Accidental Hiatus in Hoi An

We’ve been asked by readers whether we’ve taken time out from blogging and we know it looks that way. It’s been something of an accidental hiatus in Hoi An, where we unexpectedly found ourselves settling in for a while to get through some writing, and for Terence a mountain of photography work.

As you know, we just spent some three months in Hanoi, with side trips to Sapa and Halong Bay, so we were meant to be moving fairly quickly these last few weeks in Vietnam.

We planned short stops in Hue, Danang, Hoi An, Dalat, Mui Ne, and Saigon, then hightailing it back to Phnom Penh to dump some things before heading to Singapore for the inaugural Asian edition of the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards and food stories we’re working on.

However, as is increasingly the case in our lives, our plans changed. The Lunar New Year is partly responsible for our hiatus in Hoi An.

On the ninth of February most of the people we’d been dealing with in this part of Asia shut their offices, switched off their phones, unplugged, and went on holidays to spend time with their families.

And good on them – for many here it’s their only holiday of the year. However, it made planning onward travel and the upcoming Singapore trip impossible.

Inundated with work from other parts of the world we decided to stay put in Hoi An and soak up the festive atmosphere of Tet, as the Vietnamese call their Lunar New Year, while writing and shooting. It was a smart decision.

The blue skies in Hoi An have been bliss after three months of mist and drizzle in Hanoi, and Tet was something to be experienced and somewhat magical in Hoi An, despite all the tour groups. Wait till you see Terence’s photos.

So we’re still here in Hoi An. We’re still writing. And poor Terence is currently wading through hundreds of thousands of photos, selecting images from all the places we’ve been over the last year for a story we’ve been asked to write on ‘grand touring’ – on his birthday too!

How long are we here? Who knows. We’ll see. But blogging is about to resume.

Terence took the photo above at the boat races during Tet in Hoi An. You might like his post on photographing Tet celebrations in Hoi An, this enchanting time-lapse of sunset over Hoi An, and this beautiful gallery of pictures from Khmer New Year in Siem Reap.

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