Hoi An - Day 2

We're slowly starting to recover from our colds, so its time for some walking! The sun is out for the first time this trip, so we are keen to go and explore some other parts of Hoi An beyond the touristy old town. We smash down a breakfast of fried eggs, a baguette, fresh fruit and strong and sweet coffee and off we go.

Short and T-shirt only today, we head across the narrow bridge to the mainland and hang a right down what looks like a relatively main road which heads all the way to the beach.

We don't get too far before we agree its time for more coffee. We park up in a road-side cafe. Like lots of places in Vietnam its fairly makeshift, but done well, making it a nice spot to people watch for a bit as Courts has a salted coffee, which in theory is from Hue, but obviously prevalent across Vietnam. Jeff has a more standard Vietnamese coffee. Both blow our socks off and we are wondering if we are now completely over our colds. Caffeine and sugar are such wonderful drugs, no?

We continue on our journey, as always seeing many little things we've never seen before and getting ever more used to walking on the road and trusting the bikes and trucks behind us.

The scenery changes pretty quickly, starting to feel a bit rural, and then a bit beachy as we near Cua Dai beach. It's pretty quiet today though, being low season and has the depressing feel of a beach resort town that's closed down. Admittedly there are plenty of half-finished and half-dilapidated complexes around. We park up at another low-key cafe and order a c0uple of smoothies before checking out the beach.

There are a few fishermen working and one family recreating on an otherwise desolate beach which stretches all the way to Da Nang. The beach doesn't look inviting. Courts is almost surprised that Jeff isn't going in, but this definitely ain't it. Another reminder of how good we have it in Aus.

Its time for lunch. We flag down a taxi and point him towards old town where we have a place for Cơm gà lined up on recommendation from Vu. We get dropped off at the end of the street and head towards the location only to find that it is under construction. There are plenty of signs up for Cơm gà though (its local to Hoi An), so we randomly choose one next door.

There are a few different ways to have the famous chicken and rice dish. Jeff goes for the roasted version, Courts goes the for more original version which looks kind of poached, like a soy-chicken dish would be like from a Chinese place.

We are both disappointed. Jeff's was roasted within an inch of its life, and going at it with chopsticks didn't prove too fruitful. Courts likewise had a pretty rubbery chicken. So we still have some question marks, but put it down to the quality of the produce.

We head back through the market where Jeff buys a linen shirt ready for party season before heading home to put the feet up at the hotel for a bit. Across the road from the hotel there is another lowkey cafe (noting its mostly residential housing around us) with a bunch of guys playing some sort of board game. Jeff has a snoop, his spidey-senses are tingling. Sure enough, each player has fists full of Dong as they are rolling the dice and moving what look to be race horses. So its some form of gambling game. We thought we heard some uncertainty in Vu's voice and shaky laugh when Jeff was asking him about gambling in Vietnam yesterday and he said "Well.. gambling is illegal in Vietnam...". Where there's a will, there's a way.

Freshened up and time for some more exploration. But first, either a very late lunch or early dinner. We have been doing this a lot in Vietnam, mostly because we always want to eat when we see something good and the portion sizes aren't huge, so it allows for more meals during the day. It's what we're telling our piggy selves anyway. This time we want to try another Hoi An special; Cao lầu which is a fairly simple dish of pork, greens and rice noodles, but the rice noodles have been soaked in lye water, so they are very different to others (chewy is the idea). Its a hit with us. One of the best of the trip. A couple of smallish banh mi and cheap beers to go with it and we are laughing. This is at the same place we went to yesterday since the setup was so good.

We do a big lap of the little island we are staying on, taking a few back roads where we can peek into some houses and see what's going on. It feels very safe and friendly and everyone seems to have their houses wide open all the time, so it doesn't feel too rude to gawk a little bit, to be honest. Jeff even has a quick kick with some kids playing soccer (with what appears to be a buoy) on the street.

Back over the bridge now and into old town again. We have seen most of it so we can relax tonight and just take it in. We head over the garishly dressed-up pedestrian bridge to another small island. This bridge is iconic in a key scene in The Quiet American, so Jeff is keen to see it and is appalled by the tacky yellow plastic they've stuck all over it and lit it up with. We are hoping for Hoi An's sake it just a Tet thing.

We head to a balcony and order a c0uple of beers and look out over the river where the paddle boats lit with lanterns are quietly heading up and down the river. The average-at-best cover band next door is destroying the serenity somewhat, but we aren't exactly classing up the joint, lets be honest; although Jeff is wearing his fresh linen shirt, so...

We head back into the night where its spitting very lightly. Courts convinces Jeff to get a manicure with her and we do. Its fine, although spoiler alert: Jeff may have picked up a nasty toe-infection from their hack-job - stay tuned.

There are a lot of little market food vendors setup now. We grab some crepes (pineapple and nutella, and strawberry and peanut butter and chocolate) and then take the backroads around the edge of the island before finishing back at the bridge for some final photos before meandering home through the lantern-lit streets. Yes, its very touristy, but its a UNESCO world heritage site for a reason, its bloody gorgeous and you feel like you are in another century when you wander the streets - if you can just ignore some of the gaudy souvenir shops.