Historic Hoi An-day #1

Side note-this should be read BEFORE the Hoi An trying bot to sweat blog post. 

We woke up in cool bliss-no sweat & no body aches. The mattress is completely foam. We headed upstairs to get our free breakfast. It was bread with some veggies & last night's spring rolls, crepes, and dragon fruit!! I'm so glad Chris was finally able to try dragon fruit-it's unusual in how it looks but lovely in taste. We didn't bring our phones to breakfast-thus no photos (I took one off the internet.)

We decided to stick with our original plan & spend just 2 days in Hoi An. This meant coordinating bus tickets & letting our hostel know we'll be leaving a day early. After this was all coordinated, we headed out to see Hoi An.

Hoi An has many sites that are UNESCO buildings. You buy one ticket that allows you entrance into 5 local sites & the tickets are good for 25 hours-but we used ours after 24 hours without any issues. The entrance pass has 5 tickets & one is cut off each time you enter a place (or not if you enter with a large tourist group & the ticket person thinks you're with them.)

Ticket #1

First stop was to the Japanese Covered Bridge. This used to connect the Japanese & Chinese parts of town together for trading. There was also a temple within the bridge where locals were actively praying. 

(For some reason my shirt gives off a blinding glow in photos.)

The bridge ended in another pedestrian street. I love these pedestrian streets full of stalls. They are quaint with the growing morning glories & lanterns strung across the street. Added bonus-the tree lined streets offer much shade. 

We crossed a bridge which went across the inlet. The bridge is quite touristy-so we took advantage for some great photos. You can see the river in the background that was full of boats & floating lanterns the night before. 

Ticket #1.1

We entered the Tan Ky House with a tour group & thus were able to save one of our tickets. This well known merchant's house did a great job showing on the wall the water levels with each major flood. Hard to believe this beautiful structure was flooded just two years ago-with all that dark wood. 

Ticket #2

We went inside the Phoc Kien Assembly Hall. In the 19th century Chinese would gather based on their hometown. This was a place of assembly as well as worship. This place had some magnificent detail. The worship is dedicate to the Goddess of the Sea, which I like since my name means Guardian of the Sea. Look at the different types of stone used to make the arch!

Ticket #3

By this point we were drenched in sweat. We headed to the Hoi An museum of History & Culture. Chris really wanted to go, I was hoping for some air con, expecting fans at least. This was a huge building that was a bit disappointing.  Negative on the cooling off-but we were at least out of direct sunlight. The top floor was an eclectic rooftop restaurant that was not yet open for business. We snapped a photo. 

Then-on for lunch. Anthony Bourdian called this little street food shop the best bánh mi (sandwich). It also came recommended from a friend & from a blog so we headed there for lunch-along with locals and tourists. The line was quite long and the sandwiches were $1.50 each. We had the "bread mixed" translates into an everything and the barbecue which was....delicious. It wasn't Texas BBQ but it was good. This was also our first bánh mi so we had nothing to compare to. 

Refreshed & with full bellies we returned to our hostel with the intent to ride bikes to the beach. I had so much fun in the water at Cat Ba, I wanted another opportunity to be in the water. Generally, I am not a beach person given my coloring-but since I was slathering on sunscreen everyday any way, might as well go play in the ocean. It was an easy 3 km bike ride filled with prayer. I'm the littlest entity traveling the road. We were fortunate to go through intersections alongside buses & catch red lights. Chris was all over his bike horn. Wonder if you really love someone? Bike behind him/her on a busy road. The scenery of the ride was lovely-we passed many green lush rice fields & had the wind to cool us off. No wonder all the tourists on bikes always looked so happy. They had a breeze. 

We rode to An Bang beach for the afternoon. Our initial price of two lounge chairs & a cabana were 100k dong. Our hostel staff told us to walk down further to the right when we got there, which we did & got a cabana & chairs for 60k dong ($3). 

The water was like bath water. And I understand why people are converting their chlorine pools to salt water pools. The water just feels good on your skin. There was a decent under current & waves were just starting to pick up-which added to the fun. I could've stayed longer, but alas, biking home after dusk is not safe. 

One thing we did notice was how the beach initially was fairly empty and all tourists. However, as we approached sun down, the locals started to come out-look at the before & after photo below. The Vietnamese who spend all day covered from head to toe to avoid the sun-only come out to the beach after the sun has gone down. Our cabana woman was swearing socks with flip flops, long sleeves, pants, and two hats to protect herself from the sun. We saw some beach goers wearing gloves. I was sweating profusely in my bathing suit. 

As you can imagine, after a day of touring & swimming we were quite tired-but downtown Hoi An was so delightful last night, I just had to go back for more & experience the atmosphere. Also, I needed another pair of shorts & Hoi An is the place to buy clothing. If we were not backpacking & so early into our journey, we would have had some custom clothing made. Maybe some day.

We headed to Morning Glory cafe by Ms Vy. This woman has 4 restaurants in town along with a famous cooking school for tourists. Again, her food was recommended by a friend & a blog. Rumor has it she has even opened up a restaurant in Las Vegas. The prices were a bit higher than our usual, but lunch was cheap & we were hungry. 

We started the meal with bánh Bao bánh vat (white rose dumplings). 

Chris had traditional cao lau Hoi An-DELICIOUS. (The next day I had a bowl from another place and it was definitely good, but inferior to Ms Vy's.) The noodles had a distinct flavor-not sure what, maybe a jasmine? Reminded me of a more "flower" flavor. 

I had the morning glory salad. The description sold me-in Ms Vy's telling about the name of the restaurant, she said morning glories represent Vietnam as they are the only food grown throughout the country besides rice. 

And a lovely photo of my earlier in the day with Morning Glories.

I was tired & wanted to go back to the hostel. Too tired for shorts shopping-but Chris insisted & I got a pair of black elephant printed shorts. The lady wanted $5. I paid $4 for pants in Hanoi. So I said no & walked away. She said $4. I told her I paid that much in Hanoi for my pants & really, if that was her price point, I understood. I didn't mind walking away-I was too tired to haggle (and the shorts were $2.50 where I bought my pants in Hanoi). She then gave them to me for $3 and i am happy as a clam. I've worn them two days already-so they were a good purchase. I've finally "made up" for my under packing in clothing. (I've since lost a pair of underwear-a devastating loss when you only have 5 pair. It's my first time losing clothing while backpacking. 🙁) 

Hoi An was also the first city where we saw Buddhist offerings on the street. Shop owners would set out offerings, incense was burning on literally every corner (stuck into the ground) and most places had an alter. The incense was so thick, that we both were nauseated by the scent & thick air. We didn't snap any photos of these offerings-but they often included fruit, cookies and candy. 

I climbed in bed & promotly fell asleep-while writing this post. Being a tourist is hard work!!

What I loved most about Hoi An is that everyone is a tourist. There were Vietnamese, Korean, Cambodian, Russian, American, British, German, French, Spanish and languages we certainly could not identify. Hoi An is full of other tourists and I actually enjoy being around other tourists. Sometimes as a tourist I feel that I'm intruding on the local life. In these tourist towns, I fit right in. I know, how very non-off the beaten path of me. Maybe that's because after living abroad & having the day in-day out struggle as a foreigner living in a different country, as a contrast, I found being a tourist in another place relaxing.