Hoi An, The Town

Even though the weather let us down, the food, historic sites and people did not let us down! We spent our second day in Hoi An exploring the Old Town Historic area. During the 16th through 19th century Hoi An was an important international seaports. Today Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and remained fairly unharmed from the Vietnam War.

We walked around the city and the river for the day and enjoyed the sites and shopping of this charming little town. Here are a few pictures of our walking tour.





We loved all the dogs in Vietnam, they were so stylish sporting their t-shirts!



Gemma is trying to grow her fringe out. I love her new look!

Hoi An was full of great restaurants, but we kept coming back to the Cargo Club. They had amazing desserts and they of course all had the great French flair to them! I think I had dessert at this place every day while we were in Hoi An.

This was the only semi-sunny day we had our entire trip! You can see us squinting for the camera!

We were in Hoi An during Tet Festival which is there lunar new year, the biggest holiday of the year for the Vietnamese. Here are some boys getting their dragon ready for a parade.

Hoi An, The Beach

The beach that was right outside the door of our room.

We arrived in Hoi An and we were expecting warm weather compared to the unseasonably cold weather of Hanoi. Unfortunately the cold weather seemed to be following us and we didn't find the sun. In our wildest dreams we would have never thought that it would be cold in Vietnam. We just kept thinking tropical and tropical it was not!



Gemma right outside our bedroom getting ready to hit the beach.



Our room, which was so spacious and perfect for a family of 4. Mom and Dad even got their own bedroom!



This kids didn't let the cold weather get in their way of frolicking on the beach and in the water!

We are still here!

I just thought I would post really quickly to say that hopefully I will catch up with my blog soon before we take off again on another adventure. I also wanted to let everyone know that you may have been seeing Chengdu on the news quite a bit lately with the recent developments in China. Things are relatively normal here in Chengdu, but we are a bit anxious being so close to our neighbors to the West and not being able to access our normal online channels of information.

One night in Hanoi

Before we left on our trip to Halong Bay I had booked tickets for the Water Puppet Theater for the evening we returned. I read a little about the Water Puppets and thought the kids would really enjoy the show. The Water Puppets are actually puppets that perform in water. If you are interested in the history of water puppetry in Vietnam check out this link.

We were pleasantly surprised by the music and the show. It was a combination of traditional Vietnamese singing and instrument pieces along with a spectacular wooden puppet show in the water. We took some pictures, but it was quite dark and our camera didn't really cut it.





The puppeteers

After the show we headed to a lovely little French cafe for dinner. Jonny and the kids waiting for their food. Angus is now obsessed with Tiger beer! I wonder why???

We were all very tired from our trip to Halong Bay and the Water Puppets. Plus we had to do a little shopping in the morning before we headed to the airport to go south in search for the sun in Hoi An.