Hoi An!

The title of this blog post had to have an exclamation mark, because if I had to recommend one place to visit in Vietnam, it would be Hoi An. This small city has something for everything: amazing sights, a beautiful beach, incredible food, and endless shopping. I have a lot to say about Hoi An, so the food will have to wait for a second post, hopefully with some guest bloggers. (I may have to bribe them with serious ice cream treats for this.) 

Lots of travelers think Hoi An is a pretty amazing place too, and I was initially concerned that we had brought ourselves to the Main Street Disneyland of Vietnam. Our first evening we walked to the old town through narrow alleyways only to find ourselves in possibly the most crowded tourist attraction I've ever visited. The streets close to the river were so choked with tourists that it was impossible to take pictures without other people in the background. We also set up a meeting place in case we got separated from each other or the kids. 

I can understand why Hoi An is so popular. Set on the Thu Bon River, it used to be one of the biggest trading ports in Vietnam. Lucky for the tourist industry, the river silted up in the 18th century, and now all that remains is the river and the amazing old buildings the traders built. It wasn't only Vietnamese who came here to trade. The Dutch, Japanese and various Chinese groups set up shop here. Many

of them built traditional houses with inner courtyards, thick wooden walls painted a deep ochre yellow on the outside, and tile roofs. These buildings reminded me a lot of some old Japanese structures fro the 19th century back in Kanazawa, where I used to live. Some of these buildings are still private homes, but many you can visit as small museums or shops. 





The different trading groups also set up associations and built communal halls. We visited the biggest of these, the Fujian People's Assembly Hall. It has the structure of many Chinese (or Vietnamese) temples:

an outer gate, a courtyard filled with pots of bonsai trees and other flowering pots, a outer building with an altar, another smaller courtyard, and then a final inner pavilion or building with a second altar. The building is more of a temple now than a meeting place, and I was most fascinated with the giant spirals of incense that hung from the ceiling and filled the air with slow burning spirals of incense. (Yet another thing to trigger Rob's incessant cough-poor guy.) Throughout the old buildings of Hoi An, I was fascinated by the many different floor tile patterns, and the various gates. I've been trying to draw many of them, with various degrees of success.

The secret to visiting in the old town of Hoi An is to get up really early in the morning before the crowds. I managed to pry the kids out of bed with the magic words "street food walking tour," and after plying them with mango smoothies and rice noodle treats, they were game to visit old buildings. The only building that was crowded, even at the earliest hour, was the Japanese covered bridge built in the early 17th century. It's a cool little structure, but perhaps not worth the crowds. 

Hoi An is also a great place to buy silk and to have clothes tailored. You can also get custom shoes, leather jackets, purses, bamboo dishes and a million other things. It's a good thing I didn't know about the leather possibilities, as I might have indulged. Instead I focused on getting one thing here: a bar mitzvah suit for Makaio. He will be called to the Torah in October where he will chant his Haftorah (a section from the prophets) and say a special blessing over the Torah. He has been studying hard while we travel and I give him extra points for being willing to learn with me. He's actually a better reader than me, but I know how to chant the trope, or cantillation, so we're a good team. 

Although Makaio is extremely disinterested in shopping or consuming material goods, he did a great job of sucking it up to be measured, and fit . He is now the owner of a long, very slim suit with extra wide hems for the growing he'll probably do in the next six months. It is now being shipped back very slowly to Kingston. We may very well arrive home before it does. 

Oh yeah, I got a dress made too. I'm not sure I enjoyed this experience. Somehow the picture I had in mind doesn't quite match up with the dress. This has less to do with the quality of the tailoring, and more to do with the fact that the model wearing the dress was at least 5"11 and no more than 19 years old.

In Hoi An, we also spent a glorious day at the beach. We rented bicycles from out hotel (slightly better quality than our previous rental, but still all too small) and biked about 4km out to a beach. For the price of a few beer we got to lounge in the shade. The kids did not lounge. I hadn't realized this, but they  hadn't ever been to a beach where they could jump in the waves. They absolutely loved it. The surf was rougher than I anticipated and they were pounded into the sand many times, which they loved. This was a little nerve-wracking to me, but we are soon heading to Thailand, where we will have more beach experiences, most likely with calmer waters. 

So are we having fun? Absolutely!