15th Feb 2010: Post-Tet, Hoi An, Vietnam

It was officially the New Year in Vietnam and we were heading to the beach. Always a good way to start off a new year. The town was eerily quiet, save for a few tired looking tourists and taxi drivers doing the rounds. We had a quick breakfast in what was possibly the only open cafe in the vicinity, and jumped in a taxi down to the beach which was about a 10 minute drive away.
When we got there, we were amazed at how long, wide and beautiful this stretch of beach was. It´s strange because it isn´t one that people tend to talk about, but I suppose these ones sometimes turn out to be the best. There were some local families having picnics under the coconut trees and also quite a few tourists like us who were making the most of the fantastic weather.
We walked up the beach until we found a quiet spot and the restaurant behind it let us use their towels and lounge chairs for free, only if we promised to eat lunch there. The deal was made and we happily soaked up the sunshine and went swimming in the cool and very clean waters. This was truly a blissful day. Come lunch time we were ready to sample some grilled fish with chips and rice, and all in all again the food was pretty good and also quite cheap, considering we were in a rather touristy area.
We read, swam some more and just relaxed (it´s a hard life) for the rest of the day and around 4 pm decided to head back to our hotel. Unfortunately we couldn´t find any people to share a taxi with us as most people were clever enough to hire bikes from town. Instead I insisted we walk back until we were too tired to walk and THEN get a cab, which Leon agreed to but wasn´t too happy about! At least we managed to walk about half way and then jump into a taxi, thus saving us about 4 US dollars. As they say, every little helps.