It's six in the morning. Fresh (or not-so-fresh) off our night bus from Nha Trang, we set off on a couple of xe ôm to find our hotel, which I had booked the day before. We are staying in a tiny five-room hotel going by the name Minh A. It is a 17th-century house which up until a few years ago was inhabited by the descendants of a Hội An merchant family. Because commerce is what Hội An was, and is, built on. Also known in those early days as Faifo, Hội An was an important commercial hub in the 16th and 17th centuries, inhabited by Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and even Indian traders. Today many of the shophouses owned by those traders still exist, in a wonderful state of preservation. Hội An is one of the
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