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There are many restaurants within Hoi An village Vietnam and about 400 shops, and restaurants in total, but as we said earlier, tourism is really quite a new experience to these lovely people and whilst learning English is now compulsory in Vietnamese schools, service staff often struggle to understand and you will need a lot of patience and smiles, although if anything we felt that added to the charm.

Whilst restaurants (and a few wine bars) here find their feet and get used to the market, prices vary to an incredible extent and we experienced examples from US$7.5 (about £5.00 sterling) for a 6 course meal to 3 times that for only one course at the “Mango Room” where the menu is pretentious, quality questionable and hugely overpriced.

Cargo Club (Bach Dang Street), on the other hand offered a really nice range of authentic Vietnamese food, desserts and pastries, where a (huge) chocolate brownie with both vanilla and caramel ice cream came to US$1.5 or about £1.00 sterling and our main course of squid stuffed with pork was beautiful and great value at US$4.5 or about £3.00.

The “White Marble” wine bar (corner of Nguyen Thai Hoc and Le Lo)was nice to relax in and watch the World go by, even if its Pinot Noir cost about US$7.00 a glass or roughly £5.00 so a bit on the expensive side.

Our supper at “Nha Hang Pho Hoai” by comparison was not only disappointing, tasteless and served on cold plates, but service was so slow that people were cancelling their order and leaving – don’t be persuaded by the buzz and nice layout!

The service was polite although regrettably slow also at “Dem Hoi – Festival Night”, just around the corner from our hotel, but we realised that absolutely everything was freshly prepared and so I think I’m going to recommend this small street side, open fronted cafe on Pham Hong Thai Street, where the food was worth the wait and I’m sure (as long as it doesn’t sound I’m patronising them) that they will get better.

At the end of the town where Bach Dang and Nguyen Thai Hoc streets merge (next to the bridge at the West end of town), you will find many a street hawker who sets up an instant kitchen in the evening on the grass next to the river and serves the traditional and authentic Vietnamese “Pho soup”; a tasty noodle dish with chicken stock, herbs, spring onion, chicken or beef, chilly and lime and all for about US$0.75 – yes, about 50 pence!

I could go on at infinitum as there are many places to eat, but I think the best advice I can offer is to check the prices before you go in and avoid the brash over Americanised imitations that are trying to make a fast buck (oh and come back and look again as we will be writing more)

By comparison, what a delight we found the ancient town of Hoi An, Vietnam, after a one hour flight from Hanoi. Placed about halfway down this long thin country, Hoi An is an ancient town, recently listed as a world heritage site and I guess like the rest of Vietnam, very new to the concept of tourism, although “to the man” everybody we spoke to expressed their support for the change which, whist not bringing wealth (yet) has certainly changed the lives of many.

Our hotel was the Life Heritage Resort and Spa, which resides by the river at one end of the town and whilst the beach is about 3 kilometres away its proximity to the town more than compensates as there are plenty of restaurants, countless shops, galleries and tailors. The rooms in the Life Heritage Resort were clean and well equipped, the staff wonderful and service attentive, if the restaurants we felt a little dark lifeless and limited although in reality, we felt that’s probably the one downside of being so close to the town.

We took a guided tour with Ho un (yes, close to the name of the town), who calls himself the “Hoi An Easy Rider” – cheesy I know (ok, really cheesy), but a really nice chap whose relaxed, knowledgeable motorcycle tour took us through the back streets, past paddy fields and fishing villages where we were the only foreigners and we felt quite privileged to meet and speak (through an interpreter) to such lovely people and get an insight into their lives.

Back in Hoi An itself, Alex couldn’t resist buying some dresses and a jacket that were all hand-made in about 24hrs, which like any man would have brought a chill to my spine, were it not for the price of roughly £20 each and there are lots of tailors to choose from.

Laundries that will hand finish your washing for next to nothing in 24hrs and bring them beautifully pressed (of whom Anh Vu, is a good example on the corner of Phan Boi Chau and Pham Hong Thai), plus picture galleries, a market selling a huge range of fresh, locally grown produce from an even wider choice of stalls, bicycle and motorcycle hire (don’t do it – really… don’t) and spa’s add to the eclectic mix of shops and services on offer, but perhaps most notable (we both agree) was the welcome from and friendliness of the people of Hoi An, who smile readily and bid you “good night” as you head past their shop at the end of the evening.

China beach in Hoi An is well known to be some 30 kilometres of long sandy beach, but is seeing huge development at an incredible pace, with golf courses and condominiums abound, so just how long this budding resort will manage to keep its character I don’t know.