What’s up, everybody? Phil here
and I’m in Hoi An, Vietnam right now.
This is my first time visiting the city and I’ve heard so many great things about all
the things to do here, how beautiful it is, the great food, and I wanted to take you through
a real, raw look at what it’s like to visit here and also basically give you what Hoi
An expectations versus reality is like.
Walking around you see beautiful lanterns everywhere and, honestly, once you come out
from where all the shops are and you can actually see the river and just look across through
all of it.
It’s incredibly stunning!
Basically a really dark night with the dark water and then you have those different colors
of lanterns popping up all over the place.
It’s a really, really beautiful sight to see and you have to see it to believe it!
I will say, though, that’s something maybe to be expected with a place that’s so popular
and so beautiful and fun to visit, but it is pretty crowded.
I didn’t expect it to be this crowded when I visited.
Especially right when you’re next to the river, there are tourists of all different
backgrounds everywhere.
People can be a tiny bit pushy coming up to you and not really leaving your side for several
seconds after they offer you their boat tour and also offer you lanterns and all that kind
of stuff, so I guess it comes with the territory, but it’s something to keep in mind when
you visit.
When you’re in Hoi An, you need to try a lot of the Central Vietnamese cuisine.
The North and the South have their own unique dishes and spins on different dishes and the
Central does, as well, too.
We’re here eating dinner at a local restaurant, we got a handful of different local dishes
to try out.
This is com ga, this is chicken rice right here.
We’ve seen it all over the place and it is everywhere in Hoi An.
This is a Mi Quang, which is basically a noodle in the Quang style, which is the province
that we’re in right now.
It has a nice little spice to it, a lot of herbs in here, there’s quail eggs, it’s
just really delicious and it’s even got some chips in there to give it a nice crunch,
too.
What I really appreciate about the Central Vietnamese cuisine is just how herby and fresh
everything was.
In terms of expectations versus reality, the food is indeed delicious and I’d recommend
you try as much local cuisine as possible when you visit in Hoi An.
Just south of the river, walking through the market, there’s all kinds of different foods
here, little trinket vendors and yeah very, very packed, but still a lot of things to
check out here.
All kinds of different little fried foods and desserts and ice creams and stuff that
you can buy.
The Hoi An Night Market is open from 6:00PM - 10:00PM daily and close to 10:00PM a little
before 10:00PM, the shopkeepers start to close up, and if you really wanna get those beautiful
views of all the lanterns on the river, definitely recommend trying to get there earlier closer
to 6:00, 7:00PM, because just like the shopkeepers, the people who own the boats close up shop
well before 10:00.
Anyway, we’re gonna head back to our hotel now, we’re gonna wake up early and do some
exploring outside of the city.
We’re gonna visit the My Son ruins!
Alright, good morning!
We are now about to bike to My Son, it’s a 25 kilometer bike ride.
Being in the city, it’s gonna be kind of trafficky and slow, but then once you are
outside of the city, it’s going to be just beautiful countryside and just in general
a different side to Hoi An that people might not see when they visit.
So no more than 15-20 minutes after we left the city, now we’re out in the countryside.
There are peanut farms, papaya farms, all kinds of vegetation.
Here are some water buffalo, and it’s just a completely different side.
It’s really windy, but given that it’s a little bit warm, it actually feels really
good to bike and have that wind on your skin.
After about an hour of riding now, I’m not exactly sure where we are, but we’re going
to a market called Ha Mat and we’re just gonna try out some of the foods here.
From here, it’s another half hour of biking until we get to the base of the mountain,
from what I’m understanding, and we’ll be taken to the My Son Ruins with a van.
This is a sticky rice with mung bean wrapped in a banana leaf and it’s grilled.
Try everything once!
It’s mostly rice with a tiny bit of bean in there.
OK, they just gave me another one!
This is banh it, this is gonna be sticky rice with probably some mung bean and sugar, so
this’ll be a sweeter one.
Mmm!!
Ngon quá!!
We just got done with the market and we had a bunch of different fruits and sweets and
it’s really interesting just to be able see this kind of stuff you’d never see back
home.
And you don’t necessarily need to do this tour, but really it’s just a special experience
to be able to get away from the city because this is just absolutely unique.
Whether it’s a bike trip or you’re taking a van if the bike’s not your speed, whatever
it is, just do your best to try and get out a little bit because there is so much to experience
out here.
If you’re looking for that real travel in Vietnam experience, you’ve gotta get out
of the city and I’m so glad that we did that today.
Now that we’ve arrived at My Son, gotten off the bus, and we’re walking now around
the area, definitely very tourist-heavy but that’s to be expected because it’s one
of the most popular things for people to do when they visit Hoi An or Da Nang.
It seems like a lot of the tourists come early in the morning and that they maybe come for
sunrise.
