Nha Trang and Hoi An

We've stepped up the pace again, after our week spent lazing in the sun. We left for Nha Trang, a large seaside resort, on Saturday afternoon. We had pretty much decided to skip straight through Nha Trang as its principal attractions are beach-related, and we think we've had about enough of that. Ignoring all the sales pressure to take a boat trip around the outlying islands (lovely, I'm sure but just not our thing at the moment) we arranged to stay for one night and get a long bus out to Hoi An the next morning. After waiting for the bus for half an hour, we were told it was cancelled so we ended up with a day in the town after all. We spent it watching TV and going to the Oceanographic Institute where we found many specimens of life from our seas; live, half rotten, dried and pickled, including a pickled manatee (sea cow) and some falling-apart dead seals. Interesting.
So we ended up on the overnight bus to Hoi An; fine for me as I slept all the way - again - and once again Andy spent the whole night painfully awake.
Hoi An is a beautiful little town by the river and the Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site, with beautiful old Chinese style merchants houses and pagodas. For a small fee you can wander in and out of temples, pagodas, private houses and assembly halls, and also see some traditional music in action (which we missed today because it was too hot and we just couldn't be bothered, even in the name of research for the blog, sorry). The reason for this afternoon's malaise was that we were up at the crack of dawn (well, 7) to go to My Son on a guided tour. Its another Unesco site; Hindu temples built by the Cham people (look it up...) between the 6th and 14th centuries. The bits that are still standing were very interesting and the whole site is nestled in amazing forest scenery with misty hills in the distance. Unfortunately parts of it were bombed by the US in the war as the Viet Cong were using it as a hideout. Seems incredible that something that has been preserved for centuries can be lost as recently as 1970 for such a futile reason... Andy dutifully listened to our guide drone on whilst I sought shelter in the shade, so apologies if my temple knowledge is a bit sketchy! Can you tell we're all templed out?
Of perhaps more interest to me is the local food, which is reknowned in Vietnam. Among the specialities are "white rose", a steamed dumpling stuffed with shrimp, Cao Lao which is pork noodle soup, and wonton. We've been stuffing ourselves since we got here, and well done the French for leaving a legacy of decent drinkable red wine!
Our big achievement today is to get ourselves sorted out with the next leg of our trip. We leave Hanoi by air on the 8th for Bangkok. We're not flying to Kuala Lumpur until the 10th and we're not keen on an extra day in Bangkok (spent too much time there already and the kids with new tattoos and corn rows make me want to commit hari-kiri) but unfortunately our visas expire on the 8th so it can't be helped. We are going to pretend we're not in Bangkok by staying in a nice hotel by the airport and spending the whole day in the gym (Andy obviously, not me...) pool (me) and spa (me).