We have moved from South Vietnam to the central part of the country. Hoi An is a UNESCO recognized city. This is from UNESCO’s web site. Hoi An Ancient Town is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Its buildings and its street plan reflect the influences, both indigenous and foreign, that have combined to produce this unique heritage site.
Of course the first thing we do is take photos of our accommodations to reflect back on because at this point in our 55 day tour everything is a blur.We have stayed in amazing places with great suites. This is the Anantara Hoi An Resort.View from the balcony of our room.Incredible bougainvillea draping the roof of the hotel.Donut and Bagel station at the breakfast buffet.Main Street of the small town is very cute with lots of shops and restaurants but they need to bury those wires, Many of the French Colonial buildings are yellow.Right outside of the hotel was a street full of laundries. We left laundry here twice. She would wash, fold and deliver to the hotel by 7am. Around 10 USD for a big bag of clothes. The hotel laundry would have cost well over $100. Our tour company pays for the cost of laundering our clothes if we use local laundry service.Hoi An is known for its lanterns. They are all electric and light up every night.This photo op cost $2 for which we also received a bag of rotten bananas.Another Chinese temple which we didn’t bother going any further into.These reliefs outside of the temple depicting village scenes were amazing. Unfortunately the photo does not capture the intricate detail.Charming narrow streets full of tourists, cyclo’s, bicycles and motor scooters. This town is also famous for tailor made clothes which can be finished in as little as 24 hours.We did not take a boat cruise on the Thu Bon river as we have been on enough boats this trip with a few more on our schedule. Note how both of these tour boats have eyes painted on them to scare off evil spirits when they are on the river.The Japanese covered bridge built in 1593 to link the Japanese and Chinese communities in Hoi An.The Japanese covered bridge is featured on the 20,000 Vietnamese Dong bill.Hoi An has at least five heritage buildings.This one is still being lived in by its owners.Of course they also work in the house and sell their merchandise. We bought some beautiful hand embroidered napkins.View of neighboring rooftops from the upper floor of the house.Our guide in Hoi An Mr. Huang took us into this home/shop/gallery where this girl’s grandfather had a huge collection of antique pottery.The family also had a restaurant and a rooftop bar where were treated to a Negroni for Jim and a margarita for Sandy.The lanterns at night.Sandy’s favorite food in Vietnam, a Banh Mi sandwich.
Listen to the loud frogs barking in the Lilly pond at our hotel, you will also see him jump among the lily pads.Day 2 in Hoi An we have a “specially curated cultural experience”. We drove out to a rural community and spent time with a local family.Those are peanuts which have been freshly picked.We spent about two hours with this family and had lunch with them. This is their open air living and dining room. That is the father and his 18 year old daughter who is home from university for the weekend. She and her older brother speak English. Of course they had tea for us.This is the entrance to their home. Note that the home is labeled 07. Some Vietnamese parents give the child their name based on their birth order. The father of this family we visited was the seventh child born to his parents so his name is seven and that is the name of his house also.These are pictures of her and her twin sister and her brother and wife. The couple who are 60 years old have four children. The oldest is a daughter who is married with two children and lives in Danang. The next is a son who is married and he and his wife live here. This only son intends to carry on maintaining the home and small farm even though he has a degree in engineering. The twin girls were born several years after their siblings when the mother was 42 years old 😮. They are both going to the University. The daughter spoke very good English and gave us the introduction to the family as the mother presented us with the family photos. We were then given a tour of their home and garden. The photo above is where the parents sleep. The twins bedroom is behind the black door and the son and wife have a separate roomAnother view of the kitchen, note the rice cooker on top of the washing machine.Kitchen for washing dishes and preparing food.They have two water buffalo which is an investment for them as they sell for quite a bit of money. At one time they were used for working in the rice paddies but all of that work is done by tractor now.This whole area floods every year so all of the homes have a boat to escape the flooding and this ramp is to get the water buffalo and pig to a higher pen out of the flood waters. When the floods occur the family moves into the grandparents home which is on stilts and has two stories.
Video of Jim petting the family pig which was pregnant.
They have a “hay stack” of rice stalks which they feed to the water buffalo.The family are very self sustained with an amazing garden of vegetables, fruit and herbs. Just look at the crop of banana on that tree. They harvest their crops and sell them at the market.Can’t remember if this was a squash or cucumber.In this picture you can see the boat attached to the ceiling. We circled it in green as it is camouflaged with the wooden ceiling.
Watch this video of Jim having his conical hat put on to protect him from the sun during our walk in the village. Note that he has his own sun hat hanging from his back. They took us on a walking tour of their neighborhood. Here they are showing us rice which looks a lot like wheat.These are freshly harvested peanuts which will be roasted then sold in the market.Back home again after our walk we are now meeting the son whose wife just had a baby. She is in a hospital in Danang. We learned that his wife per cultural tradition will go back to live with her mother for three months in order to learn child care, then she can return to live here with her husband. This is done only with the first born child.
We changed from conical hats to helmets for a motor scooter tour of their village. Here is a short video of our ride as we hung on to our drivers.
We stopped at this local woman’s house and learned how rice noodles are made. The rice is soaked and ground into rice flour.
As you can see in this video Sandy gets a crash course in making, the rice flour batter which is steamed for a very short time and then removed as a large thin sheet and then folded and cut in strips.
Cutting the thick rice noodles.Back at their house we are now cooking Vietnamese pancakes with their son to have dinner together.We had a huge feast and as always way more food than we can eat. We really enjoyed this cultural experience.Jim went out to an ATM which was not working but he saw this barber shop next to it.He had a haircut, shave, shampoo and quite a long head, neck and shoulder massage which cost about $19 with tip.We are booked for Vy’s Market Restaurant Cooking School.
We first took a walk to the market to see how fresh everything was. In this video you can see that this woman is quite good at skinning a pineapple.Jim’s favorites of peppers, limes, green onions and ginger.
Watch the fresh fish still jumping.😞 Sandy is ready to throw up after visiting these markets.Not so appetizing, someone’s heart.🤮How about pig’s snout and ears? Have we grossed you out yet? Now you can understand why Sandy hates these market tours but she puts up with it because Jim loves them.Much better, miles of fresh green herbs.Some fun T-shirts also at the market.Heading back to cook.
Jim trying his hand at collecting the thin rice noodles which are extruded from the noodle maker.
Jim showing his ineptness at shredding a green papaya.We both rolled one of these, now time to try it.Done with cooking school which Jim failed.Saying goodby to Hoi An.We have another three to four hour drive ahead of us to our next stop which is The Royal City of Hue. We are not particularly fond of these long drives but we pass the time between looking out the windows at the passing scenery and doing crossword puzzles on our laptops that we have downloaded ahead of the trip.
Hoi An has been a very picturesque small town and our tours focused on giving us a glimpse of daily lives of farmers, fishermen and craftsmen which has been a nice change from the war history and its memories. There will be more of that though in Hue and Danang.
I think I previously mentioned we were in Hoi A when the kids were young. I had one of my best meals in my life there. And I remember the kids having fancy sneakers made for them in the village which took about 24 hours to make. Thanks for the memories!
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