Tag Archives: Hoi An

I would say this was among the best spent $89 (per person) on this trip: a five hour Vespa Adventures tour of the rural countryside outside Hoi An on the back of a spiffy Vespa driven by a young Vietnamese guide named “Leo.” Dirck’s driver was a young guy named Nine. Not only was it fun to join the crowd of motorbikes zipping through town and into the countryside. We didn’t worry about having to navigate on our own and Leo took us to some wonderful out of the way spots we never would have found — and patiently answered any question we wanted to ask a Vietnamese person. (We even talked about contraception which Leo credited with reducing family size after the year 2000 when the government launched a pr campaign about birth control and the need to have two babies tops.)

We visited a lovely 400-year-old ancestral home overlooking a walled in water garden with pink lotus blossoms. Next stop a spot at the edge of the river where men were making large wooden fishing boats using old methods (presumably) including fire to bend the flat wooden boards to make hull. Zipping past more bright green rice paddies and little villages with simple concrete structures, bright flowers and little scruffy dogs on roam (sadly we hit one little one that suddenly ran out in front of us) we ended up inside a modern house, apparently built for a family whose house by the river was destroyed by a flood. Behind a screen blocking the sun we found two women sitting on the floor making a beautiful floor mat using an old fashioned loom. After that we went to a more rudimentary farmhouse and into a dark room with a cauldron over a fire and learned how to make rice cakes the size of a dinner plate, dipping white batter with black and white seeds onto a griddle of sorts, using a tool to smooth it out and another tool akin to a rolling pin to roll it up. You roll it onto a flat screen to dry in the sun. We also sat down and ate a cracker. From there we went to a n open air coffee roaster where we drank cafe sua under a thatched room next to a guy plinking away on his lap top. Then we returned to Cafe Zoom, on the edge of the city/countryside for a huge and delicious lunch. Five hours flew by.

This afternoon I had a one hour massage and 1/2 hour facial at a little spa the hotel guy recommended. $30 total. And tonight after stopping for a swim at our resort pool, we ended up back at the Shamrock Pub, people watching at sunset and chatting with some Aussies. We had perhaps our most creative meal at Nu Eatery, a little hole in the wall that reminded me of the East village (NYC) restaurant Prune. The small place was packed with young foodies from the US, France, England and Asia. We had a killer version of bao (steamed bun) stuffed with a chunk of succulent pork, a pickle and a yellow sauce; a noodle dish with Spicy pork ragu (which seemed almost Italian) and a Bahn Minh that was more like a pulled pork sandwich on a brioche bun with melted cheese (the first melted cheese we’ve seen here.) Now we are savoring our last night in Hoi An, sitting on our ancient second floor wooden balcony, watching the crowd thin out. Tomorrow they will be out in force again.

As expected, staying at the 200-year-old Vinh Hung Heritage Hotel in the middle of the Ancient Town is a strange experience and completely different than our sweet little Halo Homestay.

It is literally the difference between light and dark. Halo is all white marble, concrete, tile, walls and lots of sunlight. Vinh Hung is all dark wood floors,paneling, walls, carved armoire and other heavy furniture. There are only six rooms here and it is the only place you can stay overnight right in the Ancient Town. This is an old spice merchants house, with a small two-story central courtyard, very creaky floors, doors that stick and old Asian pottery. There is AC though but a drip. So we have turned it off and hope the street noise won’t be bothersome. The cost is different too $77 a night rather than $18 but we also don’t have to ride bikes into town. We are here.

Tonight we also splurged on a fancy dinner at Co Mai but we are talking $47 for a five course tasting menu and two drinks, vs. about $8-$10 that we have been spending for street food. For lunch, we shared a crowded table at Beo Bahn, a tiny place recommended by Hanoi foodie Mark for com gai, a simple rice and shredded chicken dish.

We decided to go to Co Mai because I was curious about how a French chef would reinterpret Vietnamese food. The restaurant is also in one of the 200-year-old structures here and we sat on the second floor with the dark wood window open so we could see all the action below at a street market.

The food went from simple (“ocean soup” that looked, tasted and smelled like the ocean – light, salty, watery, a little murky, with small pieces of seafood, veg, and maybe seaweed) to complex (a little bowl of passion fruit cake with a small scoop of curry sorbet, one of three such concoctions on our dessert plate. The server brought over what looked like a cinnamon stick the size of my forearm and grated flecks of it onto on little bowls).

