Twenty-eight Day - Hoi An 11/29/10

Sumner

Today after breakfast we met our guide to go on a bike ride. We went through the country side of Hoi An and passed lots of rice fields and just got to enjoy the country side. Then we got onto a boat with our bikes (I was surprised that they could actually fit) and went to an Island. We biked through the country side there and I almost had a wreck! This is what happened I was riding and some cows were running in the field then they suddenly bolted out right in front of me! It looked like a mama and a baby playing tag!

Then we went back to the mainland. We asked if we could go to get dad’s suit so we went back to the shop and he tried it on and they told him to come back later so that they could make some adjustments. After that we went to a restaurant that served meals that the owner remembered having as a kid. It was also the first restaurant in Hoi An to have an English menu. The sort was that some tourists came and signed to the lady that they wanted reservations for dinner. She usually didn’t serve dinner but she did anyway. She asked the tourists to wright down what the food was called in English so that was how the first English menu in Hoi An was born. Lunch was good and then we walked back to the hotel. On the way we checked on mom’s jeans and then kept on going. I am going to take you on a tour of the hotel. There were two gates one big and one small (the one on the right was the small one). I will go in through the big one. As soon as you get through the gate you are in some beautiful gardens. To your left they are doing some construction but to your right are beautiful gardens. If you take the path to the right you would be facing reception/office/internet cafe. Walk a little further and turn right you are at the little gate. Turn left and go past reception and to your right is the bike rental area. Go up the step and you are right in front of our room (I’ll give you a tour of that in a second. If you then turn left you are facing the eating area and if you go down the step and turn right you are looking at the family’s house. Oh I forgot to tell you that the name of the place is Betel Gardens and that it is run by a family. Behind the eating area were some more rooms. That’s about all so now I will tell you about dinner. Tonight’s dinner was very special because we ate with the family that owned Betel Gardens. It was a special dinner for guests that are staying for three or more nights. We are staying for three nights so we were invited allong with some people that we met at breakfast from the states and a couple from Eourope. Allong with one of the employees and one of the women in the family (the entire family lived there, cousins, aunts, uncles, kids). We think that the employee got to come because he had good English. More fo the family was going to come but one of them was sick and one was doing something else. The sister of the woman was the cook and she made very good dishes. The first thing that we had was an apitizer of fried spring rools with pork and shrimp. Then we had a bannna flower salad. After that we had a main dish of fried noddles with meat and seafood. After that we had a desert. We were worried that we would have to eat that taro soup but instead it was fruit. The Vietnamese don’t like to have things that are shugar sweet, instead they like to have freash fruit. The entire meal was delicious! Then we chatted for a while until about time for bed and the party was dispersed. We had such a good time (and good food). After we got readdy for bed we went to bed (probably the best thing to do).