When it comes to scenery, I seem to be more interested in the man-made architecture rather than the natural landscape as I believe that the architecture of a place reveals lots of its history, culture, and habitation.
Hoi An is a city located on the Central Coast of Vietnam, well-known for its beaches and the ancient town recognized as a World Heritage by the UNESCO. As I early mentioned, yes, I’m always more interested in ‘man-made’ rather than the ‘natural’ and when it comes to a city rich in culture like Hoi An (despite its very nice beaches!!), I decided to only stay in the ancient town area. And I stayed for (more than) 3 DAYS!!!! It seems weirdly long as people often stay in Da Nang (a nearby city) and only visit Hoi An for a day, but once again, to me, 1 day is definitely not enough to know Hoi An – its history, culture, and architecture, and I want to slowly, comfortably discover it.
Now let’s start with my 3-days-and-more in Hoi An! (I’m the one who always exert expectations on everything, not except travel! Before every trip, I always do research and make a list of where to go, what to eat and find myself worrying not to make out most of the time >.< It’s not a good habit tho.
Friday night – Arrival.
Arrived in Hoi An at around 9PM plus. Kinda late that all the ‘on-list’ places were closed. We decided to walk to a nearby restaurant to have a dinner. The restaurant called ‘Nguyen Tuyen’, located on Nguyen Phuc La street, in front of the river. It looked very ‘commercial’ so yeah, I didn’t expect much. (I don’t know if its because I’m a Hanoian, I can ‘taste’ the so-called ‘commercialized’ – which I refer to those restaurants stereotyped by having air-con :)) and apparently not good in any food and only serve foreigners or locals who have no other choices >.< lol, and have a mindset that only small, shanty (lụp xụp) restaurants are good !!! LOL admit it, we, Hanoians, are all like that!!! =)) And here, what we ordered: 
Banh vac, Hoanh Thanh Chien, My Quang, and Cao Lau – looked bad and tasted bad lol. Luckily, on the next days, we went to taste all these dishes again at the authentic stalls, otherwise we might have wrong impressions on all these Hoi An’s signature foods. So yeah, call us selective ‘Hanoian’ but we’re not wrong when it comes to eating lol.
And the first pic to start my so-called ‘virtual-living-style’ (or sống ảo lol).
You can see the lighten-up, buzzling town by the riverside at night.
After the dinner, we crossed the bridge to the town area and tried to find some food and we found this – Che Bap or Sweet Corn Dessert at a corner where we could listen to some live music from those boats while eating. I’m not a sweet-tooth and this dessert tastes really nice, cool and not so sweet. And till we left, we ate this dessert every single day lol.
Some night walking pics.
I have to say that the town is really well-preserved.
Saturday.
Luckily, I have my partner – who is really go at directions. Provide him with GG Map, he can lead me wherever I want. We started our first day by having lunch at Com Ga Ba Buoi – Ba Buoi Chicken Rice. This is the most famous chicken rice in Hoi An, everyone knows! The restaurant was so small and we had to share table with a family, and as such authentic Vietnamese people, we don’t mind this at all haha. But it’s worth the wait, the rice, chicken and the soup were really delicious!! I especially loved the rice there – it has yellow color and tastes reallllly good. It’s 50k VND for a plate, or S$3.
After the lunch, we went wandering around the town… Every single corner is too pretty that I could not resist my desire to take pictures, or ‘virtually-live’ or ‘song ao’ lol. Really love those pink ‘Hoa Giấy’ or Bougainvillea flowers.
(Follow Me failed version – Theo em đi khắp thế gian phiên bản lỗi =)))))
For dinner, we had a date with Nguyet – my sister at college. She lives in Hoi An and no sooner than this time had I known that actually her family did not own a resort in Hoi An (which I had been always told by our friends) loll. We went for seafood as I requested. We ate near Cua Dai beach. First, we planned to eat at ‘A Rồi’ but when we came, it was so full so we had to eat at the next restaurant. The food was nice but the service was really bad as we had to keep on urging them to bring on food >.< and of course, we talked so much that there was no pics of food haha. After the dinner, 3 of us, all on her bike, without helmets, went to have some fruits. It was really nice to meet her again and hang out like this. We were actually not really closed when we were in the college. One of the last times we met, last year, we even had kinda small quarrel during the discussion of school event preparation. I was too hot-tempered back then. But luckily, Nguyet is not someone who remembers. When I contacted her to ask for places in Hoi An, I didn’t expect she would come to see me but she did, like of-coursely. Not only she really came to have dinner with me, she was really enthusiastically to accompany me after the dinner, and even after the dessert, she suggested to bring us around the town. Yes, this was not the first time I was surprised by how people treat me so well. But I think, it’s not because I’m good, but because they’re good. I have to admit, I often treat people in a ‘s0-so’ manner, since I believe they are just ‘so-so’ to me and of course, I also don’t expect more and that’s why I often avoid asking for help. However, actually some people are really good – they don’t think much like me, and they just treat others well very naturally. I was really surprised, touched, and even awkward when meeting Nguyet this time, and came back reflecting on myself. Maybe I need to open my mind, and heart..
