A day messing about on the water.
One of the things every one should do when visiting Hoi An is to go on a basket boat to see the coconut village.
Today was the day, we picked up bikes from our hotel and cycled out to the river to experience it for ourselves.
The cycling route to the coconut village took us through idyllic paddy fields in soaring heat, but thankfully the ride was only 15mins and before we knew it we were boarding our craft and putting on our traditional hats.
Our guide was a lovely lady who smiled and laughed throughout our time together. Despite the heat she rowed us along the river singing and chatting away as we made our way through the water to the coconut forest.
The scenery was incredible and unexpected. Both of us were spellbound and loved bobbing along the estuary amongst the other basket boats.
As it was still morning, there weren’t too many others in the water, so we were able to stop and enjoy the coconut village and get a few photos along the way.
The boats are modest in size, around 6ft or so in diameter, and we were encouraged to sit together on one side to enable the boat to tip, to help with the rowing and movement through the water. Seemed odd at first, but these boats are so flat bottomed the chances of turning them over is so very slight….
We were presented with an umbrella, for once not for rain but to protect us from the strength of the sun, such was the heat of the day. We are currently experiencing a heatwave with temperatures exceeding 37c most days.
All the locals are fearful of getting too much sun, so dress like it’s the Baltic with covered jacket sleeves, trousers and socks. You can only imagine how hot they must be under all that!
Our guide was quick to find another paddle and soon got Andy earning his keep with some rowing as we edged towards the coconut farm.
This part of the river remains undeveloped and you get to see the countryside as it’s been for centuries with coconut trees growing right up to the waters edge.
We were keen to grab as many memories of the day by taking as many pictures as we could, encouraged by our guide who had seen it all before and was keen to recommend poses we should put on!
Half way around the route we watched some of the local fisherman perform amazing skills spinning the basket boats round at high speed.
We then got a chance to go fishing for crabs along the bank of the river. The great news is that Michelle with the help of our guide managed to catch one within a few seconds.
More spinning of the boat which made us feel a little queasy just watching it!
We were fortunate to see one of the local fishermen at work casting his net into the water. Such a wonderful sight and so spellbinding to be there to witness it.
After an fantastic time on the water we slowly made our way back up the river, still with the protection of the umbrella, to our starting point, not before trying out our own final little spin around, again encouraged by the lady guide.
After the fun time on the basket boat we cycled back to our hotel on the river.
We then spent an hour or two at the pool chatting to a friendly Canadian guy who has recently moved to the area to live. Seems like Vietnam and in particular Hoi An is becoming an increasingly popular place to retire due to the low cost of living and wonderful lifestyle.
In the late afternoon we headed back into old Hoi An where we had booked dinner at a floating restaurant near the Cau Cam Nam bridge that leads on to Cam Nam island.
We had a short pleasant walk to tonight’s restaurant, the Little Riverside Hoi An where we were treated like royalty with our own table on the roof top. This resulted in cries from people going past on boats shouting congrats (it looked like a place you might make a marriage proposal!).
Part of the evening was spent out on the river, before we retired to land, due to the increasing number of passing boats and the resulting rocking of the boat and our table!
We finished the evening, as we have done others watching the lanterns flicker in the nights sky. Hoi An is truly a special place.
Returning to the hotel we headed to bed around 11pm setting our alarm for 2am to watch the England v Holland semifinal. It was worth waking up for. Brilliant to experience a great English victory and a performance that puts us in the first overseas final. After the celebrations at 4am, we returned to sleep and a late 9.30am alarm before breakfast ends. Until then.
@travellingwiththeateam 