After 4 days in Ho Chi Minh City, we take a flight to Da Hang, 590 miles North.
From there we grab a cab to Hoi An, just 18 miles away.
Rainy arrival
In total we plan on spending 3 and a half days in Hoi An. Brigitte booked a hotel far from the tourist crowds, at 2 miles from the city center. On the island of Cam Kim.
When we arrive it is raining, and the car can only drive us to the beginning of the bridge going to the island. The reason is because no car can go on the bridge, only motorbikes and bicycles. So the driver drops us off just before the bridge where 4 motorbikes are waiting to take us to the guesthouse. Thankfully they thought to bring raincoats !
We arrive late afternoon, and spend the rest of the day planning what we will be doing in Hoi An. We have diner at our guesthouse, the owner prepared us a great meal.
Guided visit of the old city center
Hoi An is known to be one of the most charming cities in Vietnam. Thanks to its beautiful architecture the city is a UNESCO world heritage site.
800 houses from the city center are world heritage site, some of them beautiful community homes decorated and restored following the ancient tradition and techniques.
In order to visit the city we booked a tour with a French speaking Vietnamese woman who lives in Hoi An. To get to the city center, we rent bicycles to ride the 2 miles between our guesthouse and the city.
Brigitte hasn’t been on a bike for 40 years and it’s quite an adventure for her to hop back on a bike in the middle of crazy Vietnamese traffic. We thought it would be calmer than Ho Chi Minh… It might be a tiny bit, but it’s probably because the city is a lot smaller with 120,000 inhabitants.
We meet up with Khuyen at 7:30 am to visit the authentic side of the city, walking along the narrow streets. Our guide tells us, that for her, the real Hoi An can be seen between 7 and 9 am. Well before the tourists come pouring down the streets.
We are only 6 for the visit, which is great.
We start with the Phuc Kien communal house. A beautiful Chinese house.
Immigrants from China arrived here many years ago. There exists 5 different Chinese communities here in Hoi An and each has built its own communal home and temple.
This one was built in 1757 by the Chinese community who came from the region of Fukien, in the Southeast of China. The house is pretty beautiful.
Not a single tourist in sight when we get there, even the lady controlling the tickets hasn’t started her day yet!
From here we continue inside the city center, that slowly wakes up.
The architecture of the city is magnificent. There are lanterns everywhere. The houses are all very colorful. We immediately fall under the spell of this beautiful place.
Second stop, the communal house of Tan Ky. This was the first house to be named a world heritage site in 1985 with the Japanese bridge and Phuc Kien.
The architecture of this house is a perfect showing of the 3 important architecture styles used at the period : Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese.
In the rear room there are stickers showing the water level during the years where the city was flooded. Pretty impressive.
Before continuing further, we stop in a shop where local craftsmen are working.
We then walk along the river, where the boats and traditional houses are all lined up.
Hoi An’s architecture is pretty unique in Vietnam, with these low and colorful houses with wooden balconies. On the top of the entrance doors, 2 eyes to protect from the evil spirits. Today a lot of these houses are simply turned into souvenir shops, while others are still occupied by the families who own them.
We make our way to the Japanese bridge.
This famous bridge is 65 feet long and was built back in 1593. The local legend says that it is indestructible because it survived the big fire that destroyed the Japanese district after a pest epidemic. It is here that we will by far see the most tourists.
So we don’t stay long and continue our way through the narrow, much more calm, little streets of the old city center.
We then stop at the Quang Trieu house.
This house was built for the Chinese community from the Chaozhou province.
Once again the communal house was built around a beautiful temple.
We continue inside the old city center where Maider can’t stop taking pictures.
Between the lanterns, the colorful doors and facades, this is heaven for her creative eye! Each house has its own little charm.
We end the tour with a visit of the market.
Inside we find food stalls where we can sit to grab a bite.
Outside we find all the vegetables, meat, fish and fruits of course.
