We have just spent a few days in Hoi An and loved it. Other travellers told us it was their favourite part of Vietnam and we thought it was because of the beaches, but Hoi An is so much more.
Hoi An has an old preserved colonial town full of classic French colonial buildings with river ways filled with boats and lanterns and also floating offerings every evening.
No wonder so many Vietnamese couples come here for their wedding photos (they spend a whole day, a week before their wedding day, going through a thousand and one poses at various locations).
But then we went mountain biking with “Heaven and Earth bicycle tours” and once we crossed a river on a boat we were surrounded by countryside, paddy fields and friendly village people shouting “Hello hello” as we passed.
Then we took the city bikes from our lovely guesthouse “La Me Villa”, not “Lame Villa” as their signage looked, and headed along the flat (and not too crazy road) to the beach.
An Bang Beach is only 4km from the town but quite touristy with bars and resorts popping up along the lovely white sandy beach. Shame it was a cloudy grey day!
Next day the sun was out and we went to the more local beach of Cua Dai. This was only 3km away from the town and came complete with two wedding couples, in amongst the tourist sunbathers!
It is a shame that 5 years ago huge storms caused such coastal damage and claimed a lot of the beautiful sandy beach.
We then went and explored the village and port of Cua Dai.
And even stopped at a little old lady’s house while she fed us “Vietnam good” food.
Not sure what it was (some sort of sausage meat on a banana leaf) but she was very happy to make a sale.
And then to a really important 35m high light house which was rebuilt 6 years ago.
All the small local vessels rely on this to find their safe way home.
So hopefully you can see the many attractions of Hoi An. It also has some of the friendliest people. Joli from our guesthouse couldn’t do enough to help you. Even the Banh Mi ladies were very smiley and Misha selling souvenirs on the beach was friendly and not pushy.
We were even joined for lunch by David from Sydney, Australia that we had met at Danang Bikes (aka The Scooter Bar) and then got chatting in an Indian restaurant to a couple who live in Vientiane and are best mates with a couple we’d done shots with back in Vientiane – it’s a small old world!!!!!
