Hoi An
From World travel guide
Hoi An is a beautiful city in Vietnam, just south of Da Nang. It's an ancient trading port, and its old town is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Contents |
Understand
Hoi An, once known as Faifo, was a major international port in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the foreign influences are discernible to this day.
Get in
By plane
The nearest airport is in Da Nang, from where flights go to and from Hanoi, Saigon and Siem Reap, Cambodia (for Angkor Wat).
By train
There is no railway station in Hoi An. The nearest is in Da Nang (see below), from where there are several trains a day from Hanoi, Saigon, Hue, Nha Trang etc. Most travel agents and hotels can book a train ticket for you.
By bus
Traveller buses run daily up and down the coast from Da Nang, Hue and Nha Trang. Note the road to Nha Trang is awful and the trip takes all day - it is much better to take a train.
By motorbike or taxi
It's easy to take a motorbike or taxi to and from Da Nang via the Marble Mountains (see below), from where you can catch a train onwards.
Get around
The centre of Hoi An is very small and pedestrianised, so you will be walking around most of the time.
To go to the beach, or reach some of the more remote hotels, it is easy and cheap to hire a bicycle.
See
- Chinese meeting halls. Numerous congregation halls, where Chinese expatriate residents met and socialized, are dotted about the town. They are typically named after their home region, such as Fujian and Canton.
- Cantonese Meeting Hall, 176 Tran Phu St.
- Fujian Meeting Hall, straddling Tran Phu and Phan Chu Trinh Streets.
- Chinese All-Community Meeting Hall, next to the Fujian hall, also spanning the block.
- Japanese Covered Bridge (Cau Nhat Ban or Lai Vien Kieu), on the west end of Tran Phu Street. First constructed in 1593 by the Japanese community, and renovated in 1986.
- The colourful waterfront Market
- The paper lanterns and candles floating down the river in the evening.
Do
Unwind on the beach a few kilometres away.
Buy
Made-to measure shirts, blouses, dresses, suits etc. from the renowned tailors.
Eat
Hoi An's culinary specialty is cao lau, rice noodles which are a not quite as slippery as pho and a bit closer in texture to pasta. The secret is the water used to make it, and authentic cao lau uses only water from a special well in the city.
Drink
Tam Tam Bar
Sleep
Get out
- My Son - Cham ruins in the jungle a few hours away (lots of agents offer day trips).
- The Marble Mountains halfway to Da Nang are well worth a stop. The hills loom out of the surrounding coastal plain and feature a group of Buddhist temples built into caves - a popular pilgrimage site for locals.
External links
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