Hoi An

 On Thursday, January 18th, Tom took us on a walk through Hoi An's Old Town.  Hoi An had been a major trading port for centuries, until the early twentieth century.  Now it is a cute tourist town with thousands upon thousands of paper lanterns.  One of the biggest attractions, the Japanese Bridge, was undergoing repairs.  We went into the Cantonese Assembly Hall (a combination temple and meeting place for merchants) andended up on the market, where we were left on our own for a while.  We had coffee at a place with a rooftop view, then visited the house of a merchant family.  We wandered around a little, then had lunch with the group.  In the afternoon, four of us went on an optional trip to the village of Cam Thanh, where we met and talked with a farm woman in her 90s.  Then we got to sit on the back of a water buffalo.  We got onto a boat for a cruise back up the river to Hoi An, stopping on the way to try out riding in one of the round boats used by the locals, with a very enthusiastic woman rowing us around for a few minutes.  As we continued up the river, the sun set, and as we got close to town, we released little paper containers with lit candles, making a wish as we did so.  We docked downtown, which is very lively and colorful at night, then walked through the commercial area to a sort of street food restaurant, where we were shown how to put together rice paper wraps with various contents.  

Mary Joy mentioned that we had a time limit because she and I had a massage scheduled at the hotel at 8:30.  "We can do that here!" they said, and some of the waitresses started massaging people's neck and shoulders while they were eating!  The food was good, and we got back in time for a nice massage.