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| ASIA - VIETNAM: HOI AN - UNSPOILED by Robert Tilley   A neat little harbor town half-way up Vietnam’s spectacular 1,600km coastline has become the country’s major resort destination. But if you want to find Hoi An in its present pristine state then hurry up – as Vietnam’s primitive road network improves, the developers are bound to move in, ending once and for all the protective isolation of countless Vietnamese seaside resorts like this little jewel.Hoi An is located just below the Vietnam War-era "demilitarized zone" which later marked the frontier between North and South Vietnam. It lies 10km off the main highway Nr. 1 linking Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and the only reliable way of reaching the resort is by local bus from Da Nang, the busy port that was once a major American air force and naval base. But enterprising long-distance bus operators, sniffing business, are now including Hoi An on their itineraries – another reason to visit the town before the package tours engulf it. Hoi An is used to being engulfed – but by water. It sits uneasily between a tracery of rivers and the South China Sea, and twice in its history it has been almost obliterated by flood waters. And what a history: centuries before the rise of today’s great Asian seaports Hoi An was a major trading post on the South China Sea. Its name crops up continually in Arab and Persian documents dating from as early as the eighth century. Chinese and Japanese merchants used to sail to the Vietnam coast on northerly trade winds during the spring and await in Hoi An the arrival several months later of southerly breezes that would carry them home again. Merchant ships of the great European powers – Britain, France, Spain, Holland and Portugal – also tied up regularly at Hoi An’s riverside wharfs, loading treasure chests of oriental goods ranging from silk to spices. A lively silk trade arose in the town, and today its ancient grid of narrow streets is lined by the cramped shops of tailors who can run up a silk evening dress or fine woollen business suit in 24 hours for the price of an overnight stay in one of the resort’s few luxury hotels. Sandwiched between the shops are the greatest concentration of restaurants to be found anywhere in Vietnam. Hoi An’s traditional cuisine is a deliciously distinct mixture of the influences that, over centuries, shaped the unique character of the place, including more than a pinch of French flair. This patchwork of influences is also to be found in the architectural integrity of the little port, which escaped virtually unharmed the ravages of the war which raged only a few kilometres away. More than 800 buildings are officially listed as historically significant. Chief of these are the temples and assembly halls erected by Hoi An’s industrious Chinese community. There are still more than 1,000 ethnic Chinese in Hoi An, and many of their homes are also architectural jewels, brick-walled and with carved and decorated wooden interiors. Hoi An’s most picturesque attraction, though, isn’t Chinese but a covered bridge built by Japanese merchants in 1593 to link their part of town with their Chinese neighbors. The charm of the graceful little structure lies in its flamboyant repudiation of its mundane, commercial origins – it even finds room for a small temple. Five kilometers downstream from Hoi An lie the sea and the seemingly endless sands of Cua Dai beach. Here, embraced by the river and sand dunes, is one of Vietnam’s newest and most luxurious hotel-resorts, the Hoi An Beach Resort. Its vast rooms and suites are coolly and stylishly redolent of the French colonial era, and many of them have terraces leading directly to the river bank, where fishermen cast their nets in the grey, drowsy Vietnam dawn. Under the same management as the Hoi An Beach Resort is the centrally-located Hoi An Hotel, which also serves as the local tourist information centre. Several comfortable and reasonably-priced hotels lie on the road between the town centre and Cua Dai beach, and most hire out bicycles or motorbikes for less than $US5 a day. It’s highly recommended to book hotel accommodation well in advance. The vagaries of travelling within Vietnam can mean that you arrive in Hoi An in the middle of the night instead of in time for supper – and a night on moonlit Cua Dai beach, albeit romantic and unbeatably cheap, is not advisable. Photo courtesy Keith Richardson SCRIBBLES ETCETERAS Footsteps In Asia, a licensed tour company operating small group, and individual tours, introduces visitors to a part of the world that's rich in sounds, smells, culture and natural beauty - Southeast Asia. They include trekking, cycling and cultural tours with two grades of accommodation plus village home-stays. |
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