Next stop was Hoi An, but from Dalat to Hoi An there are 620 km … So we made 240 km to Dai Lanh, and the next day almost 400 km to Hoi An. These distances are considerable taking into account that the average speed of the Dynamite Vietnamese are 50 km / h, and the maximum about 65 km / h …
The good news is that the roads are flat and very good. We must mention that we stopped at Dai Lanh because we thought it was a beautiful place. It is a small fishing village that fell in love at a distance. We found a guest house for 150,000 Dongs ($ 7) our room was overlooking the beach, we saw all the sea with fishing boats, turquoise green wood, floating there, waiting for the next day to fish.
We settled and went down to the beach for a walk before it got dark … To our surprise, the fishermen’s houses looked directly onto the beach, but this one was full of crap !!!
You can not imagine, there was even a dead dog on the sand, in a state of putrefaction, and rats! I had not seen rats on a beach until now … that unfortunately, they wanted to take a bag and start collecting shit … yes, with gloves and armor … Anyway … The rest of the town was no different, planted with plastic wrap and bottles …
We continued the trip the next day, we had 400 km of road to Hoi An … The trip went smoothly, concentrated, and aware that it was going to be hard … And it was, but we got it !!
To avoid further inconvenience, we had booked the cheapest room we could find, so when we arrived we went straight to Song Thanh Homestay, for about 200,000 Dongs ($ 9) the clean and very correct double room. The only drawback is that it was 3 km from the center and not 1.5 km as indicated by the description in Booking …
After a well-deserved rest, the next day, we look for another room closer to the center. We found in Hai Dang Homestay through Booking.com, for a reasonable price comparing with the rest of prices, 227,000 Dongs ($ 10). However the place was not as it appeared in the photos, room with a view of the river and private bathroom …
It was a private house with rooms rented on the top floor. The family and children were on the ground floor, the smell of the place was “peculiar” and the hygiene was not always the desired one. At least the room was clean and air conditioned. Ah! and it was 10 min walking from the center !! great!!
The center of Hoi An consists of a large market, with its typical products: meats, fish, vegetables, and in addition to the souvenir stalls. On the other side of the market, the good starts: gastronomy!
Hoi An is the gastronomic capital of Vietnam, and in honor of this denomination, you can find very good culinary offer. We tried two different tasting menus in a restaurant called Faifoo.
Each menu consisted of about 5 dishes, so we could try: Cau Lau (pork noodles and vegetables), Spring Rolls vegetables (spring rolls), White rose (steamed ravioli with prawns), Won Ton (fried rice pasta with Pork and tomato sauce), Banh Xeo (corn pancakes with vegetables), grilled fish … it was ok, but it was not great either … and it cost us 120,000 Dongs each ($ 5.5).
We recommend the culinary offer of Central Market Food. It is a building next to the Central Market full of tiny food paradites. It’s a counter surrounded by benches and the lady cooks you on the other side of the counter, in a tiny space … you could say they do not hide anything …
It eats spectacularly well, tasting the same dishes as in the tasting menu, the taste and quality was far superior, and the price is ridiculous !!!! The dishes range between 20,000 and 40,000 Dongs ($ 0.9 to $ 1.8) … in addition to having important rations …
Our favorite place, after having tried others, was number 34, a smiling lady who puts a lot of love to what she does … a taste in a unique environment … highly recommended.
After the market the narrow streets of the old quarter of Hoi An begin. Hoi An was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1999. Hoi An was the largest port in south-east Asia in the 1st century, and part of the route of silk during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. It was commercial stop above all Chinese, Japanese and French.
In Hoi An lived Alejandro de Rodas, the French Jesuit who invented the Vietnamese alphabet that is now used. During the Second World War it was agreed not to bombard this town for its historical wealth.
The streets of Hoi An have exceptional beauty. His house in Chinese and Japanese style, preserved in detail as in past centuries, mixed with the lighting of cloth and paper lanterns turn their streets into a romantic vision of the past. Places like the Japanese bridge, from the 16th century, which connects with a Buddhist temple, or the numerous Chinese temples in the historic center transport you to another time. The streets are full of craft shops, tailors and coffee shops.
Here you can find a very special coffee, civet coffee. It is a small mammal, the civet, that eats the coffee beans, and exits them again, the feces are recovered and the grains attacked by the intestinal juices have a particular aroma and taste.
We did not try it, we read an article that talked about the exploitation of these animals, in conditions of abuse, for the production of said coffee … Without going into demagogy, it does not solve anything to take one of these and perhaps we contribute to avoid animal mistreatment .
Hoi An is a magical place, but first you must remove all the tourists to see something … Everyone who goes to Vietnam goes through Hoi An, even people who do not go to Vietnam, also go through Hoi An …
We have not seen a place with more tourists anywhere else … Sometimes it was a burden, a kind of theme park. It’s as if in Port Aventura they mounted Asian themes … So keep that in mind …
Ah! and we also went to the beach of Hoi An !!! we have seen pictures of the paradisiacal beaches of Hoi An in web pages … but we did not find them … We saw the beach quite normal … although the weather did not accompany us either, it did not prevent us from taking a long walk in the sand, very pleasant, but it is not paradise …
And after staying 4 nights in Hoi An, we continue our trip !!!! Next stop … Phong Nga !!!! Adelante Vietnamese Dynamite !!!!!