Hoi An - by night

The first night we went to a restaurant that our hotel recommended; it has no menu, just serves everyone the same dish - BBQ pork kebabs, with prawn spring rolls, Vietnamese pancake, salad, herbs and kimchi and you roll the things up in rice paper, dip in a tasty sauce and eat - delicious! We find that we're eating meat with more meals here than we do at home - but the amount of meat served with meals here is much less than at home - which, if you're going to eat meat, is probably the way it should be... As it is the new moon tomorrow, people don't eat meat for 2 days. There were also celebrations for the start of the first month after the lunar new year, with people burning incense and papers and placing fruit and flower offerings in front of their shops - interesting to see.

Last night we spent the evening down by the waterfront and discovered that the town is even more colourful by night than by day, when all the lanterns are lit. We treated ourselves to a mojito cocktail and Solana also had a "cocktail" (aka watermelon juice!). The owners of the restaurant had a little girl a similar age to Solana and the 2 girls enjoyed playing together. Solana was enjoying having a little friend so much that we thought it only polite to stay at the bar longer than intended and avail ourselves of the extremely cheap draught beer (only 18p per glass)! Afterwards, we bought a paper lantern from a little old lady and floated it off down the river - Solana enjoyed watching it float off down the river. We then went to see the night market - lots of lantern and jewellery stalls, before heading back for a sound nights sleep.Read more