So we’re here at about 11:00AM and a lot of people are leaving, so if you’re not
coming for sunrise, definitely try to come later in the morning so you avoid the crowds.
We’ve been exploring the My Son ruins with our guide for about an hour and a half now.
If I can oversimplify the history of the place, it would be that the Cham people came to this
area in like the 2nd Century, so super, super long time ago.
And they built these temples as places of worships for kings and monks.
Now, eventually, the Vietnamese who were not in this area at the time, came down from the
north (where they were) and they pushed out the Cham people, but the thing is, this is
way out in the jungle where no one knew that it was!
So after the Cham people were kicked out in the 1400’s, no one knew about this place
and it was basically secret for 500 years until some French soldiers (during the French
occupation of Indochina) got lost, found these, and the year was 1890.
It’s something that I can tell you about, but you have to really be here to be able
to appreciate the architecture and the history behind how old and how preserved some of this
stuff is.
Visiting My Son was a beautiful experience, I’d really recommend it to anybody visiting
Hoi An to make a day trip out here.
And advice I’d give is to come with a guide so they can really explain the history so
you can really appreciate what you’re looking at.
Alright, so after a day of cycling, we went back to our hotel in the afternoon and it
rained pretty much all afternoon, so the time is now about 7:00PM.
One thing that’s very important to note when you’re visiting Hoi An is which season
are you gonna visit?
So there are 2 seasons that they say, it’s the dry season and the rainy season.
But from talking to our guide, there’s also a hot season, too.
The most popular times to visit Hoi An are February, March, and April when it’s dry
and cool.
But once you hit May, June, July, those are the super hot months, so even though it’s
dry, it might be a little bit unbearable to be outside.
And after that you have the rainy season, which is about August on until January.
We’re here now it’s late November and it’s been raining a lot.
Now, when it’s rains, it rains for a couple minutes really hard and then it’ll go away
for maybe an hour or so and then it’ll rain again.
So it’s not like you’re gonna be stuck inside the whole day, but it does impact what
you can do with your time.
So now we’ve made it out on the river in a boat with lanterns on it and so the biggest
tip that I have that we just learned from doing here is to get away from the bridge.
If you’re on the bridge in the center near the Ancient Town and the market, you’re
gonna get ripped off or at least they’re gonna come at you with really, really ridiculous
prices.
And you should be paying no more than maybe 75000 or 80000VND per person.
We wanted to get a boat with lanterns on it.
They had boats that were really plain with no lights no lanterns on them and those ones
were right next to the bridge and those ones were way more expensive than this one.
So we got this better one just by walking away from the bridge and the amount we paid
for 3 people here was 250000VND and it also came with free beers and free lanterns, so
that should be kind of a ballpark for you if you’re trying to come out on the river,
which I definitely recommend because it’s really, really nice out here.
Right now it’s 8:00PM and actually this walkway here right next to the river has flooded.
It is basically the same level as the river here, so the earlier the better, because at
night this area can flood.
And in general, keeping with the expectations versus reality theme, I would say that Hoi
An is absolutely beautiful, the lanterns are everywhere and the river is a lot of fun to
go on.
But there’s a lot of things that you don’t see on Instagram.
The huge crowds and the unpredictable weather can be a bit of damper if you’re not expecting
it, so keep those in mind before you visit.
It does seem to have kind of a Disneyland vibe for better or for worse, because it is
very crowded and it’s very, very catered toward tourists.
So take that as you may, anyway, we’re gonna keep on exploring around here for now and
tomorrow morning we’ll do some more sightseeing.
So now that it’s morning, we’ve come into the Ancient Town, one of the most popular
things to visit when you’re in Hoi An is the Japanese Bridge.
It costs 120000VND for you to cross it and what it does is it takes you west into the
Ancient Town.
If you don’t wanna pay the 120000VND that will get you across the bridge and then entry
into a couple of museums, you can simply just go around.
But, again, the Japanese Covered Bridge is really popular and it’s also the most direct
way into the Ancient Town, so it’s up to you.
And in terms of what to expect within the Ancient Town, it’s more of the same.
It’s a lot of coffee shops, restaurants, stores selling some clothes, souvenirs, so
unless you’re going there with the intent of visiting a museum or you really wanna see
the Japanese Covered Bridge, I’d say it’s an optional thing to visit.
Now coming out on the river and the bridge during the day is also a really nice experience,
too.
It’s much, much less crowded and much quieter than it is when you come at night.
It’s gonna be much warmer during the day obviously being in the sunlight when you come
out on the river, but I would still recommend not only checking out the river at night,
which is a must-do, but also come check it out during the day.
I hope this real, honest review of visiting Hoi An was informative and now you have a
better idea of what to expect when you visit.
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See ya next time :)