On a memorable stopover in Hoi An

AT 1.30pm of Wednesday, jene 16, I left Dalat on a bus heading towards the coastal city of Nha Trang. I arrived there at about five in the afternoon, which gave me some time for a walk on the beach and to have dinner before taking the 7.30pm night bus to my next destination: Hoi An, about 550km north of Nha Trang.

Nha Trang is clearly a destination for people wanting to relax and swim at a short distance from everything that a big town can offer in terms of entertainment, shopping, food, etc.

The centre is full of hotels, restaurants and bars and the beach is swarming with people chilling out on the beach, playing volleyball or swimming in the nice blue waters of the South China Sea. What makes this beach particularly attractive is the mountains and islands looming all around.

At 7.30pm for the first time in my life I got on a bus with berths: three lines of reclining bunk berths, perhaps not comfortable enough to enjoy a long deep sleep, but definitely better than normal seats.

When I woke up a little before 6am I could see a beautiful landscape of green paddy fields and little villages around us, until shortly after we finally reached the historical town of Hoi An, yet another of the World Heritage cities that I have had the fortune of visiting during my journey.

Hoi An is one of the most beautiful towns I have seen since I started my journey, similar in a way to Melaka on account of its strong Chinese influences.

However, whereas Melaka's other historical, cultural and architectonical influences are Malay and European (Portuguese, Dutch and British), the other cultures that have influenced Hoi An's architecture are the Vietnamese, the Japanese and the French ones.

The old town, set along the northern bank of the Bon river, is a living museum with narrow lanes lined with beautiful well-preserved houses, shophouses and temples. It is a very touristic place and most of the old houses are now either museums, handicraft/souvenir shops or restaurants and cafes, but early in the morning or late at night it looks again like the old thriving port it used to be in the non-too-distant past.

The very day I arrived, after resting a little in the guesthouse I had found, I went out to buy the ticket that allows you to visit five historical/cultural sites one can pick and choose out of a long list (it is not possible to pay separately) and I set out on my visit. What I liked the most were the Japanese bridge (1593) and the old houses, but the ticket also allowed me to attend a very good folk music and dance show at the Hoi An Handicraft Workshop.

However, everything that one can see while walking through Hoi An's lanes is historical and beautiful, and I went on and on strolling around to discover ever new interesting things.

In the afternoon of my second day I decided to rent a bicycle to go to Hoi An's beach (Cua Dai beach) only 5km away from the town, and I found a long not-so-crowded beach with shady palms growing not far from the sea shore. Like in Nha Trang the beach is made more beautiful by the islands in front and the mountains in the distance.

On my way back, I was cycling along one of the streets immediately out of the centre of Hoi An when I heard somebody calling me; I stopped and turned around and I saw Fiona, an English girl I had met in Luang Prabang, Laos, running out of a hotel on the side of the street! Thanks to Facebook I knew that she and her Canadian friend I had met there as well had reached Vietnam, but then suddenly Facebook was not available any longer and I had lost track of them, until that moment! Yet another of these incredible coincidences that seem to be so common when one travels around this way.

The following day I signed up for a day trip to the archaeological site of My Son, 35km southwest of Hoi An, now a Unesco world heritage site.

Riding on a minibus to get there and sailing on a boat to return. In My Son one can visit what the American bombs spared of the ruins of the Hindu temples built between the 4th to 14th centuries by the kings of Champa. They were very interesting, but what I enjoyed particularly was the boat trip along the river where we could see Vietnamese farmers paddling along or fishermen fishing, most of them wearing the traditional Vietnamese conical hat.

This morning, June 20, it was another departure, but this time to a place only about 150km north of Hoi An, driving past the beautiful Marble Mountains and through the city of Danang. I'm referring to Hue, the town I am in at the moment. Next week I will write about this charming town on the Song Huong, the Perfume River.

Paolo Coluzzi is Italian, from Milan. He has lived in Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain (where he obtained his PhD in sociolinguistics) and Brunei for many years. Before undertaking the present journey described in his weekly articles he was a lecturer at UBD.

The Brunei Times