Hoi An

 Hoi An is a really interesting place and I wish we had had more time to spend here.  The Ancient Town is around 6 blocks of really well preserved buildings that made up some of the port from when it was a trading centre on the Silk Road in the 15th and 16th Century.  Vietnam seems to have been invaded by one or another country for its whole time and this area reflects that with Chinese, Japanese and some French influences.  We did a city tour in the morning, which took us through the markets and we hit all the high points.  The Japanese Bridge, built to help them do business across the river.  No brainer.  

We went inside the home of a wealthy Chinese trader and 8 generations of his family had lived in the house since.  They showed marks on the wall where floods had come through and in 1964 it was nearly up to the ceiling of the first floor.  When it floods, they have these lattice pieces in the floor above and they whip those out and put all their precious stuff up one floor.  We went into one place and by day it is a shop and place to have a look at the inside of the house and by night it is the house to 3 generations.  Imagine how tidy you would have to be?  Except on the days around new year when you don’t have to sweep or throw anything out for 3 days, just in case you sweep all your good luck out the door.

Next we went to a Chinese meeting house.  Apparently 4 groups came to Vietnam and set up their meeting houses, but the one we visited is a place where they can all come.  Some to ‘meet’ and some to ‘pray’.  It does seem like there is quite a lot of praying to random things, but I am sure they understand it all.  There is a ghost time when all the spirits come back and……..I dunno, check you are not using the good plates?  The meeting houses was full of spirals of incense that hung from the ceiling and from what I could understand, you made wishes and set the incense on fire and it burned away for about a month.  Pretty full on nose wize!

At the end of the day we went back down to have something to eat and that was pretty cool.  You definitely knew that you were in an Asian country!