Thursday, our final full day in Hoi An

Hello on this 31 degree (feels like 41 degree) day in Hoi An.

You need to watch it to better understand whats ahead.

Above shows the path we took this morning.

Below shows what Google Maps Timeline service thinks we did.
Even the mighty Google can occasionally produce something so bad it's funny.
If you were drunk, blindfolded AND able to move through walls you would still have trouble following this route.  

Next come the photos along the way .....

Above are buckets of sea snails cooked in oil garlic and chilli.

They reminded me of the snacks we would buy at Sundays soccer match when I was a kid in Italy, but we did not have chilli in ours back then. 

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........ and below are the pics we took


View as we step out onto the road from our hotel

Massive garden field in the middle of Hoi An










The motto for this place is "Life is too shirt"

This is how they get so much done in so short a time when you order clothes.
Can you say - sweatshop?


One of many displays that make you wonder what they hell they are thinking when they make them.





DJ Jessie Thuỷ Tiên was warming up the crowd as we headed home.
She was playing some heavy bass cookie cutter techno, which I liked. 
Here's youtube clip, with a taste of Run DMC running through it.

I think Valentino must be in town as this is his bike, isn't it?


Racy looking electric unit. I like it.

The Aussie family that scooters around Hoi An with toddlers 

increases their chance of dying together.

Here we have a prime example of why you hope that natural selection does indeed work.

So, we have two parents riding around, without helmets on themselves or their ~5yr old daughter, and the little boy wearing a lid that was going to increase his chances of being maimed, if anything.  

Poor kids.
Please note that Hoi An is like big race track, for lots of riders, with other people and riders as obstacles you  try to miss.

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This is a pic of a DVD and bookshop on Le Loi St.

It's not just any illegal cheap DVD seller and bookshop.

This bookshop ripped me off 6 years ago and did it in such a way that I laugh every time I tell the story or think about it .

Let me tell you about it.

As the kids and I wandered around what was a much quieter Hoi An six years ago.

They had a very good selection of books and DVD's, all wrapped and sealed ready for purchase. There was an autobiography of a guy called Howard Marks  - Mr Nice - which I thought would make an interesting read.

I can't remember how much they wanted for it but it was marginally less that I knew it was worth back home so I offered the woman half the asking price. She said no, or words to that affect, which made me happily walk out the door. No love lost.

As the kids and I walked down Le Loi Street I hear  "Mister, mister! OK, for you X (whatever it was that had offered her) dong is OK."

"Fine, deal is done." I thought to myself. I hand over X dong and she hands over a plastic bag ...... yes, with a plastic sealed book in it and takes off like she's just missed the start of a MotoGP.

I casually unwrap the covering of the book to reveal on of shittiest photocopies, of anything, I had ever seen. In defence of the quality, it was readable, but only just.

I laughed then, when it happened, as I laugh now.

To this day I wonder why she took off like she did. The shop she came from was only 20 meters back. I could easily have gone back and demanded my money back, and given that the local hate confrontation and displays of anger they capitulate quite easily.

But, the whole occurrence was worth every dong.

I eventually read the book, with a bit of difficulty, and enjoyed it immensely.   

As there is also a movie made based on the book I thought about asking them if they had a DVD of it available, or maybe not. 

  

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As an aside, we overheard one of the locals telling some Aussies that were sitting behind us for breakfast about how much Hoi An, and Vietnam in general, had changed these past few years.

He spoke of how the Chinese had bought much of Hoi An and how busy it had become wth their tourism. That was brutally evident to us.

He told of how the typhoons over the past few years had washed away their beach and now they had to import, at great cost, sand from further down the coast to rebuild the beach for the tourists to ensure their return. Increasing charges to the tourists are the only way they can pay for this importation of sand.

He spoke of the effect that the dams being built, of which two are now operational, upstream of the Mekong are causing droughts so bad the rice fields are dry and already resembling deserts.

The future for this place is dire and not even the resilient and hardy people that inhabit it are optimistic about it.