Tuesday 15th September, 2026
We checked in without any problems, and the flight left at 10:30am, arriving an hour later in Danang, the 3rd largest city in Vietnam. We were told that it is a resort city relying on mainly tourists from China and South Korea.
There were quite a few resorts along the coast as we drove immediately out of Danang and headed for our stop for the next two nights, Hoi An.
We arrived here around 12:30 and the hotel was able to check us in straight away, which was good to be able to drop our bags in our room and get taken into Hoi An ancient town for an orientation walk. Not really knowing what to expect, it was a very pleasant surprise, the ancient town is preserved 15th - 19th century trading port on the Thu Bon River - which apparently floods regularly every year around Oct / Nov. The architecture is strongly influenced by both Chinese and Japanese cultures, with a 16th century Japanese bridge, and a Chinese Temple just a couple of the highlights.
After our orientation walk we had lunch, and then were introduced to both a glasses shop and a tailoring shop. Both offered 24 hour turn around services for prescription glasses and for tailoring, anything from shirts and blouses to full suits and formal gowns. We both were prepared with our existing optical prescription and ordered some new glasses, Graeme a pair of sunglasses, and Tania a spare pair for having at home. Both were multi-focals, with frames and lens less than $300 each. Pretty good value - let's hope they turn out ok when we pick them up tomorrow.
Tania did spend some time in the tailor shop and after selecting material and settling on a design (not a stock standard one would you believe), the price turned out to be a lot more than Tania could make it for, so she opted not to proceed.
The rest of our tour group had a cooking class booked at 17:00 followed by dinner eating the spoils of their cooking. We opted out again after another day of a large breakfast and lunch.
We continued to explore the old town, shared one banana pancake and one mango pancake cooked up on a street stall and dropped into a coffee lounge for a coffee. The ancient town of Hoi An really comes alive at night with a loud lion dance and many many colourful lanterns lighting up around town and on boats along the river. Quite beautiful !
Caught a Grab taxi back to our hotel at around 20:30.