An Early Morning in Hoi An

The sun rises early in the summertime in southern Vietnam, and with it, so did I.

I was awake with the dawn and went outside of the guesthouse to sit by the river.

It was a lovely morning, and too early from Breakfast. I walked down the quiet dirt road to a small local temple.

There wasn't much activity, but it was nice to see a sliver of local life away from the tourist bustle of the Hoi An we had experienced the night before.

We had asked our driver to pick us up a bit later that morning, since the drive to Hue would be one of the shorter ones on our journey across Vietnam. After breakfast, Dominik and I walked back to the old town to try to get a better feel of it without the throngs of tourists.

As it turned out, Hoi An was much nicer - beautiful, ancient, and peaceful - in the early morning before the UNESCO sites opened and most people took to the streets.

On our walk, we came across a Japanese ship.

The Red Seal Ships, or Shuinshen, were Japanese merchant vessels that sailed throughout Southeast Asia during the early 17th century. They were called "Red Seal" ships because each carried an official trading license bearing the shogun's red seal, proving that they were authorized merchants rather than pirates or smugglers. The system operated primarily between 1604 and 1635. They were once a common site in Hoi An.

One of the best-known stories from this period concerns the Japanese merchant Araki Sōtarō and Vietnamese noblewoman Princess Ngọc Hoa, daughter of a Nguyễn lord. The two married in 1619, and tradition says that Sōtarō brought his wife back to Nagasaki aboard a Red Seal Ship. Their marriage became a symbol of the close relationship between Japan and Hoi An and is still celebrated in both cities today. The model ship in Hoi An is used in an annual parade during a ceremony that still celebrates this historic event.

We then came to the morning market.

Unlike the touristy market we had walked through the night before (where we had both bought extremely cheap Patagonia fanny packs made in Vietnam but sold with tiny defects at massive discounts), this one catered nearly exclusively to the local people who live in and around the old town.

As we were walking back to our hotel, we were stopped by a group of students on a school trip. Their teacher told us that they were on an English summer camp and had a list of questions that they had to ask to any foreigners that they might see on the streets.

Dominik and I answered their questions, which were mostly things like "What's your name?", "Where are you from?", and "Can you speak any Vietnamese?". It was really fun, and we did our best to make the kids laugh.