Hoi An: Land of Lanterns

After a fairly miserable few days in Hue, we drove down to Hoi An, a quaint ancient town on the banks of the Thu Bon River. Immediately, Hoi An lifted my spirits. It was a beautifully picturesque town, with narrow winding streets of yellow buildings lit by delicate lanterns. We spent the afternoon walking around the ancient town, seeing temples and visiting a traditional house that was absolutely beautiful, and totally serene. The house was long and thin with a partly open-plan layout - different 'rooms' were created with small dividers and furniture placement and the whole place felt very light and airy. Hoi An was a fair bit warmer than Hanoi and Hue had been, but inside the house air flowed easily and it was cool and relaxing. A very well-designed house!



Another major attraction of Hoi An is shopping - the town is famous for high-quality tailors at very reasonable prices, as well as some wonderful shops selling handmade lanterns, silk embroidery, and some of the most beautiful paintings I'd seen so far. Me and my new friend from the tour, Monique, had a nice afternoon browsing the shops and I set about finding my favourite lanterns to take home.

That evening Monique and I went for dinner by the river, which was all lit up by fairy lights and lanterns, and small floating candles that some local children were selling. It was very pretty, and our meal (roast duck and spring rolls) was delicious. At this point I had eaten spring rolls almost every day since I arrived in Vietnam, and I still wasn't bored of them - Vietnamese spring rolls are delicious! We had a couple of drinks at a nearby bar, but we were both quite tired and I was still not feeling 100%, so we headed back for an early night.

The next morning we had an early start with the group for a bike ride through the countryside. The first 5 minutes or so were a bit hairy, cycling on fairly busy roads and getting used to being overtaken by the apparently infinite supply of motorbikes in Vietnam. But after that we were in the country, cycling down small dirt tracks between rice paddies, farms and villages. Every single child we passed on the way came out to wave and say hi as our group of 16 cycled past, and one girl even high-fived each of us as we passed. The small farms we passed, almost more like allotments, really, were immaculately kept, with all the crops and vegetables in perfect rows. We passed one woman using an innovative device to water her crops - two enormous watering cans hung on the end of a long pole that she carried over her shoulders. The highlight was passing some locals herding their water buffalo, and they stopped to let us take some photos. Cycling away I came within inches of one of them!

We got back to Hoi An around lunch time and after getting some food, Monique and I wandered around town a little more and did some shopping. I was still scoping out the best place to buy my lanterns. Shopping and haggling is tiring, so mid afternoon we stopped for an ice cream and a sit down, and chatted for a while to a British couple from Brighton who were traveling with their two young children. 

We ate dinner at another restaurant by the river, and this time, feeling a little more lively, we crossed over the river to where there were some backpacker bars, to check out the nightlife. We found one place that was playing reasonably good music and offered buy one get one free rum and cokes. A couple of drinks later we were joined by some guys - one American, one German and one Israeli. We were having a nice time chatting to them, and at first they all seemed really nice, but as the evening went on and the drinks kept flowing, the Israeli guy became increasingly sexist and misogynistic. At one point things got rather heated between he and I when he tried to tell me what to do, and although he apologised and tried to back track on what he'd said, it was clear he wasn't really our kind of person. When he later tried to tell us that "all women really just want to be led and looked after", his two travel companions (who apparently only met him earlier that day) looked shocked and rather embarrassed, and Monique and I quickly finished our drinks and left. Looking back we saw the three guys were following us, but we sped up and got back to the hotel safely. 

The next morning Monique and I rented a couple of bikes and cycled out to a nearby beach, about 20 minutes away. The ride was a little scary at first but also quite fun, and we made it to the beach in time to see about half an hour of sunshine before the clouds moved in. It stayed dry though and we sat on the beach for a while before we got a bit cold and decided to go for lunch. We selected a restaurant on the way back towards the bike park, primarily because the owner was so enthusiastic and because the pizza on the menu looked good. I ordered the pizza, but about 10 minutes later it turned out there wasn't any, so I chose a pork sandwich instead. The food was OK, nothing to write home about, though, and there was way more than any normal human being could feasibly eat in one sitting. When the bill came, it was absolutely huge - he was trying to charge me twice as much as the menu price! We protested, and I outright refused to pay that much for the food. Eventually he relented and reduced my half of the bill to what it should be, but refused to alter Monique's. Disgruntled, we left and collected our bikes to head back to Hoi An. 

We took a slightly meandering route back to the town, and stopped to photograph some ducks bathing in the mud along the way. When we got back we took a final wander around town and checked out the Japanese quarter on the other side of the Japanese bridge, which was full of shops selling unbelievably beautiful art and even more lanterns than in the main part of town. We made our way back across the bridge to go and watch a traditional handicraft show at 3pm. The map we had was horrible, though, and we spent about 20 minutes wandering the streets looking for the right place. Eventually we asked a local, who offered to walk us directly there. Thankfully, we'd left plenty of time, and arrived just in time to see the show. Turns out that although the show was in the handicraft center, it was actually a display of traditional dance, not handicrafts. Nevertheless, it was very entertaining and one particular dance, in which the women danced with pink fans, was rather mesmerizing. 

After a nice dinner by the river, we headed back to the hotel to pack for a train to Nha Trang the following day; Christmas Eve. I had a friend who had been in Hanoi but was getting the train down to meet me in Nha Trang for Christmas, who by fluke had ended up on the same train as me. So I was quite excited to be getting on the train tomorrow and seeing him again.