Another rainy day ☔️. Actually this whole middle section of Vietnam will be wet for the next week. The optional activity for this afternoon is a bike ride, seeing rice paddies, and 2 boat rides so it will be interesting to see how the weather pans out.

First it’s a 4 hour bus ride to Hoi An. Due to the weather we had to skip the Hai Van Pass, “the most famous road in Vietnam” for safety reasons but we wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway.

We arrived in Hoi An a little before noon, dropped our bags at the hotel then took some electric shuttles to a famous Báhn Mì restaurant. Báhn Mì is a Vietnamese sandwich on a crispy baguette with tons of fillings; the specialty of the house had pork, chicken, BBQ pork, ham, egg, egg sauce, green papaya, and I can’t remember what else but it was delicious.

Then we had a little orientation walk through town, which is famous for its shopping – especially custom tailored clothing. It’s also called the City of Lanterns….

At 2:30pm we set off for our afternoon activity – some on bicycles, others in the electric cart. First was through rice paddies and fish farms to visit to an organic farm….

Then to a home to sample some homemade rice wine….

Then to take a spin in round “coconut” boats…

And finally a sail back to Hoi An in a lantern boat…..

An optional dinner was scheduled for 8pm but I was full from the snacks at the coconut boat place so I demurred and stayed in. An almost free day tomorrow so a chance to sleep in… 😴