From the Mekong delta we jumped way up north, to Hoi An, about midway across the country, on the eastern coast.

We first took a 5 hours sleeper bus from Tan Chau back to Saigon, followed by a 19 hours sleeper train from Saigon to Da Nang, and finally an hour by car to Hoi An.

In the train I started my usual hobby of taking pictures through a dirty window! After some cleaning up, they look ok on a phone screen!

Our first guesthouse was in a lovely area between Hoi An and the coast, full of coconut trees along the river. In the Philippines, they were big fans of basketball, but here the local sport is basket boat! They take tourists in big floating baskets that can carry 2 or 3 people, for a ride amongst the coconut trees.

Nearby our guesthouse, I was watching a fisherman, immersed in water and pushing his fishing net along the river. After some time, I see him remove a bunch of branches and other garbage from his net, and finally wave happily a small « fry fish » at me 🙂 He reminded me of myself, sorting my pictures at the end of the day: deleting a whole bunch of garbage only to show a half decent one, very proudly to Mary 😛

Then Leo’s most awaited moment for the past few months had finally arrived : his 11th birthday!

For the occasion, we moved to a fancier hotel so the whole family gets a common gift of not sleeping with cockroaches for a couple of nights! Then we went to a big amusement park nearby, including a water park where we could all enjoy the twirling slides!

In the evening, the hotel had prepared a birthday cake for Leo, and decorated the bed with flowers 💐 ❤️

Hoi An itself is a lovely photogenic little town where tourists get their pictures in front of the yellow walls of the old town. Some of them even rent the traditional costume and a photographer, so I could shamelessly steal some shots from them 🫣

Most guesthouses provide bicycles to get around town, so it was very convenient to visit the area. We took the bikes to go to the old town, to the beach, or to the pottery village where we could get our hands dirty trying to make crooked cups.