I always like seeing local tourists at sites like this. It signifies a lot: that they are proud of their natural resources, that there is a growing middle class with leisure time, and that they aren't intentionally or unintentionally boxed out by international tourists. It's a good thing.
We sipped coffee along the river, ate banh mis for at least two meals daily, and picked up our suits from the tailor.
That Monday was still part of the holiday weekend, so my office remained closed. We took advantage of the time off to do a walking tour of Old Town Hoi An. Our tour guide for the morning was Sue, a friend of Long (our fixer), and a professional trip coordinator. Sue speaks several languages, and generally coordinates the 40 person group tours that you often see in cities like this. But this is the slow season for Hoi An tourism, so Sue has been stopping by our house every few days to check in on us and show us something else amazing.
It's impossible to see everything in Hoi An in a day (or even two months). The United Nation has deemed over 800 buildings in this city as culturally and historically significant, so you can't walk more than a block or two without stopping in your tracks to gawk at a beautiful 300 year old building.
Since it was hot and we had the babies, Sue just picked out a few of her favorites. The first was the Fujian Assembly Hall. Hoi An has several of these assembly halls that were essentially a meeting point and community center for visiting traders. Most at the time were from China, but the idea of a single nation-state with well-defined borders called "China" is a relatively modern concept. During the peak trading years in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was much more common for traders to identify as being from their province than from "China". China was/is huge, and people from distant provinces might not share much in common other than being loosely overseen by the same emperor. One of those provinces was Fuji, and the Fujian Assembly House is nothing short of spectacular.
Our next stop was the very well preserved house of a prominent trader that was built in the 1700s. The house has remained in the family for seven generations, and the trader's descedents still live in the upper floors. Unfortunately, we don't have any photos of that part of the tour because Mimi was getting antsy and we all were getting hot.
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| Couldn't agree more. |
But Sue came through in a big way. She surprised us by taking us to a small boat that was waiting to take us down the Thu Bồn river that runs through the city. The breezy, beautiful boat ride was the perfect way to cap off the morning. Our little skipper barely made it out of the dock.
Sue wrapped up the morning by taking us to a riverfront cafe by her house, and we all enjoyed some ca phe with the locals. After we got dropped off at the house, 5/6ths of us took a nap while I went to our neighborhood cafe to work. But I don't mind working when this is the backdrop.
Dinner was at a French-Vietnamese restaurant downtown. It wasn't bad, but I've become so enamored with $0.75 street food that fancy restaurants seem a bit underwhelming, especially for the price. Four dollars for a meal?! What is this, New York City?!
Nona and Grael took Conrad back to bed after dinner. As we learned, jet lagged babies are a force to be reckoned with. So Aimee, Mimi, and I walked around the waterfront shops. I needed a few more t-shirts (Mimi's diapers knocked extra clothing off our packing list), so we stopped in a little tourist shop. I found out that I'm a XXXXL in Viet Nam. Maybe I should take it easy with the banh mis.