Oh, and this was our reunion ^^
Sunday.
I was still craving for chicken rice since yesterday lunch at Com Ga Ba Buoi.. that we decided to go for chicken rice again!!! But we tried Com Ga Ba Nga instead – chicken rice cooked by another madam lol. This place is bigger than the previous stall. The chicken was good but the rice was not that special and tasty like Ba Buoi.
After the lunch, we went on wandering..like our everyday routine. This time, we dropped by some coffee shops. One was just on the pavement for a cold coconut and the another is The Chef – a coffee house recommended online. In Hoi An, drinks and coffee houses are all around the corner!
Le Loi – Tran Phu intersection, where we became pigs lol. At night, food was all around 4 corners that we started by having some drink at the coffee house, followed by having some Sweet Corn dessert, then Hot Vit Lon or Balut (raw eggs), then Banh Mi or Baguette.
Streets at Noon…the sunlight was gorgeous.
Told you!!! Every corner is Instagram-worthy that no one could not resist!!
Lovely hand-written film poster at a cinema in Hoi An. Where else could you find such retro?? Nguyet told me that the cinema only shows 1 or 2 movies at a time, and only Vietnamese movies. The cinema is small with small wooden chairs. How lovely!!!
My lovely flowers.
Banh 9 Tang May (9-layers-of-cloud cake) & Banh Xu Xe (Husband-and-Wife cake). The names couldn’t not be cooler, could they? Tasted really great which were not so sweet!
Inside The Chef Cafe. The 1st level is a bookstore with a variety of English books and some Communist-propaganda-styled notebooks and souvenirs like this: 
The Coffee shop is on the 2nd storey. We planned to sit on the top level, however it was not open till 4pm. Then we managed to sit at the balcony and got some photos from top view.
For dinner, we decided to go to a restaurant called ‘Bong Hong Trang’ or ‘White Rose’ which takes after the name of its famous cake ‘White rose’ cakes. It’s a kind of rice cakes, quite similar to other famous cakes of the Central Vietnam like Banh Beo, Banh Nam, etc. that I really like. The restaurant is known for being the inventor and supplier of this cake to all places in the city. It only serves 2 dishes, Hoanh Thanh Chien (Fried Wanton) and Banh Vac (White Rose cake). And they both tasted so gooooooood. Looked and tasted totally different from those served at the first restaurant we ate when arrived. 
After the dinner, we decided to spend the rest of the night at a coffee shop, called Hoi An Roastery. One great thing, Hoi An ancient town area provides FREE WIFI and it works ! We got kinda much work done there.
The coffee is located at the Le Loi – Tran Phu intersection I mentioned earlier. 
The coffee closed down at 10. We decided to have some supper <pig>. Hot Vit Lon (Raw eggs) and Sweet Corn Dessert, go!!!
How they served the eggs, to me, was unique as well haha. Not like in Hanoi. The salad (or nộm) tasted super niceeee that it was the main reason why I came back for this twice.
Monday.
My partner wanted Phở (here I refer as ‘my partner’ only because I didn’t want Pho at all. Why? To me, I’m pretty sure that nowhere else in this planet serves better Pho than my Hanoi. End!). So we went for Phở Liến, as recommended by Nguyet. And as my expectation and in my opinion, it didn’t taste nice, however it tasted quite differently. 
Had some Vietnamese-typically-packaged drinks and the ‘legendary’ polka-dot cups hahaaa.
As you can see, the Pho there was too little that we needed more food lol. Then we decided to go to Com Ga Ba Buoi again. Still craving for the yellow rice since the first time trying it.
I know it got kinda routined now but we went for coffee after this <pig>. Had some cold coconut and smoothies at Mai Fish. Oops, and not to get you wrong that we only ate and slept, we actually did visit some places as well lolll. We visited Chua Cau
(to be continued)
anny 