Love in Hoi An

Many people told us to go to Hoi An when we were planning this trip so I had high hopes for this city. I'm pleased to say it did not disappoint!

We arrived on Valentine’s Day, which was the perfect day as Hoi An is such a pretty town, particularly with all the lanterns that it is so famous for. There were two main things I wanted to do here, get a dress made and do a cooking class. So as soon as we’d dropped our bags at our hostel, we headed out to a tailors.

I was worried that with only three days in Hoi An, it would be a challenge to get a dress made in time, but I needn’t have worried. We arrived at the shop at 11am and within half an hour I’d chosen my dress style and fabric and had had my measurements taken. We were told to return that evening for my first fitting!

Hoi An is an historical town with many assembly halls, temples and old houses to visit. However to enter each place, you need a ticket and you can buy five at a time from the ticket booth on the outskirts of the old town centre. The hostel had recommended their top five places to visit so we set off to see these.

The first was Quang Trieu Assembly Hall. Assembly halls were established by Chinese traders to act as a support network for people from the same clan that were settling in Hoi An. Hoi An has five assembly halls, four specific to different clans and a fifth open to anyone. This one was for Chaozhou people and had incredible 3D murals inside, along with the customary incense spirals. It also had fantastic dragon and goat sculptures in the garden at the back.

Next we crossed the Japanese Bridge. One end of the bridge is guarded by two dogs and the other by two monkeys, supposedly to mark the year construction started and ended. But the bridge is pretty small so taking two years to build it would be rather slow! Other theories suggest they represent compass directions.

After crossing the bridge, we wandered down the road, passing many traditional buildings and regularly getting asked by women carrying fruit on essentially a large wooden scale that they carried on their shoulder whether we would like a picture! One building looked to serve craft beer so we decided it was a good point to stop for lunch. Turns out they served my favourite beer from Pasteur Street, which was lovely on a hot day.

The next two stops on our tour were a couple of old houses, Phung Hung and Tan Ky. The first one had some amazing embroidery inside for sale, which unfortunately I couldn’t buy any of as I’d have had to carry it round and I’m pretty low on space! The second house is still lived in by the family and contained some very intricate furniture. Both were constructed from very dark wood, which made the overall feel quite heavy and old!

The second house was on “lantern street”, which was very aptly named, as you can see from the photo below. However, by this point we were pretty worn out so headed back to check into our hostel, Tribee Kinh.

Again, this was a great hostel, with lovely staff and lots of things being put on. One of these was a street food tour of the local area, which introduced us to some culinary delights of Hoi An (more on this in the food blog at the end of our time in Vietnam).

We returned to the hostel at 7pm in time for the free rum and coke session they ran most nights, which pleased me greatly! We then went and had my first dress fitting, promising to go back the next day to collect the finished product.

From there, we continued down to the river to see all the boats and the floating lanterns. Hoi An is very pretty at night, albeit overrun with tourists. I had mixed feelings about the floating lanterns as although they looked pretty, they just ended up as waste at the side of the river, which I assume is cleaned up each night but it seemed pretty wasteful. The hanging lanterns in the street were lovely though.

We wandered around the night market, stopping for a tasty banana and chocolate crepe and admiring the lanterns for sale, before heading back to the bar we had lunch at to meet up with Aline from our hostel in Da Lat. We passed a very pleasant evening looking out over the river and sharing stories.

The next morning was time for my second activity, the cooking class. We were met by a rather exuberant lady who took us to the local market and showed us the different food on offer there. After jumping on the back of her scooter (individually), we arrived at the cooking school ready to prepare our four dishes. These were fried spring rolls, a Vietnamese country pancake, Hoi An rice and chicken with cashew nuts (James’s standard dish to order out here). We had a very enjoyable couple of hours here, singing away and being entertained by our host. The food at the end turned out to be delicious too!

For dessert, we got to try seven different types of fruit, an orange, guava, rose apple, mangosteen, milky apple, rambutan and longan. The milky apple (bottom of the plate) was the best, it tasted a bit like kiwi fruit.

After chilling out in the hostel to avoid the heat of the day, we headed back into the centre to use our last token at the Quan Công temple. This again had some intricate carvings, as well as some creepy looking statues!

Opposite the temple was the central food market, however by this time most of the food had been sold so it was quite empty. After checking out some of the local shops, we wandered back to pick up my dress. I can’t believe how quickly they turned it around! At least now I have something to wear to a couple of weddings this year.

We had a chilled out evening, taking advantage of the free rum and coke again and having dinner at a little stall down a side alley across the street from the hostel, which was surprisingly tasty!

The next day, we were up early to take a trip to My Son (pronounced Me Son and meaning Beautiful Mountain). This is an old temple complex built around the same time and in a similar style to Angkor Wat. We boarded a distinctly old looking bus for the journey, so weren’t surprised when the air con started blowing out hot air! Luckily we were by a window we could open!

We only had a couple of hours at My Son so were taken around three of the five temple areas. Our guide was very interesting though and gave us lots of details about the Cham people and the different temples. 50 of the 70-odd temples at My Son was destroyed during the Vietnam War, however it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 and since then work has been done to restore some of the ruins. Amazingly though, the bricks used by the Cham a thousand years ago have withstood the weather and moss better than those used to restore them only a couple of decades ago!

It was definitely worth the visit, particularly with a guide, having done Angkor Wat on our own.

Back in Hoi An, we went for lunch at Banh Mi Queen who hands down makes the best Banh Mi we’ve had here. It’s just delightful! Definitely go there if you’re ever in Hoi An.

That afternoon our hostel had organised a cycle tour so we joined about 30 other people cycling through the centre of Hoi An and out through the paddy fields to the island to the south called An Hoi (not particularly original!)

Our first stop was at a family temple. In Vietnam, not everyone has a religion, but each family has a temple where they pray to their ancestors. Our guide explained a lot about Vietnamese culture, which was fascinating. For example, temples have three gates, the central one for the king, then the left for the men and right for women.

Our next stop was at a place where they made rice paper. We got to have a go, which was pretty difficult, and then got to eat some of our creations, which was much easier!

We then cycled back to the hostel, the highlight of which was cycling next to a guy carrying a full length mirror on the back of a scooter. Mental!

That evening we went to a South Korean restaurant for dinner, before wandering back around town, including past a games area where an odd game of bingo was going on. The locals seemed to enjoy it, although the constant singing by the hosts was a bit much for us so we didn’t stay long! Instead we went home via a chocolate shop, which was much more pleasant!

I can see why people say Hoi An is very touristy, but that shouldn’t detract from going there. Surprisingly, given this, it still feels like there is a lot of culture there, with James likening it to Oxford or Cambridge. We really enjoyed our time here.