Okay, not really. It means Happy New Year in Vietnamese. But the end result of our trip to Hoi An on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day meant for fun for Maura and Sarah. Imagine going to a city with the the Biltmore Estate, St. Peters, and the Mall of America on Christmas Eve and Day, and all that you can find open is a 7 Eleven. Let me go ahead and get the whining over with:
- All the stores were closed. Hoi An is known, nay, revered for its wonderful shopping and has been hundreds of years, but there was very little to be had when we were there. This includes all the tailor shops that are supposed to be able to make great suits for under $70. We did manage to buy a few things. In the end, it may have been a good thing the shopping was light because we were already maxing out our bags. Though I did manage to buy the heaviest things available.
- Most of the restaurants were closed. Including the one that the Frommer’s writer said was the best meal he had in Vietnam. Wah. And the places that were opened were those that served a mix of Western and Vietnamese. Plus, they kept running out of the specialties. We were literally forced to eat bad pizza one day because the restaurant had run out of everything else.
- Most of the good sites were closed. A lot of what you see in Hoi An are 200 year old houses that are still in the family. Those family members are often the ones showing you around. But they were too busy preparing for the biggest holiday of their year to bother with us. Sooo selfish.
- The weather was not 70 and sunny as was promised. Instead it was 65 and cloudy, so we couldn’t even really sit by the pool.
- Plus, I came down with a wicked cold on the first night and stayed in bed for most of the second day. It was really just as well since otherwise we would have just wandered the empty streets all day with all the other tourists with our faces hanging out. But it certainly wasn’t much fun for Maura.
So basically the Year of the Rat did not begin well for us. But enough complaining. Here is the good stuff:
Hoi An is a lovely city set on the Perfume River and is a must for any itinerary. It is a small town, very walkable, with a warmer feel than Hanoi. The buildings are mostly a faded version of the French colonial yellow we saw on the Palace in Hanoi. It is full of temples, 200-year-old houses, and assembly halls for the various group of the Chinese minorities.
There is also a beautiful covered Japanese bridge,
which was either built by the Japanese merchants who lived in Hoi An, built in the style of Japan, or some such thing. No one really knows.
And the town is (usually) chock a block with stores selling all kinds of handcrafts and general crap. Even when most stores were closed, there was still enough stuff around to get a sense of the largess normally available. There was one street in particular that we loved just past the Japanese bridge.
It was full of art galleries selling an array of modern Vietnamese art. What we liked best were the lacquerware panels with animals, Vietnamese people and places, and every day articles (lots of bicycles) in varying degrees of abstractions. The colors were wonderful, earthy yellows, reds, oranges and deep blues and purples. They were a titch too expensive and waay to heavy to carry, which meant shipping, which added expense. But had we wandered the streets much more with nothing else to buy, I am sure we would have succumbed.
On New Year’s morning, we woke up extra early (though really only about 30 minutes early than we naturally had been waking up) to go to My Son, Champa ruins about 45 minutes from Hoi An. The Cham were an Indian civilization (I think) that settled in Central Vietnam . . . sometime a long time ago. They eventually just kind of melded into the Vietnamese culture. My Son is set back in the mountains is the jungle – a really beautiful location. The ruins are pretty badly damaged by the usual suspects — time, looting, weather — and by American bombing during the war. The Vietminh camped up in the ruins, probably banking on the fact that the Americans wouldn’t want to destroy the centuries old ruins. Wrong. Interestingly,
both sides avoided Hoi An and the city (only 45 minutes away by bad roads) escaped almost unscathed from the wars.
Like many things in Vietnam, the ruins weren’t so well laid out. I am not saying the Cham should have built on a grid, but I think the current authorities could, I dunno, give you some sort of map that makes sense. Or perhaps a sign that says “This way.” Just a thought. Maura and I saw the Group B, C, and D ruins (the main show it turns out) and the lesser Group G ruins, but then made a wrong turn and ended up all the way at the beginning. We started back up the main road, but my feeling crappy got the better of me and I decided to forgo the remaining ruins. Maura, no fan of ruins she, decided to come back with me and so we headed home about 45 minutes after we had arrived. I think our driver was probably pleased. We had offered to start an hour earlier so that we could minimize the interference with his Tet celebration. Imagine some bratty, whiny tourists making
you work on Christmas morning.
Updated: The other thing we did that day was get massages at the hotel spa. Because that was the only thing opened. It was, well, a little painful. I am not sure if they thought Maura and I were a couple, but they put us in the same room together for our spas, which was a little awkward. First, we cuddled, then we got a couples massage. It’s like Honeymoon 2008. I think though that doing spa treatments with friends must be a thing. [This was born out by other spa experiences where we went in separate rooms, but their were two beds. I was glad for the separate beds in at least one treatment where there was a whole lotta nekkid.]
