Hoi An - Central Vietnam

Part 7 - Hoi An, Central Vietnam

The sandy coast of the South China Sea, between the great port city of Danang and the quaint old town of Hoi An, displays miles of billboards with pictures of what’s to come: great luxury resorts, villas, condominiums, golf courses, tennis courts, gated communities… just like south Florida, waiting for rich people to invest and frolic in the sunshine. Development money comes from rich countries such as Singapore, Japan, China, USA, and the Vietnamese will benefit.

I’ve peeled off my woolies and have donned capris, sandals, a cotton shirt and sunglasses.

Hoi An – a grid of charming two-story, two-hundred year old houses – consists of small shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, and spas. Loudspeakers mounted high on electric poles broadcast soft music that wafts through the air and hovers over the lovely old town like a soothing balm: calm, unobtrusive, conducive to relaxed shopping. There’s nothing to do here but shop.

You can also look at the gentle river, walk across the lovely old Japanese covered bridge, enter a few preserved ancient homes and temples, and wander the huge central market which is primarily for locals. At night they light lanterns around the city and along the river, and it’s all quite pretty.

The vendors of Hoi An take a close second to those in Sapa for hard-sell techniques. They call out, badger and follow you, repeating and shouting as though if you have money you must be deaf.

Competition here is impossible; shop after shop selling the same stuff: handbags, tee shirts, clothing, shoes, hundreds of side-by-side tailor shops with thousands of bolts of cloth, clamoring to sew up whatever you want made-to-order, and “spas” that offer cheap massage and beauty treatments.

There were six spas on the street of our hotel, on our side alone, not counting the spas in the hotels. One spa lady followed me down the street for two blocks trying to convince me to get a massage. “Why not?” she kept asking.

My guess is it’s all owned by a few rich merchants who own and stock the shops and threaten their employees with horrible torture if they don’t sell. The children of these poor people come after you in the evenings, showing up at your table in the restaurant, badgering you to buy something, their dark, tender eyes pleading. It brings out the worst in me because a polite, “no, thank you,” isn’t understood, no matter how often I repeat it. And, if you buy from one ten more show up.

Meanwhile, the sons and daughters of the rich merchants wear Armani tee shirts, play tennis and sip expensive cocktails at the chic, manicured country club near the central market. Ahhh, communism!

The sidewalks of Hoi An are an obstacle course, not only filled with badgering hawkers but clogged with so many parked motorcycles there’s no place to walk. Fortunately, no cars are allowed in the old city.

Nearly everyone, especially the women, wears masks, on or off their motorbikes. It’s weird to buy fruit from a masked vendor.

Lunchtime, we go from one banh mi stand (little street food stands with glass cases) to another sampling various styles and mixtures each vendor offers on this scrumptious sandwich: the best warm, crispy French baguettes smeared with paté, layered with sliced roast pork, pork belly, sausage, steamed meatballs, and god-knows-what-else, doused with meat sauce, mayonnaise, chili sauce, another sauce, i-don’t-know-what, and covered with thin-sliced cucumbers, pickled radish, cilantro, and other fresh leafy herbs.

Banh mi is the summa of street food in Vietnam, in my opinion. Maybe it doesn’t sound so good but let me tell you they are addictive and on my next journey to Vietnam I will do a survey of all the banh mi stands in the country.

Our last night in Hoi An we have dinner in a restaurant that serves only two dishes: white rose – soft stuffed boiled dumplings, some flat, filled with meat, others oval, with fish – and fried won tons - tender, light-as-air, flaky triangles smothered in sweet tangy vegetables with a few shrimp and fresh herbs scattered around. Both dishes are sublime.

Patricia continues the unending quest to fill her already overstuffed suitcase with souvenirs, while I’m content to sit in a café, stirring sweetened condensed milk into thick-as-mud coffee, and watch happy tourists on rented bicycles carting off all the goods they can carry away from Hoi An.

I also say goo-goo ga-ga to every baby I see in preparation for my new grand-daughter coming in February.