Hoi An

Hoi An is a quiet, romantic city situated along the river, and close to the beach. My hostel was a 10 minute bike ride to the beach, and a 5 minute bike ride to the city center.

Typical street in old town Hoi An.

While the city is very charming, it feels like it’s built for tourists. Most of the businesses are tailors, restaurants, or souvenier shops. There are beautiful lanterns everywhere, and they look fantastic at night.

Old Japanese bridge. It looks great at night because it is illuminated with colored lights. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t capture the night shot of this bridge.
Hoi An is beautiful at night
The river runs through the center of the old town. Restaurants line both ends of the river.
In Hanoi the traffic was so crazy I could barely cross the street. In Hoi An, I biked everywhere.

I had a very unique and interesting meal in Hoi An. Bale Well has no menu. You sit down, and they start bringing out plates of food: lettuce, cabbage, carrots, cucumber, barbecue pork satay, and egg cakes. You use rice paper to roll your own spring rolls. They don’t allow you to eat it any other way. I tried to eat some of the bbq pork off of the stick, and the waitress snatched the satay stick from me, and showed me how to properly create a spring roll. I ended up eating here 2 days later.

Roll your own spring rolls at Bale Well.

Cua Dai Beach is a fantastic beach east of Hoi An. I ended up going to the beach 4 days in a row. I met cool people there, lay under the umbrellas, and swam. Unlike Ha Long Bay, the water here was very clear and clean. The water was a bit colder, but that was very refreshing in the 95 degree heat.

Cua Dai Beach near Hoi An
Another shot of the beach
The beach is lined with lounge chairs and umbrellas

One day, just as I was getting to the beach, some dark clouds rolled in, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped. I noticed the locals were quickly leaving, and the staff was putting away the umbrellas. The beach is a 10 minute bike ride from my hotel, and I didn’t want to get caught in whatever storm the locals were preparing for, so I jumped on my bike and booked it. About 15 minutes after I made it to my hotel, the storm rolled in and destroyed our hotel patio.

2 of these metal panels flew over the yellow building in the background.

Within 45 minutes the storm cleared, and the sun came out. The following day, I was back at the beach :-)