Dear all
Well the rain that started yesterday was still pouring down when we woke up the following morning. We had all good intentions of hiring bicycles for the day, and although we booked them we ended up taking the free shuttle to the old town so we didn't get drenched before we had actually arrived. The place was pretty much deserted as firstly it was lunchtime and secondly all the roads were impassable to mopeds the only form of motorised transports allowed within the old city walls.
We followed everyone elses example and dived into a restaurant and cheered ourselves up with a naughty western lunch. We have been pretty good at eating local food to date and last night we we had a sublime Hoi An tasting banquet of White Rose - a little delicate steamed dumpling stuffed with shrimp, Hoi An wantons which are similar to most wontons in the world but are laden with a local mango salsa. The local spring rolls were wrapped in a lattice rather than the usual rice papers and finally the most famous dish Cao Lau - flat noodles mixed with a flat crouton, bean sprouts, topped with sliced Pork and served in a savoury broth. Yum...... Any way I digress , whilst we were having a our naughty lunch the rains stopped and the roads began to dry up.
As we emerged in to the street so did everyone else! The shop-keepers sprang to life and suddenly everyone was a tailor vying for your business!! The old town is like stepping back in time to over 150 years ago with narrow streets and ochre washed architecture influenced by all of its passing inhabitants Chinese, Japanese & European. We spent the whole day dodging seamstresses & sampling the local hostelries until we found one that had a happy hour until 11.00pm & all the beer was 33p per bottle. Plus they had a lap-top jammed packed full of music and we spent the evening selecting all the tracks - the other punters must have hated us........Thanks for looking
Sara
0 comments:
Post a Comment