South of Hue, and even further south of Da Nang is the quaint and ancient town of Hoi An. It's the furthest south we traveled in Vietnam on this trip - except for that one jaunt to My Son. Hoi An has these very old dark all-wood houses, some very ornately decorated with wooden filigree 'gingerbread' trim and inlays with gilt embellishment done in the southern chinese style. Fortunately Hoi An was generally spared from excessive bombing by the US, unlike some of the other locations we saw - like the devestation of the 3rd -7th century Cham temples at My Son. Hoi An seems to be filled with (and famous for) the scores of tailoring shops. Brigades of seamstresses! All my girls made masses of clothes (at some of the countless tailoring shops, obviously geared for the tourists) and with a turnaround time that's a joke - I had some linen drawstring slacks made in an hour!. I could not resist, but I also picked up 3 absolutely wonderful stone pieces (they're on the way to me and should be here mid August - several hundred kilos each) - I think they're spectacular. There's one on the demon god Ravana, King of Lanka (of ten heads and twenty hands), another of a dancing apsara in the Gandharva style, and one of Garuda - who is the winged mount of the god Vishnu (hindu mythology goes onto describing Garuda as being so large that he can blot out the sun - funny, but I can do the same with my open palm).
We stayed at one of the nicer hotels on this leg of the trip. We decided to give the kids (and ourselves) a bit of a treat. The Ancient House, despite that improbable name was a bit of luxury and R&R after almost 2 weeks of rough travel. Next on to Ha Long Bay.
