Hoi An

We got a night bus from Nha Thrang to Hoi An which was fine and luckily our hotel let us check in at 6am. Hoi An is a lovely town that feels really authentic and the people are so nice and welcoming. It is also probably the tailoring capital of the world as it seems that half the shops here make clothes, we were warned that it gets addictive. By an amazing stroke of luck we arrived just in time to get our orders in before tet (the New Year festival), Orla got a lovely suit and shirt made in about 2 days, pity her dress didn't turn out as expected (a bad design choice)!! Ro got some trousers and shirts made, we both have to say the tailors were really lovely and they are very cheap compared to Thailand but still seem to maintain a high standard.

The food in Vietnam is great, so we decided to give one of the cooking schools in Hoi An a go. They had different dishes for the half-day & full-day classes so we decided to split up so we could get the most out of it. Orla's class covered starters and garnishes (she now knows how to make a rose out of a tomato skin!) and Ro's prepared mains, the classes were great (were both looking forward to trying out some of the dishes in a normal kitchen).

The Tet festival is based on the Lunar calendar and normally falls somewhere between the end of Jan and Mid-Feb. This year "The year of the Rat" began on Feb 7th and we were in Hoi an for the celebrations. After enjoying a few free cocktails in our hotel we headed to town for the festivities, there was a carnival near the river and a really impressive fireworks display. Nearly everything shuts down for a few days after tet and it was really good to see the Vietnamese be able to relax and enjoy there holiday (most people seem to work from 6am-10pm 6/7 days a week) so they defo deserve one. So "Chuc mung nam moi" (Happy new year).

Next stop Hue.....