Today is the first day in over 3 weeks that we don’t have anything planned. No tours. No organization, nothing. It’s a lovely feeling. And it’s Valentine’s Day – Happy Valentine’s Day!
We putz around all morning, have breakfast, start to sort of arrange our packing, then head out to explore Hoi An. We’ve been here before on a tour from a ship, and while we enjoyed the history and the ancient temples, etc., in town, it wasn’t our favorite place in Vietnam – I think we called its “Vietnam Lite.” But, heck, we’re here, so we will go see what there is to see – and we do have 2 missions: 1) to buy Ed more of the awesome t-shirts we got here last time (they are the best quality!), and 2) go to the Banh mi place that had run out of bread on our street tour. So, it’s not necessarily mindless wandering.
We follow Hung’s advice from 2 days ago, and walk into town along the river road – which is so much more pleasurable than going along the city streets. First we pass a couple of rice paddies– right across the street from the hotel – with women already working, planting and maintaining the new soft shoots of rice. Then we turn along the river, heading toward town, and while It’s longer this way, it is so much more peaceful. There is literally no one about, and the sidewalk along the river is wide and even, not like the hurdy gurdy sidewalk on the city streets. The peacefulness quickly recedes behind us as we near town, it is a zoo review, even at a little after 10am.
We turn into town with a bunch of tourists, only to get confused by the Japanese bridge. I think the city is before the bridge, but it turns out it is not, and are going in the opposite direction. We correct our heading, cutting through town on a diagonal road that actually takes us right past the Old Town Bar and Bistro, one of our choice for dinner last night (that we smartly abandoned when we saw the masses of crowds descending on the town). At least we know where it is for a drink later.
Now we know where we are, and we are right at the Japanese bridge, which is the beginning of the old historic district. In and amongst the hundreds of touristy souvenir and arts shops, are little historical houses from the original town, temples and pagodas, plus museums and other interesting oddities you must pay admission to explore. Since we’ve already done that, we are just meandering, watching all the tourists and their deer in the headlights facial expressions, window shopping at the myriad of art/painting shops (with really gorgeous prints, but we A) don’t have room, and B) don’t think any of these are originals and worth the hassle of trying to get home) and various other souvenir shops along the main historic street.
Through all the hullaballoo, we do finally find the T-Shirt store for Ed. He has on one of his existing shirts, and the proprietor yells out, repeat customer, when he sees us. Yes, we are! The shirts are pricey in comparison to others, but they are of such good quality that we don’t mind. We end up negotiating a discount on 3 shirts and walk out happily with our purchases. Now on to lunch.
Fortunately, I know exactly where we are now, and exactly where Banh Mi Phuong Hoi An is located. There is already a line beginning to form when we get there, and not knowing exactly what the protocol is, I wait in the line while Ed goes in and grabs a seat. As it turns out, we could have just sat down at the table and ordered, but we didn’t know that. The bonus of standing at the counter waiting to place the order is that I got to watch the assembly line put together Banh mi after Banh mi. It was a synchronized dance, and orchestral performance, there were 5 girls behind the counter all making different sandwiches at a rate of about 1 sandwich per minute. Crazy fun, just watching. I finally got to order – and even that was an ordeal, because they don’t have just regular Banh mi, they have all sorts of different varieties- bacon, tuna, with egg….nah, we just want traditional and ended up with pork and BBQ pork. I grab the sandwiches and 2 beers, deposit them on the table then look for someone to pay. It was such a busy place, I truly could have just walked away without paying, but that’s not right – so I stood at the counter until I could get someone’s attention, told them our order and paid – a whopping $1 USD for each sandwich and $0.65 cents for each beer. Vietnam. Gotta love it.
We finish our sandwiches and bus our own table (because I guess we weren’t supposed to be sitting there without waitstaff service? I dunno, but it is the nice thing to do), and head out the door, where the line is literally stretching across the street - which isn’t too good from a safety standpoint – or a waiting time standpoint. Obviously we got here at the right time.
Now, it’s time to make our way back through the crowds on our way to the hotel. We decide though to make a pitstop at the Old Town Bar and Bistro for a couple of drinks, which turns out to be a nice respite on the side street leading to the Japanese Bridge. At first we are the only ones there, besides the owner (a Brit) and the bartender/waitress. But soon, others filter in. Mostly Brits who talk with the owner, and a couple who just want the bathroom, to which the owner rolls his eyes and just shakes his head. Overall it is quite a pleasant hour sitting there, drinking and listening to the banter.
We took the river walk home, again on nice quiet streets along the river, then hung out in the room and on the balcony (when the sun went down), relaxing and enjoying the rest of our day. Tonight we have our Valentine’s Day celebration at Red Bean, where we feasted on a Hoi An specialty of Three Friends appetizer, an incredibly tasty little stack of shrimp and pork belly, tied together with strips of spring onions, then Bun Cha for Ed, which had an amazing selection of pork, but little sauce – very differently served here – still excellent though, and I had the seafood on a hot pan which was a combination of squid, shrimp and fish served with vegetables and a dipping sauce. It was all lovely and served on the patio under the warm full moon. Awesome.
And tomorrow, we will be up and out early for our flight to Luang Prabang. It has been a wonderful time here, we have really enjoyed the hotel and the tours and excursions. The area around Hoi An has much to offer in terms of history and sightseeing, and we’ve enjoyed it all. It is really funny though, as we have wandered around, we are struck with the contrast to India. Where we used to think of Vietnam as a 3rd world country, and it truly is, we are astounded at how much cleaner, more organized and better infrastructure there is here as opposed to India. Coming here after our India experience, has really opened our eyes to the differences in each and every country we visit.
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