Hoi An

Hoi An was a dubious stop on this trip – online reviews and tour books alternately described it as the best part of Vietnam, and…an overly touristy town quickly losing its last fragments of soul. 

I guess both views are right.  Hoi An was picturesque, charming, tiny enough to easily wrap your head around.  It was also fairly commercial, and every building was either a tourist-aimed restaurant, store, or booking agency.  The buildings and streets are a nice balance of navigable and old-world-looking (stones instead of concrete curb, neatly packed dirt).   Faisal thinks they hired a tourism consultant, who advised them not to get in peoples’ faces.  (One tour book mentioned a ban on aggressive motorcycle/taxi hustlers.  In contrast to Nha Trang and Saigon, it was nice not having someone periodically question my ability to walk ten feet.)

At night, the river water comes in with the tide, and makes the daytime waterfront street and market area a little splooshy.  Kinda cute, but kinda bad for the restaurants that do business there.  Almost a dead zone. The morning sees some busy markets, though, and those are always fun to walk through.

Good:

• Moped rental without an international driver’s license, ghetto helmets and friendly grandma included. 
• Thoroughly enjoyable, well organized cooking class
• Friendly small food providers (mostly) 
• Watching two skinny Santas ride by on a moped, holding a sack.  Totally looked like a bank robbery.
• Good tailors

 

Bad: 

• Totally got gypped on the “fresh crab” at a restaurant.  They made a big show of letting you pick the crab from a bucket, and then fed us some frozen, untasty bug-like thing. Not so cool.  But what are you gonna say, right?  The thing I don’t understand is…the cost of freezing a crab in Vietnam, where they have lots of fresh ones…seems like it’d be more than just getting fresh crabs.  Sad. 
• Overpriced, mediocre food at sit-down restaurants
• Lazy, short-cutting tailors