Custom made suits and shoes
We couldn’t come to Hoi An and not leave with tailor made clothes and shoes. Indeed, Hoi An is well known for having very fast and affordable tailor made options. Matt decides to get 2 suits made.
First time we ever get anything tailor made and it is fun to see everything we can choose, like the collar of the shirt or the shape of the pockets on the vest, even the number and the locations of the buttons.
And why stop with the suit when we can also have the shoes tailor made? So Matt decides to have pair of shoes made to go with the two suits. While Brigitte falls in love with a pair of high heels.
We are all hungry after so much shopping and decide to go back to the market for lunch.
We taste the local specialty, a Cau Lau. It’s a dish of large noodles with veggies and slices of grilled pork. We sit at one of the stalls and eat our delicious meal.
Visit of the Cam Kim island
In the afternoon we get back on our bikes and leave the city center that is getting filled with thousands of tourists.
And go to the island of Cam Kim, where our guesthouse is located.
This island is unique. No cars or buses can come here, meaning there are only very few tourists (we didn’t see any), which helps keeping the island authentic.
We ride along the river where we see a few water buffaloes.
Then we continue inside the rice fields where the landscape is beautiful.
On the way we stop in a carpenter’s village, Kim Bong. There are also many other craftsmen like weavers that build these typical round Vietnamese boats. In the village many carpenters work on boats or build sculptures of different sizes. Maider’s parents take the time to buy a few souvenirs. We stop to watch these craftsmen work on their art.
We continue inside the countryside, the surroundings are just beautiful.
This short bike tour is really pleasant. And Brigitte is getting more comfortable. There is also a lot less traffic here, which helps a lot.
We spent a great afternoon before going back to our guesthouse and enjoy a refreshing beer.
Vietnamese cooking class
The next day we booked a cooking class at My Grandma’s Cooking Class.
This cooking class is a little different than most cooking classes in Hoi An. Here we spend the day in the house of a Vietnamese family in the countryside, far from the crowds of tourists. It is a little more than just a cooking class because we have a nice boat ride to get to the island where we meet with the family.
The boat ride is 45 minutes long and very nice.
We navigate along several different islands and watch the locals on their boats.
We can also see big nets everywhere used for fishing.
For our class we are only 8 which is great.
We start by visiting the house of our guide’s grandmother who is 94 years old. It is here that we will have the class.
We sit in the living room where Thom (our guide) tells us a little bit about herself and her family and how came the idea of doing this cooking class. She was raised by her grandmother, that is how she learned how to cook, and today she is very proud to teach us some of her grandmother’s recipes.
We are lucky enough to meet the grandmother, who despite her age keeps working. Thom told us that she wishes to work until she dies! An incredible women who seems to have a very strong character.
Thom also talks about what it is like to live on this island. She explains that there are no shops or markets here. Instead people go to town and come back on their motorbikes and drive around the island yelling the name of what they are selling, that way the people in the houses know when to come out.
Thom and her grandma then show us different techniques to clean and sort the rice once it is picked.
We then go by the fire to cook our rice pancakes. Everybody manages pretty well. We set theses aside as they will be used in one of our dishes today.
On the menu : grilled marinated pork with our rice flour pancake, Banh Xeo Hoi An style (sort of omelet with no eggs but rice flour), green papaya salad and tuna steak in clay pot.
We all take our place behind the tables and start cooking.
The first dish is marinated pork grilled on bamboo sticks. The marinade is delicious. We almost want to lick our fingers.
Then we continue with the green papaya salad. We start to know how to do this one after the green papaya salad we did during our class in Thailand and the green mango salad we did in Cambodia.
Then the Banh Xeo where we first cook a slice of pork and a shrimp on the pan before adding a batter made of rice flour, soy sauce, fish sauce and water.
Finally we finish with the tuna steak cooked in a clay pot with another delicious seasoning.
By this point we are already full but keep on eating all our delicious preparations. To accompany the tuna steak we have steamed rice of course, but also a very tasty pumpkin soup.
The cooking class was awesome. Thom was really nice and all the dishes were excellent. It is great to be able to share and learn about these family recipes.
