Hoi An

After New Years, we spent the first few days of 2015 touring around Hoi An. Hoi An is a delightful little town near Da Nang, and, since it was declared a Unesco world heritage site, not alot has changed about it since the 1800s. It is a great example of a South Asian trading port and has beautiful, charming architecture along with a love for pervasive yellow paint. Essentially, we just spent two days walking around, stopping at cafes, and eating some the renowned dishes. 

This is the very famous Japanese Bridge built in 16th-17th century. This bridge separated the Japanese settlement from the local Vietnamese and Chinese. This bridge is so famous, it's even printed on one of their bills. 

The city also has the Thu Bon River running through it, with lots of lovely bridges crossing over it. 

Nowadays, there is little of the original trading shops left. Instead, most places cater to the loads of tourists that come to see the architecture, hence the endless number of restaurants and cafes. There are also loads and loads of tailor shops, more than I've ever seen in one place. All of the store fronts were selling the exact same things. This picture below shows not one of the store fronts, but instead one of the workshops where the stuff is actually made. This feels like a measure never, cut often kind of place. But, I bet the place where Drew's Shenzhen suits are made probably doesn't look much better.

One of the biggest highlights in Hoi An was, not surprisingly, the food. We serendipitously ran into one of Drew's coworkers and his wife on the street in Hoi An, (small world I know) and they gave us some food recommendations, including one of the best street food dishes, in my opinion, of all of SE Asia. It's called a Bahn Mi, essentially a sandwich on a baguette filled with all sorts of crazy things, including pate, and topped with a hot sauce. It was absolutely fantastic, so good, in fact, that we went back for lunch two days in a row. The baguette and pate is obviously a French influence, as Vietnam was a French colony for a long time. But, most of the other ingredients, including a whopping amount of cilantro (which I love) is purely SE Asian. Drew is in awe. They also served the sandwich in a bag, as there was so much goodness in there that was liable to fall out. That didn't stop Drew from making a mess, however.

The best part about the Bahn Mi is that it is made from scratch by this tiny little old Vietnamese lady, who has probably been making these for decades.

And the baguettes are kept warm and crispy over a charcoal fire!

For our next dish, we wandered into the main market area of town, and found our way to the cooked food section. 

There, courtesy of Anthony Bourdain-Vietnam and his show "No Reservations", we found a place selling Cao Lau, a traditional noodle dish only found in Hoi An. It was scrumptious. 

I'm pretty sure these things drying on mats are the crispies that were put on top of our cao lau above. But that's just an educated guess. 

The last dish we had to try were White Roses, or, in other words, shrimp dumplings wrapped up to look like a flower. I think they look more like morning glories than roses, but whatever. 

The charm of the town was undeniable. So laid back and peaceful. Yeah it was sort of a Disney Land for adults, but we enjoyed it by finding our own hidden treasures.

One of the touristy things you could do was hire these cyclists to push you around for an hour. We didn't do this ourselves, but we had fun watching an entire Korean family hire a whole fleet of cyclists. They made a little parade going down the street!

At night, thousands of lanterns all over the city are lit, making it even more picturesque. Lovely, again, to just stroll around. There are also loads of girls trying to sell you a paper lantern boat which you again float out on the river and make a wish. It looks pretty, but I hope they go around and pick up the old ones every day, or else there is going to be alot of soppy wishes clogging the waterway.

Finally Hoi An, more so than most other SE Asian towns we've been to, seemed overrun by cute, smaller than average sized dogs. So, in addition to the Hoi An architectural tour, Drew and I went on the Hoi An puppy tour, stopping seemingly every few feet to pet a new adorable puppy. Perhaps, by this point in the trip, we were missing Trig just a little too much.