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Published: March 21st 2010
We caught a sleeper train from Hanoi to Danang and then a shared minibus to Hoi An. Hoi An is a beautiful World Heritage town, small enough to stroll around, yet big enough to entertain us for a few days. It looks lovely at night with Chinese lanterns lighting up the streets and quaint low rise buildings with shady verandas to escape the heat of the day. Cars aren’t allowed into the old quarter giving it a peaceful feel, except for the odd motorbike or bicycle zipping by.
Hoi An is famous for its tailoring but we weren’t expecting just how many tailor shops lined every street, literally hundreds! It seemed a shame not to test their skills so for the next 3 days we were measured, fitted and altered at different tailors. Dan originally thought he might get a few work shirts made and Nat thought a jacket and dress would be useful for our return to England. However we were swayed by the quality and prices and a few days later we rode our bikes to the post office laden with 10kg of tailor made clothes! We are just crossing our fingers the parcel arrives!
Our love
for food continues and we tried the local specialities, Cao Lau, which is a noodle dish with pork and made with water from the towns well and white rose dumplings, also pork, both of which were yummy. The local food market serves up great cheap food; it is so good it is being moved slightly out of town as the restaurants can’t compete with the trade it pulls in and kicked up a stink. It was being moved over the bridge a few days after we left so well worth the stroll to find it in the future.
The local beach is beautiful; we reached it by hiring bikes for the 5km ride. After numerous riding trips on our trip we have started to ride like locals. This means no stopping at intersections but riding straight into the traffic, making sure to hold a definitive line (don’t flinch), and looking for the gap that will allow safe passage to whichever side you need to be on. Our ride to the beach was hot work so the first thing we did was jump into the cool water and try to body surf in the small waves. One of us was
more successful than the other... no names mentioned.
Hoi An was one of the prettiest towns we visited so we hope that the mass luxury developments being built in Danang don't spoil the charm of this place.
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Cao Lau
