Hoi An & Internet censorship

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We caught the overnight train to Danang from Nha Trang successfully, even though there were no signs at the station at either end! We knew it should be arriving at 05:23 so made sure that we were up and ready to get off. Chris managed to hear the word 'Danang' in an announcement and luckily we got off in the correct station. We didn't really want to be in Danang, it was the best place to get the train to and then get a mini bus to Hoi An. After a slight wildgoose chase, we found a nice little hotel near to the centre of the old town, had some breakfast and then went upstairs to catch up on the sleep we didn't get on the train.
It rains a lot here!
A lot!
We decided to go for a walk around the old town, there are many old buildings left here as it was largely neglected in the war. There are old assembly halls that the Chinese merchants used plus lots of pagodas and old houses. They are generally in good repair and some had fantstic details on the roofs. We also had a look at he Japanese covered bridge and had a walk along the river. Hoi An has quite a pleasant feel to it, not too many people trying to sell you things, except for the tailors. There are about 200 tailor shops in what is really only a town. They will make you whatever you like, including what ever you fancy from the most recent Next catalogue. If we were coming straight home I might have bought a new bag to fill up but as it is, I'm having a top & trousers made. Going for a fitting in a little while. As with most things in Vietnam it's pretty cheap. My outfit is going to cost 13 pounds. Not too shabby.
Today we have mostly been playing cards as there has been so much rain that the road looks like a river. It's been torrentially raining since we got up and appears to be easing off now so we'll probably go back into the old town this afternoon.
There are quite a lot of local speciality dishes in Hoi An. We're having Cau Lao for lunch, which is like the Pho that you get all over Vietnam but is made with water form a particular well and has less soupy bit and fatter noodles. It's nice!

Apparently Vietnam is a bit more communist than we gave them credit for and they don't like blogging! So we're not going to be able to view our blog for the rest of our time here as far as we can tell. Apparently they monitor the cyber cafes for subversive behaviour etc and several people are in prison for what they've written!
So we'll continue to post to our blog via flickr, but if you've got any comments or questions you'll need to email us rather than comment on the blog.