Wednesday 12th March 2008

Although her bed was one of the most unco- mfortable on the entire bus, and she had some random guy sleeping in a hamock next to her for most of the journey, Nikki managed to fall asleep at about 8pm last night and slept almost the whole night through. We made a couple of stops, but we didn't bother getting off - we just lay where we were. We woke up just as we arrived in Hoi An, at just after 6.30am and no sooner had we stumbled from the bus - still wiping the sleep from our eyes - were we bundled onto the back of two motorbikes, which had been sent to collect us. I didn't have a clue what was going on and i'd only just collected my bag when Nikki and her rider shot off! Our hotel is actually pretty nice. It's located in the ancient part of town and is period looking. It has a nice pool and free breakfast - although they made us pay for our food this morning. We hung about in the reception and then checked into our room at just after 8am.

Hoi An looks like a really cool place, with some pretty historic looking architecture and it is absolutely PACKED with tailors - but, unlike Bangkok, most of them are geared towards women... Nikki was well happy! We found one tailor that seemed to have some quality stuff and Nikki bartered her little heart out to get her dress made. I don't know how she managed it, but we also came out having ordered a coat each (not that we need it, it's seems to be getting hotter every day now). With all that sorted we went for a nice walk and ended up exploring for hours! The staff told us that the beach was only about 15 minutes away and so, late this afternoon, we decided to check it out... almost an hour later we'd arrived. Granted, it was a nice beach and it was pretty big - but 15 minutes... is she having a laugh? We were way too lazy to walk back so we jumped on the back of two motorbikes instead - even they took about 10 minutes!

We got back to our hotel area and went into the tailors so that we could have fittings for our coats. Amazingly, Nikki's dress was finished too - and she LOOKED GORGEOUS! The tailors had done a really good job and I think Niks was really happy. A few minor adjustments were needed so we gave them back and went for some food and cheap beer.

Aww Nikki - not ANOTHER dress shop!