Hoi An
Day 19 – Hoi An, Vietnam
Hoi An is a charming town that has kept its historical old center and is now a World Heritage site.
Meandering through the market (live poultry included), one can get to the streets bordered with old wooden houses, relics of a past where traders came from China and Japan with the southwards winds, waited a few months, and went back with the northwards winds.
That led to an architecture influenced by Chinese designs, a Japanese covered bridge that symbolically links the Chinese and the Japanese quarters, and many charming old wooden houses. Gaily-coloured lanterns criss-cross the streets, souvenir shops alternate with cafes, and more than one places offer cooking courses. Moreover, the city is known for its cheap custom-made clothes, and tailors offer deals upon deals.
Armed with my old town ticket, with allows me to visit up to five selected sites, I wandered the street under the sun. The town is not far from the sea, and that results in a regular lifting of the cloud cover!
My first visit was to the Museum of Trade Ceramics, which is housed in a historical wooden house, so two birds with one stone.
Hoi An was a bustling trade hub in the 15th and 16th century, a link between the Chinese and Japanese traders and the Indian and European traders. Ceramics was one of the trade goods, and the discovery of a shipwreck in the area with intact pieces allowed researchers to learn a lot about the trade.
I made my way further until the Japanese covered bridge, then to the streets beyond, where I was ripped off by a very friendly fruit seller that kindly took the higher-denomination bill out of my wallet and gave me some change for a few mangoustans and lychee-looking fruits. Very expensive fruits. Very good too, but still, I paid around 10 times their price, because I wasn’t quick-witted enough to get my money back.
I drowned my sorrows in mint lemonade in a restaurant on the riverbank, where I ate the best spring rolls I have ever had.
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Tes photos sont charmantes!
Désolée aussi pour la perte de tes sous lors du change…mais bon, tu as fait un heureux! ET c’est difficile de vérifier son change quand on a des monnaies si différentes! Tu feras mieux la prochaine fois!
Quand je voyageais, je laissais des coupures différentes dans mes différentes poches, plutôt que dans un portefeuille, et ça me permettait de ne sortir qu’un billet à la fois, petit dans la poche de droite, plus gros dans la poche de gauche (par exemple)… C’était difficile sinon de négocier le prix d’un objet en disant que je n’avais pas assez de sous, et de sortir un gros billet à la fin (ou que le vendeur puisse voir ce que j’avais).
C’est très charmant !
Tes fruits façon litchi ne seraient pas des longanes ? On les achète par branches, et ça a vraiment la même forme… Mais pas le même goût. Nous nous en gavions l’été dernier !
C’est charmant ! Ton assiette a l’air très goûteuse, je bave.