Hoi An

Hoi An, the former imperial capital - another of the numerous former capitals and another UNESCO World Heritage Site :) - looks like the imagined dream of Asia, or rather Indochina in the mid twenties. Or 200 years ago.

We arrived with our spaceship bus from Hue on the 19th of May in the evening and got drifted by the charm of the Old Town with its lovely little houses, the river and the number of tailor shops beyond imagination. Tailoring anything which goes, ready within a couple of hours is one of the local attractions with very inviting prices, quality fabrics and a temptation to get a dress made here which you would otherwise never think about. OK, I did resist the devil to get a full length silk evening gown and also a red hand made pair of shoes with a little flower embroidery, but I gave in for a thick cotton coat :) You can choose any model from most recent catalogues (how about made to order Puma sneakers?!) and have them ready next morning. In addition Hoi An is full of bookstores with only photocopied books...look "same same but different" but we thought it is a disgrace to books to have them sold like this :)

Other than indulging in such vanities we tried Hoi An culinary specialities, like White Rose and Wonton, which I do not even try explaining, but they were delicious! We bought a combined ticket allowing us to visit five historical locations from a greater choice, including the former Assembly Hall, local traders' houses, temples and even a singing-dancing folklore performance. My ever favorite, most beautiful instrument is the Vietnamese "violin", which has only one string, otherwise quite similar to the violin in concept, but the sound it makes is sooo wonderful, that young girls were forbidden to listen to it in order to prevent falling in love with the musician. We could have spent more time in this miraculous place, where Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Hoi An-ese cultures used to live next to each other in peace, but decided to continue our stroll down the coast of the South Chinese Sea.

By the way, today we learned that Viet Nam in Chinese means "More South", implying that Vietnam is actually the Southern part of China :)