Hoi An

Hoi An is one of the must-see cities of Vietnam. There is old french colonial architecture, delicious local food specialties, several blocks of walking only streets, and a lively night life. Hoi An is also world famous for its tailors and the city is swimming in clothes shops. Many people we met in Hoi An were vacationing there just to have clothes custom made for pennies on the dollar. A nice suit might cost between $40 and $70. Anything you can think up they will make with any sort of material, just show them a magazine photo or give them your favorite outfit, come back the next morning and like magic they will have the exact replica of what you wanted.

Not that we were clothes shopping though, we dont have any more room in our backpacks. We spent our time in Hoi An exploring the culinary delights of the city and taking day trips out to some nearby cultural sites. We spent one day at Marble Mountains, which are exactly as their name suggests. Large hills made of marble, riddled with caves and sprinkled with temples and pagodas and stunning viewpoints. On our way out we couldnt resist buying a souvenier from the lady who watched our motorbike while we were hiking around. We bought two small lions made of jade marble, with intricate hand carving details.

The view from the highest peak was breathtaking. And Erika's karate kid impression is pretty good too.

Several statues were carved straight from the marbles walls of the caves.

Looking toward the beach from halfway up the mountain.

Another side-trip we took while in Hoi An was to the Cham ruins of My Son. Pretty interesting, but not on the scale of Angkor Wat. And the place was crawling with tourists. We ditched our tour group as soon as the bus stopped, walked in to the ruins on our own, toured the entire area (rather than just one of 4 sites our group went to), and made it back to the bus before our tour group.

Overgrown ruins dotted the landscape, only a handful were well looked after.

Statue of Empress Erika

A quiet path far from the tour groups.