Oy, Hoi An
Oy, Hoi An
Okay, we were warned: Hoi An is touristy.
A very pretty old city with French-inspired architecture, Hoi An somehow emerged unscathed from the war. At dusk, looking across the river from one of its islands, that’s exactly how it appears: ancient, charming, hauntingly atmospheric. Colored lanterns light up and swing on boats in the river, from rafters, from ropes strung over the streets From this vantage (which is where so many photos of the old town are taken) you can’t tell that almost every shop is either a tailor shop, a leather goods shop, a coffee house or a souvenir stand, each of its kind barely different from one another. In the Central Market and the Night Market, the identical profusion of cheap gewgaws and knickknacks fill each stall. (Although, at the Night Market, the street food includes grilled octopus and grill-on-demand speckled local lobsters, their backs cracked so the pale meat bulges.)
We had flown from Ho Chi Minh City to Danang, then hired a taxi to take us south to Hoi An. En route, outside of Danang, we were stunned by the number of gargantuan luxury resorts strung along the coastline, and many more under construction. Who will fill the thousands upon thousands of rooms? Also proliferating on the highway to Danang’s coast, as if spawned from Marble Mountain and its ornate pagodas and temples, were statuary shops, one after another, all crowded with stone Buddhas, lions, elephants, horses in every size. Who will buy all those carved creations?
Here, it was in the seventies, some fifteen degrees cooler than Ho Chi Minh City (whew!) and, at our lovely seaside hotel, the Victoria, the wind was blowing. We were given a high-ceilinged cottage looking out on a courtyard of thrashing palm trees and just a few yards farther on, a wild surf. Thrillingly, the wind never didn’t die down the whole time we were there.
We took the shuttle into town and, since we hadn’t eaten and it was after 2 pm, we headed straight to the central market and stall 50, as recommended by the New York Times. In midafternoon, well after lunch hour. Stall #50 alone was crowded. That is, six other NYT readers occupied its metal benches, leaving just enough room for us. We ordered the town specialties, cao lau, heavy square-cut yellow noodles with pork, pork rind, fresh herbs; and the delicately glutinous, chewy white rose dumplings (rice flour wrappers stuffed with minced pork and shrimp, with fried shallots scattered on top). All good, the NYT steered us well.
As we sat there, a roaring fight broke out between two women working at adjacent stalls. God knows what it was about, but their anger crescendoed and subsided, only to rise up again (And another thing…!) Brooms were waved, furniture shoved, occasionally another person tried (unsuccessfully) to intervene, but no blows fell. Every few minutes, from sheer tension, we unwilling onlookers laughed a little (uneasily): how long could they keep going? (Quite a while.) When the fight finally ended, the squabbler nearest to us scrubbed her floor with concentrated fury.
We bought tickets to see the historical sites in town, which came with a blurry, indecipherable map. Over two days, we found a few of the sites—the finely crafted home of a wealthy trader; the entry and painted gate to a temple that no longer exists—each beautiful, if not enough to make us feel historically informed.
Because Hoi An seems to be 75% about shopping. And 20% about eating. Shouldn’t Michelle be in heaven? She was not.
Perhaps it is this kind of capitalism that saves such places. We wondered how the vendors could afford to stock their shops. Of course, they probably didn’t. We wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few big owners, each with dozens of franchises. Whatever the arrangement, there was no doubt the vendors struggled and were desperate to make sales.
For dinner our first night, we bought sandwiches from the dueling banh mi stands, Madame Khanh the Banh Mi Queen (rated the best by our hotel and on many web sites) and Banh Mi Phuong (championed by Anthony Bourdain). (Which one is better is a standard google search). These were different animals from our Saigon mega-sandwich, much closer to what we eat in the San Gabriel Valley, with simple grilled pork or chicken, herbs, lettuce, pickled daikon, and a chile sauce, hot or medium (hot was hot). Though the queen’s had a good, rich, low hum, we had to vote with Tony for Phoung’s slightly crustier bread, brighter flavor, and overall freshness (the queen had pre-prepared sandwiches with all but the saucing, while Banh Mi Phuong’s made them fresh, starting with the slicing of the roll.
At night as the lanterns lit, the charm factor swelled.
We loved our windy hotel.
By day two, we’d settled in and found the timbre of the town less abrasive, and more charming—perhaps a week of sinking in, and finding the pulse beneath the frenetic tourist vibe would make us love the place as so many seem to.
We found more heritage sites, and calmer streets, and a great restaurant, one of several by Madame Vy; Morning Glory where, indeed, the full glory of Vietnamese cooking finally found us. One bite of barbecued duck rolled in a soft, thick rice noodle and we knew we’d hit gold. Shredded banana flowers in My Quang, a soup with supple yellow rice flour noodles, pork and shrimp, added a novel, pleasurable soft crunch. A simple local dish of shredded chicken and rice, Com Ga Hoi An, prepared so that each flavor is concentrated, shows what a gifted cook can do with the most basic ingredients: chicken, rice, onions, herbs, lime juice and peanuts. I’ll make it for you (or at least attempt it) when we get home!
Hoi An has an incredibly lovely setting, both the town with its wide rivers and the nearby beaches. We enjoyed ourselves there and loved our hotel. The crashing waves. The warm people. The endless breakfast. (Jim would happily have Pho every morning, except for the strict diet waiting for him at home.)
Skimming through a country has its grab bag pleasures, but with them comes a sense of missing so much. Who lives here? What do they think and do with themselves?