we are leaving the lovely city of hoi an tonight, leaving the enchanted village and its enchanted old men. we'll take an overnight train to hanoi.
this town has been just lovely. it's one of the few places in S.E. asia where they realize that tungston light is so much better than flourescent light. all of the narrow streets and alleys are softly lit with hanging lanterns or low watt bulbs or candlelight.
last night there was a festival of lights for the 14th day of the lunar new year. everyone had incence lit at the buddhist altars and the women crouched in the street and burned lucky money and pieces of paper in little pots on the curb for good luck. we took a boatride on the river and out in the middle there were so many little lotus lanterns with candles floating downstream. the woman who rowed our boat was about 80 years old and she showed emerson the secret vietnamese river rowing technique, (the oars are super long and narrow and you use them to push off the bottom of the river). then we each picked a lotus-lantern out of the water, made a wish, and set it back in the river. i guess the lanterns carry away all of your bad luck from the previous year.
the beach here is great. it's actually a lot like the beaches in cape cod. the weather in general is like cape cod near the end of the season, late august/early november. there have been a few grey and chilly days, but today and yesterday were hot and humid. the water is considerably colder than nha trang, mui ne, or any beach in thailand. it's clean with big waves and a strong undertow. but still not as cold as the atlantic is at say long nook.