It feels as though they’re hosting a permanent festival here in the ancient town of Hoi An. Lanterns burn everywhere. They’re suspended above the streets, in the corners of ancestral homes; they’re floating on the water of the Thu Bon river, passing beneath the Hoi An bridge to guide the souls of the departed. Even the light illuminating the toilet in our guest house is fashioned in the style of a Chinese lantern. Its incandescent glow casts a shade of dignity and warmth across the porcelain throne.
We chose to visit the Old House of Tan Ky, a typical merchant home enveloped in black lacquer and interior shadows. Chinese scripts are written in nacre on the house’s black beams, each brush stroke finely detailed and formed in the shape of a bird. Antiques fill cabinets throughout its small rooms. Narrow steps lead up to the living quarters where a family still reside.
The Japanese covered bridge that connects two parts of the town is protected by deities at either end: stone dogs and monkeys. At the centre is an in-built shrine decorated with black and white photographs of Hoi An. The pagodas and assembly halls are veiled in the smoke of incense. We relaxed in their delicate curated gardens and admired the paintings that depict scenes of crooked trees and a similar tranquillity.
Hoi An is a much more peaceful place than the other cities we have visited in Vietnam, especially in terms of traffic. No cars are allowed in the ancient town, but since a large percentage of their traffic is made up of scooters, and they are permitted to dart in and out of the alley-like streets, Hoi An still isn’t a total safe zone. Within the space of a minute, we saw two scooters skid onto their sides in an oil slick. Nicola ran over to the wreckage with a wet wipe. This was laughed away by the two easy riders who emerged from the spillage without injury. Minutes later, a deluge of dirty rain water (collected on the covering of a shopfront) spilled on us, drenched our heads and soiled our clothes. Nicola was in tears laughing while I looked cynically for the Vietnamese woman in a straw hat leaning out of her window with a bucket.
Outside of Hoi An, we visited the My Son temple complex, where we got escorted from a car park to the ruins in a golf buggy. This is what Jurassic Park would have been like without the dinosaurs, and sadly there were very few ruins either. Many of the once-majestic structures were consumed in the blasts of carpet bombs during the Vietnamese War, replacing with holes what were once the floors of sanctuaries. The depth of their craters can be seen across the complex, and it was upsetting to see their destruction in such a beautiful place. What has survived is still amazing, and despite long periods of neglect there’s much to admire in the temples’ designs and their contrast with the surrounding hills.
Back in town Nicola is measured for a trench coat and four tops. They’re tailored within a day—more evidence of the magic in Hoi An. An Bang beach stretches for miles and the waves converge where we sink into holes in the sand. We enjoy weak Bia Hoi on the riverfront and watch as the sun is replaced by the fire of lanterns. This is our favourite place in the country so far, and as we leave the ruins of My Son, we’re hypnotised by a traditional performance, during which the bodies of three dancers overlap to form the six arms of Shiva.
Sounds tricky crossing those roads ?x