Hoi An Ancient Town

Arriving in Hoi An around 9 p.m., I was really relieved when I discovered that the whole town was peacefully quiet, something I am really concerned that Hoi An at night may become crazy club scenes. In the next morning, I woke up very early, and walked around the town admiring waterfront areas where local fishermen were ready to go out for day fishing, the very lively market and extremely charming and empty streets. Since there was no tourist, only locals then and the souvenir shops were still close, I felt that Hoi An at that moment was an extremely gorgeous place to visit.

The yellowish Chinese styled houses along the street together with decorative bushes of bougainvillea flower are lovely sights and very photogenic. The layout of houses was claimed to be unique for not strictly complied with Feng Shui but for benefit of better ventilation in tropical region. Another thing that I am really impressed is the preservation of thẹ whole town which is very amazing and very authentic, which is a thing that cannot be found in Melaka, Singapore or Macao. The Japanese Bridge is maybe the only sight that I found very interesting for its stories that the Japanese built this bridge in order to calm evil serpent spirit “Namazu” that caused earthquake in very faraway Japan since they believe Hoi An is located on the back of the serpent. I strangely found that there are still many nice temples, especially the one dedicate to Confucius which has more unique and interesting Vietnamese elements more than the preserved ones in the core zone.

I also noted that Hoi An is not only popular with European tourists but also Korean, Japanese, Australian and New Zealander. After sunset, the whole town waterfront becomes a night market with many local foods. And at that time Hoi An is very charming with hundreds of paper and silk lanterns. Hoi An at night seems to be a very popular place for pre-wedding photo shooting, as I saw many Vietnamese couples in their traditional dresses with their photographer teams everywhere especially around the Japanese Bridge, so a great place to see local contemporary wedding cultures. All in all, I really enjoyed my time in Hoi An for its lovely atmosphere and nice townscape.

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