Hoi An Things to Do

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Ho An is an ancient town with many impressive old architectural buildings, the Cham Nam river divided the town into two areas, the local rich tradition, and historical with settlers' remnants. This town is already famous with tourists from all over the world. Most of the Vietnam travelling video guide will cover this part of Vietnam. You can spend days covering the area with museum, architectures, foods, history, cultures, arts and many more. Overall, it is a beautiful town like living in the past.

Visit Hoi An Bookstore to buy book to learn more about this town.

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This museum is the Relic Preservation Center of Hoi An. It displays the traditional Hoi An's heritage with its traditional occupation, clothing, folklore, and games. I was impressed by its traditional ancient architectural building. This building was used by the Chinese as a trading house 100 years ago.

Opening hour 7am-5:30pm.

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During 16th to 17th Century, Hai Pho seaside town was an important trading area for the Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Dutch, and Vietnamese. This bridge was built by the Japanese to divide their area with other settlers. This bridge is famous of its covered structure and a Buddhist pagoda in one side of the bridge.

Must visit... old and cute bridge...

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After visiting My Son, the tour continued with the boat trip to Kim Bong.

We took a boat from a ferry, then sailed along a big river with many local villages and mountains. It was a good day with some local kids playing in the rivers, and man fishing with local boat. It was a typical Vietnamese's village lifestyle. When we arrived at Kim Bong Village, we started out to visit a local furniture factory. It was kind like a small family run factory. We managed to see worker working on their furniture work. I walked around the town, other than a local wet market, there were nothing much to explore. We continued our boat trip to Hoi An town.

Well, it included in our US$7.80 day tour, it was worth it to see the local lifestyle in the village with small cost.

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My Son Sanctuary is an archaeological site of the Champa Kingdom in Hoi An. During the period between 4th and 13th century, the Cham had been settling here for farming, fishing, and seaborne trade. The Champa Kingdom had chosen this site for its kingdom due to its surrounding beauty of mountains in a small valley where were suitable to built Hindu temples as religious center. Many Champa architecture temples were built between 6th to 10th century. During 13th century, the power of Champa had slowly declined and was taken by Viet Nam. During 15th century, the son was no longer used as a place for worship and later was ruined by Vietnam during Wars.

We left Hoi An town at 8:30am, arrived My Son at 9:30am. It started with a short briefing of the site and the history. It continued to show us the site with more detail archaeological history from one site to another. It was a huge compound. Unfortunately, almost 80% of the temples and sculptural monuments had been ruined. Basically, you will not see any impressive temples, but an archaeological sites with ruins temples.

It was a great experience for me just to see this beautiful site with rich historical remnant. It was just US$7.80 for the day trip. wow..

We continued our tour to Kim Bong Village by boat.

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Do a tour to My Son. The scenery is good on the way there, passing by many fields of Rice, and lovely mountain views.

At My Son, the guide told my group about the site, then we had about 1.5hours to look around on our own, this was plenty of time.
On the way back, I came back by boat, ( you have a choice, either boat or bus) we stopped at a carpentry village. I didn't find it very interesting at all.

Back in the Boat again, we happened to pull up beside a Fisherman as he is throwing his net into the water. Guess what.... He had a fish, but it was dead and on a piece of string, a set up for the tourist's. Of course he came alongside the Boat with his hand held out wanting money for the demonstration!

This was the end of the tour, and we were dropped off at the markets, and you find your own way back to your hotel.
A good tour.

It cost me $10us,(2008).......
this included bus, boat, and basic lunch of rice, banana and water.

It did not include the entrance fee of 60,000dong.

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A tour to Cham Island is a nice days outing.

I was picked up by bus and taken to a port where I boarded the boat. I could sit downstairs or up on the top open deck, this is what I did, as I'd rather take photo's from there than from behind glass.
I was given a bottle of Water and 2 cup cakes for breakfast, [nice!] and these were FREE!
The trip to the island took about 1.5 hours. It was quite interesting as lots of fishing boats with their fishing nets were out on the water.

The town on the island is in a pretty little cove. Lots of basket boats are here and the people don't pressure you to buy like in Hoi an, a nice respite. It was enjoyable watching the locals get on with their life.
We went out on the boat for snorkelling, a bit cold and windy the day we went. Onto another nice secluded cove, just our group for lunch and rest and recreation on a sandy beach with palm trees, this was so lovely!

Then it was time to return to the Boat, and head back to the mainland, where a bus took me back to my Hotel.

A word of warning for the trip back.....
The wind had come up and the sea was very rough, so if you suffer from sea sickness, take some tablets with you.
Also, everybody was frozen, except for me, as I took a cardigan with me, and even that was not quite warm enough. There was nowhere to get away from the cold wind! Take something warm with you, even in warmer weather, as the return trip may be cold!

In 2008, I paid $19 for this tour after checking with many travel agencies. Check around, as prices DO VARY!
I see a tour in 2011 cost $32us......including lunch, but this is by speedboat which is the faster boat.

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Tran Tu Nhac, an intelligent mandarin who lived during the reign of King Gia Long (around 200 years ago), built this house. In late 1802, he and some others were sent to China as the King's envoys. Before departure, he wanted to leave something to his offspring and show his gratitude towards his ancestors. So he had this house built. Like other family chapels in Hoi An, the Tran house is situated in the middle of a 1,500 sq m garden with high surrounding walls and a gate. Ornamental plants. flowers, fruit trees and several century-old plants are grown in the front. The architecture of the house bears the Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese styles, and it has remained almost the same as two centuries ago. The house is made of precious wood and is composed of three compartments and two lean-tos. Its roof is covered with pan-tiles. The wood, columns and beams are decorated with refined carvings. The house is divided into two parts: the main one is used as the worshipping place, and the other one, as the living space for the clan's head and for receiving guests.