Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Hoi An relaxing

Today it was a pretty easy day in Hoi An, an ancient merchant town. In principle the town was a booming merchant place, however the river filled the harbour slowly with sand and the ships got also bigger. This lead to the fact that the strategic position was lost to Danang about 30 km north and the town was kept most as it was in the old days. It was a melting pot of Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese Culture and many people live here for generations in the same houses. Some of the houses are open to the public and can  be visited. I had two brilliant chats with two owners of the houses, one in the 9th and one in the 7th generation living in his house. The town itself is sweet, but very touristic; it looks like a shopping and eating temple with every house being either a restaurant or shop in the old town. This makes it nice for shopping maniacs or restaurant fetishists but also creates a bit of an artificial feeling. In the afternoon I had a short bike trip to the beach closeby and the evening was spend in the old town – organizing my bus ride at 6 am tomorrow, shopping a bit, have a good dinner and a few beers and watching more couples getting married.
The second yellow marking shows the flodding from 10 days ago - 1,5 the water was standing in the house
This was an old pharmacy 
The grandpa of the family got 104 years and was the oldest living vietnamese and hence hounoured like here with w high ranking general - I like the socks of the granpa - really cool
This spirals and the yellow pieces of paper represent wishes placed in the temple
The rough beach of Hoi An
Hurrikan weights to secure the roof still in place
Hoi An by night - soo sweet

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