Hoi An

Hoi An is only about twenty minutes outside of Da Nang, just past the Marble Mountains, on the central Vietnamese coast. We descended to the base of Ba Na Hills, where our hired car was waiting to carry us on to Hoi An. Shortly, we were checked in at our next hotel and ready to explore this small and unbelievably beautiful UNESCO World Heritage City.

Hoi An was once the center of the world. Well, the center of the trading world, anyway. Merchants from all across Asia, and even from as far away as Portugal and the Netherlands sailed to trade in Hoi An. The Japanese even believe that the heart of the great dragon that lives inside the earth lies directly underneath Hoi An. Needless to say, it was once an incredibly important and powerful city.

The most amazing thing about Hoi An is that its historical Old Town area has been perfectly preserved! New laws prevent the destruction or remodeling of the old shop houses - they must stay exactly as they were 200-300 years ago. The entire city center is protected by UNESCO, and is even closed off to motorists. You can get around easily on foot or by bicycle.

But we were tired. At least, Pinky and I were tired! Pinky's sister, Anny, seemed to have an unlimited amount of energy for her vacation time. We were ready to explore the historical old city, but first we needed to have a cup of tea. We visited a tea house inside one of the old historic shop buildings. Although there was no air conditioning, the room was breezy and cool.

The tea was served ice cold, and even came with a tiny little incense burner. Soon, we were refreshed and ready to wander through the narrow streets of the ancient town.

There are dozens of UNESCO sites throughout Hoi An, all easily reachable by foot. Each group that traded in Hoi An had their own temple or community house. There's a Cantonese House, a Hainan House, and more. The most famous of these is the Japanese covered bridge, the only one of its kind outside of Japan. It was built by Japanese merchants near their part of the city, and is the symbol of Hoi An today.

You can get a ticket to enter the UNESCO sites, but it is a little bit expensive, and one ticket is only good for five sites. Instead of that, we walked through the town to see all of the sites from the outside, which is almost as good. After all, the architecture is what makes Hoi An so special.

It was hot though. Very hot! At risk of looking super touristy, Pinky got one of those Vietnamese conical hats (called a non la), which actually does an amazing job of keeping the sun off of your face and keeping you pretty cool.

Hoi An is also home to a monthly lantern festival, very much like Thailand's Loi Krathong. The festival is held every month on the full moon, and purely by chance we happened to arrive in the city on just the right day!

That meant there would be no time for rest, though, and we were determined to see all of Hoi An in the two short days that we were to stay in town. This week was exhausting, but so much fun!

Hungry, we walked to the Central Market, where dozens of food stalls compete for customers. We just chose the one with enough available seats and ordered three big bowls of Hoi An's famous local noodles.