Sunday 12 June 2016

The 15 Day trip to Vietnam - The Mandarin Route - Day 5 (late afternoon and evening) - Hoi Han - Visit to the House of Tan Ky; boat ride along the Thu Bon river; shopping; Hoi Han by night - The 22nd of May 2016


Upon getting back to Hoi Han we visited the 18th century tube house of Tan Ky of which I unfortunately haven't one single "decent" photo, as the ones I took of its somber interior, which was particualrly interesting, didn't come out right.


We then headed towards a tour boat anchor just parallel to the main Hoi Han street and rode up and down the Thu Bon river, along which we could see some huge fishing nets, which vaguely reminded me of the ones in the Southern part of India, though I believe the fishing methods are quite different























Kien accompanied us all the way as we walked in and out of shops in the old city centre. I managed to buy some rather unique and exquisite cards that are absolute pieces of Art, as one opens them and intricate paper cut buildings pop up. I have quite a huge collection of similar ones (though not 3D) bought some time ago in Macau and later in Poland.


As far as other souvenirs I decided to leave them for later once I was still keen on having someone look at the camera and Kien had told me he would have it observed by a professional photographer who also repairs cameras once we got to Hue. I bought a memory card with adaptor for the mobile phone though, once I expected to keep on taking photos with it for the time being.


Night fell in a seemingly unexpected way and we just realised ot was late when we saw all the lit up lanterns hanging from the shops and spread along the river banks and river bed. It was quite a memorable moment. Huge traditional lanterns in symbolic shapes such as the turtle, the dragon, the tiger and the phoenix made us think back to what we had learned so far.





























With such an excitement we had almost forgotten about  the tailor-made trying out at the hotel and dinner, both of which we ended up getting into fairly late. It had been quite a tiring day but we were all extremely happy with the new guide who had a friendly characteristic about him that made him more of an expert guiding friend than just a mere "professional" guide.  
























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