The Almost Magical Hoi An
Hoi An still has faint remnants of the magical town it clearly once was. A town with a rich history and cultural influences from many different ethnicities. French, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese.
The most obvious of these influences coming from China with their lanterns and shophouses. These lanterns bring the place to life at night with a vibrant display of colour.
I bought a couple for Kathy. If they arrive that is. They better because it cost a lot of dong for that postage.
Hoi An, for me, is almost magical because of the unavoidable herds of tourists that flock here to experience the magic. Ironically it is the same tourists that are diminishing it. Including me.
It is the tourist’s dilemma.
You want to experience a place but by doing so are you contributing to spoiling it? Most probably.
With crowds of tourist comes the rip-off merchants, the selfie sticks, and the tacky bars. You can’t help but wonder how the locals feel about it all.
Are they happy with the new potential for them to generate wealth or do they just want their town back?
Still, although probably too busy, you can’t deny it’s a beautiful little town. You can see why so many people want to visit.
The Bars
For a small cute town, Hoi An has a surprisingly big backpacker party scene. We stayed in a big party hostel. There are plenty of the standard traveler bars. Although in Hoi An they employ huge numbers of blaggers who hand out flyers and try walk you to their bar. Very annoying.
Fortunately, they weren’t all like that. The dive bar for Cham Island Diving was cool. And a regular of ours was Moe’s Tavern a Simpson’s inspired reggae bar with a pool table. Much more laid back, much more our scene.
Diving on Cham Island
After some hesitation about the cost, I decided to go for it. It will most likely be my last chance to dive this trip. I am glad I did.
Diving was just as awe-inspiring as I remembered it. An exploration of the unknown.
The dive sites were full of life. Beautiful coral, including whip curl coral which looked awesome spiraling up from the seafloor. Blue and white starfish were everywhere. Sea cucumbers. And the highlight for me, seeing a puffer fish sleeping on a bed of coral.
Although visibility was poor, around 5–7m, on both dives it did not affect my enjoyment. The murkiness of the water only made for a different more eery dive experience. Suddenly shapes appear out of the gloom and then slowly the color fades in, bringing the picture to life. I quite enjoyed it.
The art of diving is minimising your movements. Controlling your buoyancy with your breathing and simply float along using the gentlest of feet movements. So you become an unobtrusive floating observer of this unique beautiful underwater world.
An added bonus of diving with Cham Island Diving was the after dive lunch and relax on Cham Island. The food was amazing, the views were good and the beach was pretty decent. A great place for an after dive chill.
Visiting the Tailors
Hoi An is the place to go for tailored items in Vietnam. This and the influx of huge numbers of tourists each year has led to a rather confusing tailor shop scene. There are so many different shops it is hard to know which one is reliable. I heard a lot outsource their work to sweatshops meaning that the care and attention to detail you expect from tailored items aren’t always there.
I didn’t plan on getting anything other than my bag tailored but I was seduced by a shirt wearing manakin and ended up buying it. Only 15 dollars so not bad although it’s probably not the best tailored it could be.
I am rather impatient and have a classic English attitude of just wanting to get it over with without causing too much fuss. But overall I’m pleased with my spontaneous purchase.
The main event though was getting my bag done. I really hit the jackpot here. Not only did I get my bag fixed but I got it funkily upgraded and it looks sweet as fuck. Unique. Check it out.
Other Stuff
We went on the classic boat ride trip around the river at night. Checking out all the pretty lanterns and releasing our own wishing lanterns in the river. It was pretty but nothing to write home about. Nothing you couldn’t see from the pavement.
We ate a Morning Glory, a Gourmet Vietnamese restaurant. Me and Doug ordered the gourmet street foot. Which was nice but Irfan ordered the real deal and that was delicious. Not to self, don’t be a cheap bastard.
Visited a rather disappointing island in the river where woodworking was supposed to happen. Doug gets wood about wood and we hoped to be able to have a go carving or at least see someone carving. Unfortunately, we failed to find much going on apart from a couple of carving shops which we could have seen in Hoi An anyway.
Oh, and I bought a new hat. Almost forgot. A fetching bucket hat matching the hip fashion of Hoi An which seemed to be fruit patterned items of clothing.
Next up is Hue via the top gear famous Hai Van pass. I am expecting big things.
