Shopping fatigue

Well, obviously I'm the only one with shopping fatigue - I have no doubt that Rachel, Yvonne and Caitlin could happily spend another couple of days being fitted up for clothes and shoes!

(Rach has just told me that I'm not the only one with shopping fatigue... she went to try on 2 pairs of custom made shoes yesterday - one was about 4 sizes too big (!!!), and the other pair... well let's just say that the final product didn't quite match the intended design!)

Shoes aside, we're loving Hoi An, which has a much more friendly and relaxed atmosphere than Hanoi or Hue. There are very few street touts, although some of the tailors and shoemakers do their best to round up tourists and drag them off to their shops.

We're staying at the Vinh Hung Resort, and can thoroughly recommend it to anyone travelling through Hoi An. The facilities are great, with comfortable rooms, a nice swimming pool, free boat rides down the river to the main street (takes about 5 mins), good food etc. But most of all, the staff have been fantastic, especially with Caitlin.

Can't remember where I got to in my last post, and for some reason this computer won't let me open it up, but I'll give a quick re-cap:

After Hue, we drove down via the Hai Van pass , through Danang and on to Hoi An. The HaiVan pass is normally a scenic drive through the hills along the coast, but it was very overcast and wet, so we ended up deciding to take the new (2years old) 6km long tunnel instead.

From Hoi An, we took a half-day trip to My Son (Pronounced something like "Me Shern"), which is a spectacular series of ancient Cham ruins - something like Angkor, but on a smaller scale and not as well preserved. Everywhere around this area was hammered during the war. Driving through the countryside here is a bit like driving through North Queensland, only with rice paddies instead of sugarcane, and a few other obvious differences...

They even have gum trees! Apparently they were planted to quickly re-forest some areas which were devastated by Agent Orange.

I have just tried to upload some more photos, but the computer won't play the game, and it takes ages to upload! Will have another try later on.

Steve.