Vietnam 2015: Hoi An

Moving on to central Vietnam, we flew down to Da Nang before driving to Hoi An to stay for a couple nights. We were pretty lame, didn’t really have a plan of what we were going to do apart from visit the old town. Apparently there is a beach near Hoi An but we wouldn’t know, it was hot, really hot, coming from Hanoi and quite draining of our collective energies :D. We managed to stroll through the old town on one afternoon/evening catching most of the tourist sites around there, the bridge, the Cantonese assembly hall (but not the Fukien one I think, I don’t remember). We saw enough lanterns to last a lifetime, and even bought a couple that are sitting in boxes in the garage catching dust. It’s quite a nice town, picturesque and calm.

On our second day we decided to to go and check out some tailors as Hoi An is quite famous for it, we went to a couple of recommended places, and ended up at Bebe 3. I ended up getting a slim fit suit (which is hanging in the wardrobe as clean as the day I bought it lol), I think I had three fittings and the suit was delivered to our hotel before we checked out the next morning. I squeezed in a shirt and got a tie for free as part of a discount offer provided by the hotel all for 250$ USD.

Slim fit suit

Emmy got a dress from the same place, a very nice dress that she also hasn’t worn yet (we’re waiting for a special occasion). On top of that emmy wanted to check out another tailor (across the road from Bebe) to spread the wealth and make sure that we weren’t pigeon-holing ourselves into one store (Bebe was definitely better though) and picked up a blazer for about 100$ USD. All of these shops are quite pushy and trying to sell you stuff, but I personally preferred Bebe as they were asking in a nice way, and the customer service was friendlier. The girls (they’re all girls that work at these places) at the other place just don’t seem to have any training in hospitality or something, not cheaper and service not as good.

Really though, the most important part of any trip is the food, amirite? Hoi An is also quite famous for its cuisine, which we very happily indulged in. A couple of famous dishes, Mi Quang and Cao Lau, both noodle dishes, one from the country and one from the city (I forget which), and both were delicious, even though the places we visited were quite random and we wouldn’t know how to get back to the same ones if we went back. The two places we went to, I don’t think you’d find them in a guide book or anything, we pretty much just walked along some street a bit down from where the tailors shops are and found the first place that was open for Cao Lau. The Mi Quang place we asked the hotel for a recommendation and they sent us on a taxi ride to the outskirts of town it seemed, some restaurant along the highway or something.

Other than that, we also went to the recommended place for Hoianese chicken rice which is quite similar to Hainanese chicken rice :D, it was quite good too. A couple of random-ish places we tried, the vegetarian restaurant that was the only restaurant open apparently the day we arrived, somewhere further from town, certainly nothing special unless you wanted the really local feel, and the Banh Mi “restaurant” where we got some local Hoi An bread rolls, they were okay but I much prefer the Saigon style ones that you get at Nhu Lan in Footscray :D.

Finally, the accommodation, we stayed at Little Boutique Hotel which is quite central, right on the canal, and about a ten minute walk from the old town. This was a very nice hotel, first class service, a nice little swimming pool, and a very nice room, luxurious even. Apparently there was a free beach shuttle, but we never bothered going to the beach, too much shopping to do :D.

The king on his royal bed

They gave us a lot of great helpful advice and the buffet breakfast was very well stocked with a great variety of Vietnamese and western regulars. They arranged for a shuttle service to take us to our hotel in Da Nang which was convenient, I mean we had to pay for it, but still, door to door, can’t argue with that. Very highly recommended, we’ll stay there next time we need some fancy clothes ;). And with that we’ll be moving on to Da Nang, I was going to include both central cities in this post, but Hoi An really took over.