We got to our hotel – Chez Mimosa – in late afternoon. I had messaged ahead to request 4 scooters, which were waiting for us when we arrived. Wonderful service. Even better was the free laundry they offered!
The hotel is sitting amongst the rice fields, a couple of miles out of Hoi An town. The views are lovely. I thought a bit of solitude would be relaxing and that we would be forced to make an effort to go and explore the countryside if we were in amongst it, rather than constantly shopping in Hoi An town.
After a swim, we headed out for dinner on the scooters and ended up at a place called Purple Lantern.
It served decent local food, much to the utter disgust of Rai when he found out there was no chips, but he relented when he found out there was calamari at least.
We started ordering a few plates to share, demolished them and kept ordering more and more.
The next day we went out on the scooters to give the basket boats a try, but it started lashing it down and just did not stop.
So we spent the afternoon eating in The Basket Boat Cafe, playing uno and drinking copious hot chocolates – because the wind and the rain made it unexpectedly cold. I think we were there for about 3 or 4 hours, just whiling away the afternoon while the waitresses fussed over Crickett, and she fussed over a puppy.
Then we scootered home in the rain.
The coracle ‘basket boats’ are used for squid fishing and it is considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. There are apparently whole villages of widows who have lost their husbands to squid fishing. They would be away for months at a time, minimal contact, in rough seas and pretty much zero shelter from the sun, the rain and rough seas.
They seem to think these coracles are the best for thing for attracting squid – or maybe did historically – as the squid don’t like a lot of movement or light, but I’m sure there are hundreds of squid boats (much larger actual boats) in Thailand, with green lights pointing in to the sea at night, which you can see from the shore, but who am I to lecture them.
In the evening we took ourselves in to Hoi An town, which is now a UNESCO world heritage site.
It dates back to 2nd century AD and was an important harbour between 2-15th centuries for the Champa kingdom (as it was at the time).
Between 16-18th centuries, Viet settlers arrived, and developed local crafts and crops for trade; this grew the harbour in to one of SE Asia’s busiest ports.
By the late 17th century, Chinese and Japanese merchants had established bases and full communities there, so it became a major international trade port. Then the Europeans arrived and grew it even further.
On and on.
But the river silted up in the 19th century, causing an end to significant trade in the area and the port moved up the coast to Danang (40 mins north) which is now itself a bustling – but rather unattractive – modern city. I did however have an amazing steak there in 2006.
Hoi An has remained an exceptionally well-preserved town, with over 1,000 original timber buildings and homes, a ferry quay, religious pagodas and an open market. Even the original street plan is all still in tact.
It is however, VASTLY different from when I went 20 years ago. It was a much quieter, quaint, pretty town back then. There was hardly anyone there, it was rather sleepy and specialised in leather and bespoke tailoring (we got some clothes and sandals made).
I remember walking along the river’s edge, where sellers with a bamboo pole over their shoulders carrying 2 baskets sold fruit and other goods, and definitely no boats or lanterns. The boom started a decade or so ago with the influx of digital nomads in the area, who liked the relaxed (and cheap) town it as a base.
Today, it’s like Blackpool illuminations and absolutely heaving. Everyone stopping for photo ops. Tons of touts for the lantern boats. And tons of lantern boats in the river. Music blaring along the river front from across the other side of the river, where it is lined with bars with girls dancing on podiums, neon lights and live music competing for attention.
It is still a pretty town, at the bones, but not somewhere I would recommend to stop for long. A day would be enough. The leather trade (buffalo) is still great. Sampled that. Obviously.
The next day we got back to the basket boats. It was 50% entertaining and 50% underwhelming. I think we should have gone back to the Basket boat cafe and done their tour, which is quieter and longer according to the reviews, away from the standard route, they take a different route and it will probably for the better, in hindsight.
Ours was short and sweet, and the river was heaving. It ended up much more expensive than we expected and we didn’t get a tour of the palm forest/ mangroves which was disappointing. But the kids loved the boat spinning.
After the underwhelming expensive boats, we decided to go to the beach and grab some lunch. So we scootered off to a place I’d already bookmarked to visit before we came out.
Crickett didn’t really want to join in, so she took herself down to the beach while we ate some rather lovely food. She then buried her sandals in the sand and couldn’t remember where, so that was fun.
We went back in to Hoi An that evening, just for something to do, as no one was that hungry for a proper dinner after our big beach lunch.
Oliver spotted a hat he liked and we then spent the next hour or two trying to find said hat in every single shop that sold hats, only to find the original shop, and for him to realise he had invented the hat – mixing up 2 that were side by side.
The kids joined some locals on a giant bouncy castle down from the river, Crickett ran to get it on, slipped forward on to her knees and then slammed her head on to the floor. The resulting egg was immediate!
We tried some Vietnamese pizza (not at all pizza in any way, more like a folded soft poppadom with eggs and shredded meat but was somehow unappealingly sweet and savoury at the same time) and folded ice cream, which was yum.
The next day we were going to go quad biking but it started at 7:30 and none of the kids could be bothered with the early start 😂 so we just spent the last day touring round the countryside on the scooters.
We started by riding up to Tra Que vegetable village, where they grew lots of herbs and veggies. There were lots of cooking classes available in that area and it was much more quiet and tranquil.
We rode through the vegetable gardens looking for a little cafe I’d found on google maps, but it was so discreet we rode right past it and had to retrace our steps to find it. It served some lovely food, despite being in the middle of nowhere and almost hidden from plain sight.
The ONE thing I wanted to see in Hoi An – but I knew it was seasonal and so would be 50/50 whether it would be there or not – was the traditional bamboo bridge over the river. We did a big detour to find it… it was not there. Very disappointed. Definitely think I have a thing for bridges. We had a little pit stop anyway to fuel up with sugar for the rest of the ride.
Then on to another little island in the river, where we did find some other bridges that Jonathan didn’t enjoy, such as this one without sides.
We went back to the hotel, got the kids in the pool and we packed for leaving the next day.
The plan was to have dinner that evening at a local BBQ place I’d found on the other side of the river, on one of the river islands, watching the colourful lantern boats away from the bustle of the main town.
And after dinner, go and see the Memories of Hoi A show, a huge performance on water with a cast of about 500 people on one of the river islands.
We got to the BBQ place, got a nice little table on the river’a edge to watch the boats and the sunset, and then it started spitting. Then raining. Then full on monsoon rain. Which did not stop.
Everyone tried to ride it out for a bit, with all the customers helping to try and keep the water off the awnings (grandiose term for tarp on metal poles) but when the thunder and lightning started crashing directly above us, they ushered us inside and we ended up eating in a little vestibule, 8 of us around one small table.
The food was actually excellent (and cheap) and everyone had a go at the snails – even Crickett – but were overall happier with the buffalo wings, pork belly and other bits we had.
The rain went on for so long and so hard that we couldn’t leave – being on scooters and road flooded – and so we missed the show. The show and the bamboo bridge in one day. Booo.
We did however go back to a leather shop I’d found on the first night and bought a few bags, a nice overnight duffle bag type of thing and a backpack for both me and Jonathan – so all was well.
Next stop stop Kuala Lumpur 🇲🇾
danilovescats 