Hoi An

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13th November 2006

The tip from Hue to Hoi An along the coast on highway-1 via Danag took about 3 hours. Danag looked quite attractive with a nice half moon shaped beach at its waterfront – its’ a pity that I did not have time to spend a few days in Danag. We arrived at Hoi An around 11:30 PM. The bus took us around areas where there are clusters tourist hotels or guest houses, that was part of the deal – those who had reservations went to their hotels and those who did not have reservations, went and checked the rooms of any hotel on the way, while the bus waited and then got down at whichever hotel they liked – what a generous system. I had no reservation; I looked through few hotels and then booked myself into a nice but modestly priced hotel near the town center.

It is an ancient riverside city straddling both sides of the Thu Bon River just about two kilometres inside the coast. From the 17th century to the 19th century it was one of the major ports of South East Asia. In late 19th century, when the Thu Bon river began to silt up and became to shallow for navigation, Danag began to take over Hoi An as the port and center for commerce for this part of Vietnam.

Historically, between 2nd century and early 10th centuries this region was part of Kingdom of Champa – an Indic civilisation with its capital at Simhapura (now Tra Kieu. The temples of Indrapura (Dong Duong) and My Son were built during this period.

It is almost like a living museum. Hoi An has more than 800 structures of historical significance exhibiting rare traditional architecture from few centuries back. These along with the narrow lanes of the old part of the city give a feel of being transported back a few centuries.

In the late afternoon when the mid day heat has subsided a bit, I ventured out to explore Hoi An. I walked through the narrow lanes of the old city, stopping by many handicraft shops along the way, a few historic buildings, the covered Japanese bridge and off course a few stops to have cold lime juice. After the covered Japanese Bridge I walked along the river towards the market at the other end of the town. Both sides of the river still retain old structure of the Historic Hoi An port of few centuries back.

In the evening I explored the central new part of the town – other than shops, tourist restaurants and standard features of a tourist town, there are hundreds of fabric cum tailor shops all around Hoi An. One can get custom made suits, ladies dresses or any other kind of dresses within 24 hours – both fabrics and tailoring charges are very cheap. I saw many tourists carrying handful of bags with tailored garments.

I spent the evening in one of the restaurant with a live band returned to hotel quite late.

14th November 2006

I spent the morning on the beach 2km east of the town. Though there are lot of tourist facilities on the beach, due to the heat there were very few people there. After a quick dip at sea I returned to hotel – I took a motorbike ride both way. Hoi An is very prone to flooding during October November. Just a week before my arrival it got flooded.

After lunch, I loitered around the town, old and new parts, looking for more photo opportunities. Around 5:00 PM I took a shared taxi to Danag airport (about 10km away) to catch my 8:00 pm flight to HCMC or Saigon.

I arrived at Saigon around 10:30 pm. I had a reservation at Southern Hotel in the Pham Ngu Lao area, just a block away from An An Hotel – where I stayed previously.

Finding a good restaurant and good dinner at that hour was not a problem in Saigon.