Hoi An is one of Vietnam's most beautiful cities. It's a major tourist attraction and a photographer's dream. As pretty as this town is, it felt a little too fake for my taste. It was cool to stay for a couple of nights and get some photos, but I had a much more enjoyable time in Danang which is right down the road.
After a fun night in Kham Duc, the ride to Hoi An was awesome! I spent a couple of hours driving thought very dense jungle. Then spent about an hour on a tiny little road that went through a bunch of charming little villages.
It had rained overnight and my bike must have gotten wet because when I tried to start it up it wouldn't start. It took a couple of minutes to get it going. I didn't know it then, but eventually I would discover that the sparkplug was getting wet.
Eventually I got the bike started and headed down the road towards the coast. The jungle was super dense and was overgrown with ivy.
The jungle was super impressive to me.
At one point I found a giant waterfall next to the road.
Here's the video of when I pulled up to the waterfall. This is what it's like to ride in Vietnam. You see something interesting and pull over, park, and check it out. The locals did that a lot too. Many times I would be stopped to take a water/stretch break and people would pull up and say hello and practice their English. Or just stop to see what I was up to or ask if I was having bike troubles. It was cool.
I've got a bunch of photos of Hoi An that I want to get to, but I really like a lot of these jungle photos. The drive to Hoi An was great!
The roads were lovely on this day.
Here's an obligatory water buffalo shot. I will never not post photos of water buffaloes if I have them.
After leaving the jungles, I turned down this tiny little road that passed through a bunch of villages. I was there at the perfect time and the schools were getting out as I rode though. I must have had close to a hundred kids yell "Hello!" and "How are you?" at me as I rode by.
If I didn't have GPS on my phone, I would have been worried that I was on a driveway or something. It was one of the smallest roads I'd been on so far.
This little shrine next to the pond and water buffalo was awesome.
As I got closer to the ocean and rivers, the land flattened out and the landscape and buildings changed quite a bit.
It's hard to tell from this photo but the white building on the right of this photo is actually a big boat.
This is my first photo of Hoi An when I arrived. It took some time to find a hotel. I accidently went down the wrong road and ended up in a market close to the water.
I found my hotel and went out on foot. Night in Hoi An would be amazing with a good camera. My phone wasn't worth much for photos at night.
I spent 2 nights in Hoi An and had a full day to explore the city a little bit.
Hoi An is an incredibly beautiful place. It's the kind of place where you could just wave your camera around randomly pressing the shutter button and you would end up with a ton of great photos. Everything looks amazing here.
So I spent much of my day just wandering around, pressing the shutter button on my camera.
As pretty as it is, I wasn't really into Hoi An. It felt staged and fake to me. Almost all of the shops sold suits and dresses. There were thousands of western tourists there too. As a western tourist, I don't have anything against them, I just don't want to go to foreign countries to see other tourists. I want to see locals. I also like feeling like I'm the only foreigner in town.
Here's one of the hundreds of suit and dress shops in Hoi An. Everything seemed more geared towards rich tourists. As a non-rich tourist, it didn't appeal to me.
Months later I took a few trips to Hoi An with Vietnamese friends from Danang. Visiting the city with locals was a lot more enjoyable.
Regardless of how I felt about the vibe of the place, it's beauty is undeniable. I wish I took more photos.
Even the little alleyways are kind of pretty.
There are too many photos for me to think of something to say about all of them. Here are the rest of my Hoi An photos.
This is the last photo of Hoi An that I took before heading down the road to Danang. I would end up falling in love with Danang and spending about 3 months there. Danang felt more like a real city with people living normal lives in it. Hoi An felt more like a stage show that is put on for the tourists.
The ride into Hoi An was fantastic, and despite my complaints, Hoi An was pretty cool. For me, it just wasn't a good fit. But the beauty of the place can't be denied. This is what I said about it on Facebook when I was here:
There's decent food here. There are also lots of lovely things to take pictures of. It is beautiful with tons of lanterns that look amazing at night. Lots of bright flowering plants, and cool architecture.
It's all very family friendly, with tons of neat and clean packaged tours that will take you to see "real" Vietnam from a safe distance. It does seem like it would be a nice stop for a vacation, but I'm on a journey not a vacation. Even on vacation, it doesn't really matter if you have a gorgeous town when all of your shops only sell suits and designer dresses. It all feels a bit staged.
Maybe I was being too harsh. Or maybe I was being too much of a snooty elitist backpacker. Whatever it was, I think Hoi An is a great place to stay for a short time. And Danang is a great place to stay for a long time.
Stay tuned for my next post when I visited Danang for the first time. Hope to see you then!