Renaissance on the River

The riverside market, on the wharf along Bach Dong Street, is pure traditional Vietnam. Women in loose pantaloons and conical straw hats squat next to bamboo baskets displaying all manner of colorful produce.

Latecomers from nearby hamlets approach the quay in narrow sampans, gracefully dipping their quill-shaped oars. Others from outer islands arrive in larger boats stacked with produce and bicycles. The market becomes a bobbing sea of hats.

The bustle has a distinct small-town, neighborly feel. One friend offers another some flowers. Vendors chat and laugh among themselves or play a hand of cards. More than once my travel partner Maria and I see a departing boat, its diesel quietly ticking under hand-hewn decks, swing back around to pick up someone beckoning good-naturedly from the wharf.

Hoi An sits on the north bank of the Thu Bon River on Vietnam’s central coast, just south of Da Nang. The shallow Doi estuary and offshore islands protect it from storms off the South China Sea.

Away from the highway and out of the mainstream, Hoi An retains its traditional trading port character, intact from the days when the Vietnamese first opened their world to foreigners. There are more than 800 historically significant structures in the city, but Hoi An is not just beautiful buildings. It’s a community of people. Some of the families here have been neighbors for 400 years. Vietnam tourist publications refer to the old town section as “a living museum.”

As Vietnam liberalizes its trade and tourism industries, Hoi An is regaining the glow of its golden years. Owners of lovely 17th and 18th century houses are opening restaurants and small hotels. Artists, finding both inspiring images and a steady market, have opened galleries.

The visitor to Hoi An today will find all of the amenities he or she needs, as well as a cultural authenticity and sincere welcome that seem from another age.

“Hoi An is nearly perfect because the war never got here,” says Tang Thu, who owns an art gallery in the old town. “Up in Da Nang, everything was bombed and broken.”

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It’s only a $15 taxi fare from the airport in Da Nang to Hoi An. However, the potholed road turns the 20 miles into a dusty hour’s drive. Appropriately enough, the pavement smooths out at the Hoi An signpost.

For a town of 75,000, Hoi An has a surprisingly small, quiet feel, especially after our days vacationing in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), where we were told of the beauties of Hoi An and counseled that it retains all the charms of a traditional Vietnamese town. We get out at the end of Le Loi Street, four blocks from the waterfront. No cars are allowed in the old riverside section.

We peer into a couple of small hotels within a few feet of each other and settle on the Thuy Duong. One hundred dollars gets us a week in their choicest corner room. It’s spacious and spotless, with a modern bath and mahogany furniture. Though it has an air conditioner, the February weather is too delightful. We open the casement windows, head downstairs and (ravenously hungry) saunter down Le Loi to the waterfront.

The street is lined with silk and cotton tailors, antique shops, art galleries, historic homes and garden courtyards behind low gabled walls. The tiles of the roofs, green with moss, overlap and connect with those of their neighbors. Many of the old stucco walls, stained with algae and draped in bougainvillea, are painted in pastels. Hoi An is alive in tropical colors.

Thanh Restaurant, lemon yellow and framed with flowers, sits a few feet off the water. The building is centuries old. Our carved hardwood table faces the quay. Lacquered pillars support round beams, hardwood strapping and heavy tile. Gentle Vietnamese music plays from somewhere.

No cars. No roaring motorcycles. No pedicabs. Only slippered feet, hats and bicycles. No yachts or fiberglass boats in the harbor. Only sampans, small and not so small. Nothing spoils that delicious sensation of sitting comfortably ensconced on the far side of the world in a simpler, slower century.

Prices on the menu (written in English, French and Vietnamese) are from another era too. The most expensive item is $3. Most are under $1.50.

Hoi An’s cuisine is a blend of the stir-fry and noodles of the north and the spicier dishes of the south. We order a crepe filled with shredded duck, shrimp and spices; rice paper wrapped shrimp spring rolls with chile-spiced peanut sauce; stir-fried vegetables and two bowls of cao lau.

A Hoi An specialty, cao lau is a steaming bowl of flat, yellow noodles in a broth flavored with cilantro, ginger, anise, basil and mint. It has crisp bean sprouts and croutons and is topped with slices of pork or, optionally, chicken or duck. Served with edible rice paper, it’s a delightful dish any time of day. With two large BGI beers (a good brew from Da Nang) the bill is just $8.50.

Hoi An is such a small place, a map is hardly necessary. One good idea, however, is the $5 Old Town ticket (available at the Hoi An Hotel). Proceeds help to preserve the town’s historic structures. The ticket gets you into a selection of museums, Chinese assembly halls, wealthy merchant houses and the 1653 Quang Cong Temple, one of 20 Chinese temples in Hoi An.

Up from the riverside market, past the silk and cotton tailors and through the bamboo merchants, is the Museum of History and Culture. Amid artifacts, maps and archive photos--all with English explanations--Hoi An’s colorful past becomes obvious.

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Between the 2nd and 10th century, Hoi An was the principal port of the seafaring Champa kingdom, a once-powerful society that embraced Indian culture and celebrated it through sculpture. Champa, encompassing most of southern Vietnam, survived for more than 1,000 years, withstanding attacks by the Chinese, Vietnamese, Khmers and Mongols.

In the 15th century, the Vietnamese from the north pushed the Chams south and opened the port to foreign traders.

Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese merchants had permanent settlements here by the early 1500s. When the Ming Dynasty was overthrown in 1644, many Chinese Mandarins expatriated to Hoi An. They built beautiful assembly halls and harbor-side homes. For the next 200 years, Hoi An (then known as Faifo) flourished.

