Day 153. Hoi An, Vietnam. Yer history.

After 2 days of doing diddly on the beach we were craving a culture fix, so took a self-guided tour of Hoi An's historical sites.

One of the reasons we love this town is because it's so magnificently manageable. Even the old stuff comes in philistine-friendly bite sized chunks. So once you've visited a couple of Mandarin temples and strolled around a pagoda or two, you just know there'll be somewhere serving cold beer within 20 metres to help you digest what you've seen.

Tempted to write and complain to Lonely Planet after they recommended the Ceramics museum though. Normally we're partial to a nice pot (God knows, we've photographed enough of the buggers since coming away),

but with so many displays of broken crockery, this place looked more like a Greek wedding reception than a museum. Not good at all.

Far more impressive is the 250 year old covered Japanese bridge. We've been across 3 or 4 times since arriving and it's great. What's odd however, is that on each occasion there's always been at least 30 Japanese tourists milling about. They add a certain authenticity to the spectacle I suppose, but you never see them anywhere else in town. They've travelled all this way just to hang out and take pictures of somewhere that reminds them of home.

Very strange behaviour.

Right, we're off for some beans on toast and a nice cup of tea now. Hopefully I'll catch the Premiership results and we'll bump into some Brit's who'll tell us what the weather's like in London.