds and hundreds of shops line the streets offering to put something together for you from your description, a picture, website or from their own catalogues. It's not really my scene, this shopping thing. Ask anyone that knows me! It's not that I dislike shopping, more that I have no idea what to buy so get fed up. There's one person who really helps me, to the point of me giving her my credit card and her choosing £500 worth of goods, which get delivered to my door (no, it's not my mother). I was thinking about buying a suit here but I've lost 10kg since I started travelling, and a fitting now would be inaccurate when I get home and pile that western fat back on. Talitha had some cute leather shoes made almost identical to a picture on a website. They certainly look well made (they're still going strong one month later) so I feel I should give props to the makers;

Shopping aside there's not much else to do. There's eating and drinking of course and Hoi An has many beautiful restaurants set in French colonial buildings but they don't financially benefit the long-term budget traveller, so we eat in the tasty cheap set meal joints (with bia hoi for 4000dong!). At night the town is beautifully lit up with lanterns hanging everywhere, on the bridge, the river, draped amongst the flowers on the colonial buildings and up the high street. It's not so much a backpacking destination, it's more for couples and families, but it's worth a stop even if only for one night.  

We hire four motorbikes. They are key here, giving you the freedom to visit one of the many beaches up the coast. We avoid the town beach and have a quick swim at An Bang. We then decide to find some even quieter beaches further north but all of the land north of the open beaches in Hoi An has been bought by foreign million dollar resorts, although they don't seem to have built anything yet, or started to build something but didn't finish. We find one derelict looking building around 8km north of Hoi An and wheelspin the motorbikes over the sand for a closer look. Steve, a friend of Emily, heads in first when a security guard, with gun, appears from nowhere. Time to leave. Even further north security men sit in little huts on the roadside sadly preventing us getting to these beaches. In the end we give up and head back to Hoi An. Shame that someone, looking for a little quiet beach, can't just turn up and have a swim, or bathe for an hour on this beautiful coastline. 

The next day Talitha stays back to write her blog so me and Kylie share a bike and Steve and Emily share a bike. We scoot off and get lost around some back roads, then head north on the main road to Da Nang. About 10km up the road Steve's bike gets a puncture, right outside a "garage" (some guys house!). He repairs it quick-time and we're off again.

Mr. Fix it

We're approached by a seemingly innocent lady on a moped, telling us that we're near the marble mountains and we can park in her shop if we like. With no beaches about, and having read about the marble mountains, we follow her and park in her shop which sells a million marble carvings from the tiniest Buddha to the biggest horse statue (complete with realistic penis) which are all ship-able to your home country. We get a ticket and head past a stupid plastic penguin bin (wtf?) up the stairs to the top of the tourist mountain where there is a rock temple and some ancient carvings of Buddha in caves with various sharp and slippery rocks to clamber on (and thorn trees to put your hands on) to get to the summit, for some fantastic views.

Back down and collecting the bikes we of course had to "just look" in the ladies shop. Despite the  impressive array of marble goods I don't purchase anything as it adds quite a bit of weight to the long-term travellers backpack, and I already have various Buddha souvenirs.

The ride home in the afternoon sunshine was irresponsible bliss with clear fast stretches of road and whooping overtaking, fast accelerating, cornering and braking (occasionally delivering Kylie's breasts into my upper back) then cruising into the town to return the bikes, have a quick shower then straight on the night bus to Na Trang (shudder!)