We docked in Chan May and Frances joined her tour group of 8. It was Richard’s turn to be sick with a bad sore throat.

We headed off in an air conditioned mini van through a paper tree forest, past a few small cemeteries (people can be buried on private land for three years and then moved to the main cemetery). Our guide, Ha Luong gave us an excellent overview of politics including the war and current day politics and about the history of the Vietnamese language. We also learned about social customs today. We were an inquisitive lot and our guide was very willing to explain!

Da Nang is on the other side of the mountains from Chan May and we took a mile-long tunnel to get there. It has a modern seafront with a beautiful long beach and lots of Western hotels and condos. Closer to Hoi An, the scenery was more agricultural and we saw “scarecrows”, plastic bags flapping in the rice paddies, to frighten away the rats, according to our guide!

Our goal was Hoi An, a UNESCO town due to its trading roots is a colourful attractive place with lots of French style buildings in the old quarter.  We started with a visit to a silk factory with a display of the worms and a chance to watch women spinning, weaving and embroidering. And shop, of course!

Lunch was in the courtyard of the town temple - I think it was called Mr Ngai restaurant: 44/16 Phan Chau Trinh St. The lady who cares for the temple is allowed to have her restaurant in order to compensate for her work in the temple. We had local beer (Biere Larue), and two specialty dishes: chicken rice with onions and cilantro and shared a few plates of cao lau, noodles pre-soaked in special Cham well water and lye made from wood ash brought from one of the eight Cham Islands around 10 miles outside of Hoi An.  All for the equivalent of $4USD per person.

Then after a wander through the shopping and port area we visited the market. In the port, we saw more of those large square nets for catching fish. We weren’t there at demo time, though.

Our last stop was the Cham sculpture museum in Da Nang. The sculpture was collected by the French who took the best back to Paris. What is left is very interesting though. The Cham culture thrived in the 14th C or so and was related to Khymer and Indian cultures. So the statues were of Ganesh, the elephant god, etc.