One of the things we love to do whilst travelling is interacting with local people, hearing their stories and getting to know their way of life. Sometimes though it can feel hard to break down the barriers of culture, language and suspicion that can prevent us from really getting below the surface of a country or region. Taking a Hoi An Tour was the perfect way to gain access to people and stories...

Hoi An attracts millions of visitors every year to its centuries-old relics, nights that are magically lit up by hand-made lanterns, and gentle activities like cruising on the Hoai River that flows through it. This old town in the central province of Quang Nam is also known for its people's honesty and hospitality. But Hoi An's attractiveness also lies in its vast cuisine with foods that are ch...

The graceful curve of an aging Japanese bridge is nothing short of pure art. Form, function, spiritual significance - people report feelings of peace just from crossing or hanging around the Zen-inspired bridges. Even Monet felt moved to create a masterpiece based upon the Japanese bridge. Without question, the most famous Japanese bridge in Vietnam - if not all of Southeast Asia - is found in ...

In this post, I will discuss the Vietnam War from various perspectives. I will also be showing pictures where battles have taken place. As I mentioned in the first post about Vietnam, please do not read this post, if you feel this will cause any type of ill feeling. Mark and I, as well as the kids, learned a great deal during this tour; I hope all of our readers learn something as well... We ha...

VietNamNet Bridge - Many farmers in Hoi An have earned incomes of nearly VND100 million ($5,000) a year by providing buffaloes to serve tourists. Mr. Le Viet Nhien, a farmer in Cam Chau Ward Recognizing that foreign tourists might have an interest in being "farmers for a day", Mr. Le Viet Nhien, a farmer in Cam Chau Ward, bought 12 buffaloes in 2010. His intention was to use them for both agr...

We'd been meaning to hire bikes since our very first stop in Beijing but had never got round to it, I'm putting that down to fear because let's be honest traffic in Asia is mental and riding a bike amongst this regulars just looks plain scary. Eventually though, nearly two months into our trip we finally rented a couple of bikes in Hoi An, pretty quiet in terms of traffic. We paid a dollar each...

While planning our route through Vietnam one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting was Hoi An. Many travellers we had talked to had absolutely raved about the place. However, our two-week long stay in Hoi An, Vietnam became a love-hate relationship. I found the people to be incredibly grumpy, which is contrary to what we had experienced in other parts of Vietnam. But then there w...