We visited Hoi An during the monthly light festival and spent a day exploring the Old Quarter’s sights. We even escaped without having to buy a suit.
We stayed 2 nights in Hoi An at An Hoi homestay which was fantastic. It allowed us to get some laundry done and their breakfast was awesome (best banana pancakes so far….) They were also really helpful with bookings and advice.
Hoi An Lantern Festival
When we arrived in Hoi An (from Hue) it was lantern festival. Or was it. We still don’t know. We had heard that the once-a-month lantern festival was a one day event on the full moon. This was supposed to be the 20th December so we rocked up on the 19th December but it looked like it was already underway. There were hordes and hordes of people. Well we looked at the moon on the 20th and it still wasn’t quite full. Only two days later was it actually a full moon, so still no idea whether Hoi An is quieter not around the full moon, or whether it’s just like this all the time.
The first evening we took a stroll around, bought a souvenir and then had happy hour beers on a balcony overlooking the riverfront promenade. Up here nobody could ask us if we wanted a boat ride. After about 20 minutes walking around I was already getting pretty tired of saying ‘no thank you’. It was a bit of a shock to the system when we went out for dinner, paying 3 or 4 times as much as in other places we’d been to. We’d entered Europe in Asia and we worried that there were a lot of people here who were going to spend their one week’s holiday just in Hoi An, so not really experiencing true Vietnam at all. But ok, the lanterns were super pretty and everything was nice and Westernised (so, sanitised). Finally we were warm and could get our shorts and flip flops on.
What was worth paying for (at 35,000d or 1.32 EUR) was a ball of lemongrass ice cream at Vy’s Market Restaurant. After dinner we walked around the Old Quarter a bit more and having spotted the Chef’s rooftop bar (enter through a bookshop and then go up 3 flights) thought it was a good pick to get a nightcap.
Hoi An Old Quarter
In the morning we dutifully bought our 120,000d (4. 52 EUR) ticket to the Old Quarter and dropped into a few of the houses, pagodas and communal halls. You can choose 5 with the ticket. One of our lucky 5 included a massively staged ‘traditional arts performance’. Even I thought the best bit was the sparkly bikini-wearing dancers. There was also a guy doing a bit of an opera which seemed to involved fighting with a feather duster. It was worth it for 30 minutes of air conditioning.
We did wander about Cam Kim and An Hoi islands a bit to try and seek out something more authentic, but we didn’t really find it there either. On the whole we thought Hoi An was super pretty for about an hour (and certainly prettier at sunset and at night) but then we didn’t like constantly being bothered to go and buy a suit, the fake and overpriced restaurants and the tour groups that swarmed on the city.