Marble Statues: Midway between Da Nang and Hoi An is a section of Vietnam famous for its construction of marble statues. There are numerous workshops and outlet stores there and pieces are shipped all over the world. On our way to Hoi An we stopped at one of the shops. It was quite impressive to see and Peep bought a marble box with relief of daily life in Vietnam. We were all ready to go but had to wait for the guide to finish choosing something from the shop. I am sure it was a "special gift" for bringing us there and us spending money.
Hoi An: After arriving in Hoi An, a world heritage sight, we were again free to explore the city on our own. The guide didn't do or say anything about the city, so we walked up and down the streets of downtown looking at all the souvenir shops. It reminded me a little of the French Quarter in New Orleans, with the narrow streets and many businesses.
After a while we were able to figure out there are several museums and other historical sites nestled in between the shops. We went to the Museum of History and Culture, but didn't see a ticket booth so we walked around the couple of rooms making up the museum and learned a little of the history of the city. We tried to get into another historical sight, but they asked to see our tickets. Apparently, we needed to go to a central ticket office to get a ticket to tour all the sights in the city, but we didn't know where it was and it was getting close to lunch, so we made our way into the Museum of Folk Culture, where the staff didn't ask to see tickets (I assume we were supposed to have them), and we ended touring that museum for free also. We would have liked to see more of the historical sights, but it took us too long to figure out what they were and how to go about seeing them.
Boat Ride: We returned to Hue after lunch and checked into the same hotel we stayed at two days earlier. Peep and I split from the group and got dinner on our own. We then met back up with them at the dock and went on the boat ride that we missed the first time we were in Hue. They basically pulled the boat out to the middle of the Perfume River and anchored it while they played live traditional music and had live singing.