A few trips

Monday, February 05, 2018
Hội An, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam
Went down Tam Ky road again to see the new Vinpearl extravaganza of the sort of bad taste that loads of money can buy. About 15kms out of Hoi An and just past the Hoi An south building site this new explosion of hotels units a theme park and a golfcourse is aimed at luring the rich to this area. Vinpearl have other similar sites around VN the most successful of which is the one at Nha Trang which has a constant supply of Russians who fly direct from Moscow to Nha Trang. The Goverment here is on an all out tourist drive with new hotels sprining up from the sand like mushrooms. They are busy making a diversion road from the Da Nang road through the rice fields to meet the Cua Dai bridge and on to the casino at Hoi An south and the Vinpearl setup. You will see from the photos how soulless it looks now, high walls and fences and everything a bland shade of grey or off white.The faux sailing ships are a feature and I was told they would contain among other things a swimming pool. Someone told me today that next year 38,000 beds would become available from the new hotel building frenzy. What this means for prices I don't know but there is an oversupply already and prices must surely fall.
After the prison tour a few days ago I went to the Hoi An museum with sister and bro-in-law as I wanted to see the painting I had seen years ago of the prison being liberated in 1967. There were also many hand drawn maps made by the Viet Cong of key installations in Hoi An that were to be attacked in the 1968 Tet offensive. A number of surrounding villages were hot beds of VC activity althoug there was no fighting in Hoi An itself. Both sides had a tacit agreement not to destroy the town. Pity they didn't have the same agreement in Hue. 
Today we went to Salt resto near An Bang beach for lunch and then walked to Trams new in-laws house a couple of hundred yards away. Very simple house and very hospitable welcoming people. Father got out a box and carefully opened it and produced a bottle of Ballantines whisky with which we drank many toasts. Even though I told Tram we had just eaten, more food came out, lovely cakes, Nem a spiced pork sausage, slices of dragonfruit, and other sweets. Its very difficult to say no to Vietnamese hospitality so we did our best to fill our overfull bellies.
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