Prosperous merchants built shops, bridges and temples. Mixing Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese elements, they created Hoi An’s unique architectural style. In a land of bamboo and thatch, they built permanently with brick, tile and hardwood.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, this was the most important port for southern Vietnam. Giant four-masted junks and majestic square riggers plying the China-India trade route regularly called at Hoi An. Here they anchored, sometimes for months, waiting for the monsoons to shift homeward again.

When the harbor silted up in the 1800s, a new port was built on the Han River at Da Nang. Time came to a halt in Hoi An, and the world passed it by.

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There’s much more to see in Hoi An than the government-run entries on the $5 ticket. Some residents of the privately restored houses invite you in for a tour and then let you browse their curio shops. Everywhere we find people with a surprisingly innocent sense of hospitality.

The hand-crafted goods Hoi An was famous for in her glory days--cottons, silks, ceramics and fine carpentry--are still made and sold here.

Nearly every shop we pass has Hoi An ceramics. Characteristically, these are white with cobalt blue designs. We end up buying a commonly seen duck-shaped soy sauce dispenser ($5). Antique shops sell 17th- and 18th- century Hoi An ceramics, often found preserved in the silt of the harbor.

For a small tropical port that seems to live in a time capsule, the business level can be quite sophisticated.

Kim Bong Traditional Carpentry (at 108 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street) makes lovely hardwood boxes, furniture and cabinets. A matching set of carved mahogany furniture (chair $200, couch $250 and table $200) looks tempting. But it’s heavy, nearly immovable. How would you get it home?

The saleswoman, statuesque in long black braids and a white long-paneled, traditional blouse, answers without hesitation: “It will cost $146 to truck to Saigon and clear customs. And $120 to ship across the Pacific. We take care of everything. It takes 30 days to the West Coast.”

Only a block away, Hoi An’s famous covered Japanese Bridge spans a small canal. Dating from 1593, the wood and stone bridge connects the old Japanese and Chinese trading communities. Hoang Diep owns a house and silk shop next to the bridge.

We browse the fine display of kimonos ($14), scarves ($5) and blouses ($7). All are in soft silk and hand painted with flower or bamboo designs. Diep has an interesting sort of look to him and I strike up a conversation. He was once a journalist, he says, and because of his political views spent 13 years in prison between 1975 and 1988. The government also confiscated his house.

“When I got out, I sought refugee status in many countries, including Australia and the U.S. But no one accepted me.” In 1991, as a result of liberalizing government reforms, his Hoi An house was returned.

With the ongoing lifting of trade and travel restrictions, tourism is booming.

One morning our hotel receptionist greets us with a warning. “There will be many, many tourists in town today!” True enough, 14 minibuses and one luxury coach arrive with about 450 video-toting Belgians.

They are passengers on the cruise ship Calypso, anchored in Da Nang for the day. The seaport of Hoi An was a much anticipated stop on their two-week itinerary from Hong Kong to Singapore. After a few hours in Hoi An, they’re off to see the ruins of My Son.

The original sacred capital of the Chams until AD 980, My Son sits in a hollow of green hills up the Thu Bon River, an hour’s drive west of Hoi An. Footpaths through pasture and forest connect about two dozen brick towers in varying stages of preservation.

Typically Indian in structure, the towers are unique for what was put inside. Pedestal altars adorned with reliefs once supported free-standing stone statues, some of them life-size.

Tourists have fueled Hoi An’s latest trade commodity: art.

On Tran Phu Street, which runs through the heart of the old town, oil paintings spill out of half the houses along the street. Tang Ngoc Thu opened his art gallery at 109 Tran Phu three years ago. According to his count, Hoi An now has 35 art galleries and 15 single-artist shops.

On our last day, we have an early dinner at the floating restaurant, Han Huyen, not far from the Japanese Bridge.

While I enjoy noodles and beef, Maria gamely samples the chao tom: spicy ground shrimp wrapped around stalks of sugar cane and grilled. It burns until she has tears in her eyes. The waitress hurries over. “So sorry!” she says, and rushes off for a glass of cold water.

“Interesting place, is it not?” The cultured voice has only a touch of German accent. At the table next to ours, Heinrich and his wife, Brigitte, introduce themselves. He is a geology professor and one-time Fulbright scholar. She is sunburnt from exploring Cham ruins on a nearby island. Both are engagingly outgoing, in their 60s.

“People often ask us why we travel so much,” Heinrich says laughing. “Well, it’s not for escape. It’s so we can wake each day to something new and interesting.” Brigitte gestures toward the waterfront. “A good place”’ she says, “is where you can stay a week and not be bored.”

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GUIDEBOOK

Hoi An Hospitality

Getting there: China Air, Cathay Pacific, Philippine Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Eva Airways and Korean Air fly from LAX to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with one change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $870.

Vietnam Airlines flies from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang. Round-trip fares start at $260.

Where to stay: Hoi An Hotel, 6 Tran Hung Dao St.; telephone 011-84-51-861-373, fax 011-84-51-861-636. It has 100 rooms, pool and satellite TV. Doubles from about $34.

Huy Hoang Mini Hotel, 73 Phan Boi Chau St.; tel. 011-84-51-862-211. Restaurant/bar on the river. Assorted quality rooms from $10 to $35.

Thuy Duong I Hotel, 11 Le Loi St.; tel. 011-84-51-861-574, fax 011-84-51-861-330. Doubles $10 to $15.

Vinh Hung private mini hotel, 143 Tran Phu St.; tel. 011-84-51-861-621, fax 011-84-51-861-893. Lovely old wooden Hoi An house recently converted to a small hotel. Reserve either room 206 or 208 ($40 and $45); like a movie set with antique beds, rattan couches, traditional balconies.

For more information: Embassy of Vietnam, 1233 20th St. N.W., Suite 501, Washington, DC 20036; tel. (202) 861-0737, fax (202) 861-0917.