Yes, he’s looking at his cellphone

In the morning we road our rickety Homestay bikes to the countryside and beach, this time choosing narrow concrete paths between the rice paddies and fish farms, encountering the occasional water buffalo or farmer. The scenes are an old/new world mashup – a farmer in a traditional pointed hat, squatting in the shade beside a water buffalo and talking on his cell phone; small villages with high rises in the distance near cui dai beach.

View from a boat of the ancient town

My parents went to Thailand back in the day, which we’ve heard has now become almost too tourist friendly. Now younger generations go to Vietnam, which has me wondering how Vietnam will change/has changed. We are searching for authenticity and in the process, destroying it…maybe. Truth be told, there are way too many tourists here. Trying to cross one of the main pedestrian bridges here brought up unpleasant memories of a similar experience in Prague. The crowd was so thick it was very uncomfortable.But I see why the tourists are here. Like Venice, it is exotic and otherworldly and so vibrant. Our Homestay family opened their business about 3-4 years ago and is seeing fewer customers because there is more competition- new homestays and hotels everywhere. But then people here seem to be competing everywhere – the street vendors, restaurants, shop keepers, spas, coffee shops, tour operators. This is the first communist country I have visited and that’s easy to forget with raw capitalism everywhere.

The weather has been very hot and humid. My clothes were drenched with sweat after our bike ride. But It suddenly got slightly cooler last night. Around 3 pm, we cooled off in the pool of a nearby resort on the river that is a sister hotel to ours and chugged along the river for a free sunlight cruise – two perks of this strange old place. Today I plan to take advantage of another perk – a free 30 minute foot massage. Dirck will pass.

We took advantage of our Homestay’s out-of-the-crazy ancient city location and its free bikes to ride about 20 minutes to An Bang Beach. I forgot this is a beach town. We were quickly out of the city and riding past rice patties with the occasional water buffalo 🐃 lolling around. The beach is gorgeous — soft tan sand and crashing waves of muddy brown water. More trash in spots than we like but we kept walking along the water and found ourselves right in front of a place I’d read about in the excellent March 2019 NYTimes 36 Hours on Hoi An that has served us so well! The salt pub looks more like a tropical paradise with lounge chairs on the sand and thatched roofs. We got fantastic drinks (coffee sua for dirck, passion. Fruit/ pineapple juice for me and later a smoothie with several fruits including passion fruit.

That’s me, watching in admiration and learning from the two girls how to eat whatever we were eating

We had a nice where-have -you-been chat with a well traveled Kent, Australia couple who were lounging in the sun next to us. They also mentioned there was torrential rain in a Hoi An for the 3 days before we arrived so we got lucky. It seems to rain once a day briefly and intensely. By the time we have gotten our raincoats out and on, it stops and we are even hotter. We got about waist deep in the crashing waves (the water is almost too warm) but I didn’t want to get my eat wet, which is on the mend thx to my antibiotics regimen.

This afternoon we peddled into Hoi An and found one of the fantastic street vendors our Hanoi food guide Mark recommended. Mark knows his stuff and it has been such a treat to know which of the many street food vendors are best. We sat on plastic stools at a very busy street food stand and had superb Banh beocombination of shrimp dumplings, meat and who knows what else. We have at least 4 other famous street foods to try. Crazy!

 We were the only westerners and people, especially two young girls, were very kind — showing us how to eat with a wood utensil that was a cross between a knife and a chopstick and which sauce to dip which food in. That was lunch at about 3 pm (about $4).

Ethnic garb made from tree bark

We wandered to the less crowded and classier part of the ancient town, at the eastern end to visit Precious Heritage Museum, a remarkable place and effort by a French photographer who has made it his life’s work to photograph people from Vietnam’s many ethnic minorities and collect an authentic costume from each, which are on display. The photos are for sale, with proceeds going to the museum and some of the people photographed. Amazing.

We wandered into a leather shop next door and each left with a hand made $20 leather belt (from water buffalo hide). I was tempted to buy a purse or shoes. Next to the leather shop is MIa coffee, in a two story French colonial building that looked like something out of New Orleans. I later learned we were in the French Quarter. We had beer (not coffee) since they also have craft brews and fries with rosemary and salt. That was our late dinner.

We walked our bikes through the throngs of tourists at 7:30 pm in the ancient town on a Saturday night and then rode the rest of the way, feeling more confident than last night. Love this town. It’s been fun staying at Halo Homestay. Very well run and spanking clean and interesting to catch glimpses of family life and a real neighborhood, where we hear the occasional rooster.