My family and I went to Hoi An in Vietnam recently for three nights. The trip was organized by my daughter Adeline and included visits to many interesting places.
I had never heard of Hoi An before the trip and was surprised to find out that it is actually a Unesco World Heritage Site. Hoi An was once a major port during the first half of the 17th century. This ancient city is remarkably well preserved and somewhat similar to our Melaka. After checking in at our hotel, we went straight into tourist mode and cycled around the city using the bikes our hotel prepared for free.
We stopped at the nearby Banh Mi Phuong, which saw throngs of customers buying variations of banh mi. Apparently the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain had a banh mi here once and talked about it, which probably explains why this place is so famous now.
Banh mi is a sandwich that uses freshly baked baguettes, with a pork, chicken, seafood or egg filling, combined with something that is cheap, tasty and satisfies our hunger. We continue cycling through the city, getting caught up in the rather heavy traffic, before returning to the hotel to rest a bit.
But soon enough, we were out looking for more food, specifically, pho, or beef noodles. Hoi An’s specialty is actually called cau lau, which is dry noodles with slices of beef.
I’ve had pho twice before, once at a Vietnamese restaurant in Perth, Australia and again at a local restaurant that catered to Western palates on Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam. I thought both versions of pho were terrible because they had too much meat and were expensive too! Luckily the ones we had in Hoi An were delicious. It was full of flavor and the meat was cut perfectly.
I was finally able to appreciate one of Vietnam’s star dishes. Later, we headed to the night market which was a stone’s throw away. It was a sizeable night market with a myriad of items for sale. We wandered around the stalls and bought a few things, and had a delicious dinner at one of the nearby restaurants.
The area was full of tourists, mostly Caucasian and South Korean, judging by their language. Those who wish can take boat rides on the river. There were beautiful lanterns everywhere which added to the nice atmosphere.
The next morning, we set out to explore Hoi An by bike again. We went to the park and rode the merry-go-round, and then we visited the old Japanese bridge. We stopped at a small restaurant by the river for cups of coffee and croissants.
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