Before hoping back on the boat Thom gives Maider a typical Vietnamese hat and they take a picture together.
Time to try on the suits
We get back to Hoi An in the afternoon and have an appointment at the tailor shop for Matt to try on his suits. And WHAOU, the result is incredible. The suits fit perfectly. Just minor adjustments to make and we can pick them up the next day. Awesome, and for the price we couldn’t ask for better.
Then we have to go to the shoe shop to try on the shoes. Again, the result is perfect.
Happy Hour
We end the afternoon with a stroll along the river. It is really nice to walk around here with all the boats and the beautiful lanterns.
We then sit down on a patio to have a nice craft beer brewed in Ho Chi Minh. We couldn’t dream for a better life.
The AO show
Tonight we booked tickets to the AO show.
Brand new in Hoi An, but already well established in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh since 2016, the AO show tells the story of the life of ethnic tribes in the mountains of central Vietnam, the Tây Nguyên. This cultural show is built around music, dance and acrobatics. The show starts with awesome acrobatics using large bamboo sticks followed by some music using traditional instruments and moments of humor.
The 1 hour show was simply amazing. Very different from the traditional shows we are used to seeing in Asia. We absolutely loved it.
Unfortunately cameras and cellphones were forbidden inside the theater so here are some pictures we found online.
Hoi An by night
We end the evening at the night market to see the illuminated lanterns. Despite the crowd the atmosphere feels special, we fell under the city’s spell.
Archaeological site of My Son
The next morning we leave to visit the archaeological site of My Son. The site being 30 miles West of Hoi An we decide to rent two motorbikes, meaning Justin has to drive one… It is only his second time on a motorbike and it had to be in the crazy Vietnamese traffic. Maider climbs with him and she is impressed. He manages super well. Especially given the horrible traffic we have at this time of day with the locals going to work and the children going to school.
We left at 6:30 am to avoid the crowds on site, apparently it is packed with groups between 10 am and 3 pm. In the high season there can be as many as 3,000 people per day visiting the site
My Son is kind of like the Macchu Picchu was for the Incas, but for the Cham civilization that reigned over Vietnam between the 4th and 18th century. It is now a UNESCO world heritage site.
First built in the 4th century by the king Bhadravarman, this place will become the religious, cultural and intellectual center of the Champa kingdom.
Today only 10% of the site is left, but the few constructions left remain impressive. Unfortunately the Americans bombed most of the site during the Vietnam War, it must have looked even more incredible before that.
The site is stunning.
We took a local guide to explain us some of the meaning and significance of the statues and other constructions.
Even if the site is now pretty small, it is still very interesting to visit. There are a lot of resemblances with the Macchu Picchu and the temples in Angkor. We walk around the site for an hour and a half.
At the end we even get to see a show demonstrating traditional Cham dances.
When we leave the site around 10 am, we see all the tourist buses arriving one by one and are glad we came this early. Especially because it is now starting to get really really hot outside.
The drive back is beautiful. We take plenty of pictures of the rice fields we go through. The landscapes around are stunning.
We get back to Hoi An shortly before noon and have a last appointment with the tailor for Matt. The end result is perfect, Matt will even take a picture with the very nice and professional tailor who took care of everything during these last 3 days.
Matt now owns two custom made suits. Now all he needs is a job !
Afternoon at the beach
Another day around 100 degrees so we decide to go spend the afternoon at the beach. The water feels incredible with such a hot day and we have a great time.
Last evening in Hoi An before hitting the road tomorrow.
We loved our stay in Hoi An, in the countryside. The guesthouse we stayed at was definitely one of the best we had in Asia. The family that owns the house is adorable. Every evening we spent time with them, talking about our days, learning more about each other, having a beer together or playing with the kids.
We leave Hoi An with a smile on our faces, the region with its rice fields is beautiful, and the old city center full of charm.
The next day we have a private car booked to drive us to Hue, 75 miles North. On the way multiple stops are scheduled to visit the surroundings.