Yesterday should have included a walking tour of Hoi An but we'd run out of time so Huong kindly agreed to come back today and give us a morning tour. Firstly we visited a Chinese Assembly Hall dating back to the 17th century. Here bags of rice were being handed out to the poor as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Many of the poor were elderly and disfigured – probably as a result of the Vietnam War as there had been fierce fighting in this area. It was nice to see them receiving free food.
Next we were taken through an old merchant house on the river. This house floods every year and the owners have to move their furniture up to the first floor each year. There were markings on the walls showing how high up the water came.
Huong then took us to the Japanese covered bridge. The first bridge was built in the 1590s to link the Japanese and Chinese communities on opposite sides of the river. The French flattened the bridge to make it more roadworthy for vehicles but the peaked roof was restored to the bridge in 1986 and the bridge became pedestrianised.
Finally we visited a silk making factory where we saw the trays of silk worms and the spindles. There were lots of lovely handmade pictures and table cloths for sale but we didn't buy anything and again it felt very touristy.
After the morning tour Andy and I took a walk along one bank of the river , over a bridge and back down the other side. We ended up buying two terracotta animal whistles off a really good saleswoman who said she was 15 but she looked much much younger than that.
We then decided to have lunch in a cafe in town in town and found a table looking onto the road which was great for people watching before heading back to the hotel for a bit of relaxing. Our room was on the 2nd floor and whilst we were back we watched a worker shimmy up a coconut tree by our room and cut all the coconuts off the tree. It was amazing how he did this but a bit unnerving as there were no safety harnesses or helmet.
In the evening we'd booked on a Cookery Course. We headed out a bit early and went for a walk through the market and had time for a beer before heading to the course.
There were about 20 of us on the course and we were sat at two tables. The chef demonstrated a couple of dishes and we got to have a go at doing a bit of chopping and rolling of spring rolls but it wasn't quite as hands on as I'd expected. The one good thing was we got to take the recipes away and after the demonstration we were served five dishes – some we'd cooked and some local delicacies. Everyone stayed for the meal and then drifted off so we went for a night time walk along the river again before heading back to the hotel.
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