I wasn’t alone at the beginning, I was with my friend and we planned to travel to Hoi An then Da Nang. Unfortunately, she got some urgent business and she had to go back earlier, therefore, I decided to travel to Hue before going to Da Nang and flying back to Hanoi. It was worth to risk and to travel alone.
Hoi An – 3 days
For everyone who want to go to Hoi An or Da Nang by train, when you stop at Da Nang station, walk to Le Duan Street where you can catch the bus No.01 to go to Hoi An.
Hoi An is a beautiful ancient town, it has some characters of a China town but, it also has some things that you can only feel in Hoi An. The most distinctive feature of Hoi An is its buildings, old buildings are well maintained, from generations to generations, people live in the same house as their fathers did. While it’s not comfortable to live in an old house with a limited electronic system they must be very proud of their house.
I love the old building, it reminds of some things beautiful that have been gone forever.
Ancient house in Hoi An was built with the combination of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese style. Quan Thang old house is a typical Chinese house, it shares 2 side wall with its neighbor house. The roof and pillar can be easily disassembled, therefore, in the old time, people could take their house to pieces and move it to another town. All the houses have 2 floors, the second floor is used as a storage during flooding seasons. According to the owner, the house was built by “kền kền” wood which even become stronger over time soaking in water.
One attraction that you cannot miss when you come to Hoi An is Japanese Bridge. It was built in the early seventeenth century to connect Japanese Community and Chinese Community in the past, and nowadays it connects Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street and Tran Phu Steet.
From Hoian-Tourism.com (you can find the full article Here)
At one end of the bridge, there are 2 sculptures – of a dog and of a monkey. These two animals are symbols of sacredness in Japanese culture. Another reason behind these animal sculptures is that according to the Asian zodiac signs, in the year of the monkey and the year of the dog many of the Japanese Emperors were born. Records also say that the construction of the bridge was initiated in the dog year and was finished in the monkey year. nside the Japanese Covered Bridge lies a temple of the northern God Tran Vo Bac De. This God is considered the God of Weather. People believe that He controls all kinds of weather changes and natural calamities, so the sailors both worship and fear Him.
One theory of the bridge’s religious purpose is that it was built to subdue a world-spanning ‘mamazu’ dragon monster, whose head was located in India and its tail in Japan. The movement of the tail was believed to cause earthquakes in Japan. As Vietnam was located in the area of mamazu’s back, the bridge was intended to pin the mamazu down, thus preventing any earthquakes.
Seriously, You have to try rowing on Thu Bon river (price: 20,000 per person), I did it twice, the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. During sunset is the best time for you, you can take a lot of picture of the river and 2 sides of the river bank. Again, you should do it at night as well, because there will be many water lanterns floating on the river.
At night, Hoi An turns into Lantern town…Lovely name, right?
The next day, We went to Cham Island for snorkling. Cham is an peaceful island which is not touched much by human activity. You must do snorkeling and diving though the water was too cool for me, but I loved seeing sea creatures.
And some photo from my trip to My Son Sanctuary by motobike :D. The Sanctuary was ruined mostly but the remain architectures still show how majestic they were in the past.
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