By Chloe

After a beautiful train journey down the scenic coast of Vietnam from Hue to Da Nang, we arrived in the picturesque and bustling city of Hoi An.
Now, I’m not going to lie, we spent a disproportionate amount of time with the lovely Viet, her husband Sanh and their cheeky five-year-old son, Win, at their tailor shop Win Tailors. Viet and Sanh were incredibly welcoming, friendly and helpful! Apart from making us mountains of beautifully made new clothes, they took us to the best places to drink coffee and eat in the old centre of Hoi An – we could not have asked for better hosts! Big thanks go to Alex and Abbie for introducing us to Viet (Alex has been friends with Viet for 10 years now). If anyone ever plans on visiting Hoi An, or fancies getting some clothes made – Win Tailors and a coconut coffee with Viet is a must. That is if we left Viet with any fabric at all!!

James was the picture of restraint and only had two shirts and two smart/casual jackets made. I, on the other hand, went a little crazy and had; two dresses, a coat, a smart jacket, a pair of trousers, a silk blouse AND three skirts made…phew!

On to the coconut coffee…it was the best coffee I think I’ve ever had. Picture a shot of strong smooth espresso, poured on top of a glass filled with blizted coconut cream and ice with a dash of condensed milk for sweetness…you just can’t beat it. I think James and I visited this cafe every single day we were in Hoi An, and it’s definitely a recipe I’m going to bring home with me! Two other culinary experiences stand out from what was a very tasty week; the Bahn Mi we had at Madame Khanh, aka, “The Banh Mi Queen” and the fabulous breakfasts we had at Banh Mi Opla (okay okay, we like bread!)

For anyone uninitiated into the glories of Banh Mi – it consists (at its core) of a French style white crusty baguette packed with your choice of fillings. The Banh Mi Queen’s consisted of crunchy salad, coriander, mint, a pork and mushroom pate, slices of pork fillet and slices of a type of pork meatball, with fried egg and an amazing home-made chilli chutney/sauce. All for the astounding price of 85p! Needless to say, we came back here a lot. I am actually salivating whilst writing this. Opla on the other hand is a Vietnamese type of cooked breakfast. Little beef meatballs, fried eggs, and a fresh tomato sauce are all cooked and served on individual hotplates (shaped like a cow) and served with onion and a fresh baguette. Add a dash of chilli sauce and soy sauce, chop everything up and ladle liberally onto your baguette and jobs a goodun!

Much of our time in Hoi An was spent simply wandering or cycling around the grid layout of the pedestrianised old centre, with streets lined with old wooden Chinese and Japanese clan houses, glowing silk lanterns zigzagging above us, and classical music softly playing through the tannoy loudspeakers (okay we admit…the last one was a little weird, as it seemed to play the same song over and over again!) The markets were bustling and lively, the food was scrummy, and although it seemed that the world and his wife spoke to us, only to offer their tailoring services – Hoi An was amazing. We were also lucky enough to be in Hoi An for a full moon celebration (Buddha’s birthday in this case), where countless candle lanterns are set free on the river running through Hoi An, and the streets are packed with people, food, and laughter.

Two activities stand out among the many that we enjoyed in Hoi An. The first was a sublime cooking lesson with Hoi An Eco Cooking School  – it was fabulous! We arrived at the river, were deposited into conical boats, two-by-two, and given little fishing rods to try and capture purple crabs hiding among the roots of the palms. Sue was a natural, catching eight little crabs, I only caught one, and poor James and Brendan didn’t manage to snag a single crab! After our fishing excursion, we arrived at the cooking school where over the next three hours we learned to make a massive array of Vietnamese food. We even had a chance to make out own rice paper pancakes for our fresh spring rolls!

We even got to use fire!

The second was an early more escapade to My Son, a Champa temple complex about an hour outside of Hoi An. We were lucky with our timings, we arrived at 8:00am, just as the ‘sunrise’ group was leaving, and managed to see the main sites before the hoards of day tours arrived at 9:00am. We actually had the ruins all to ourselves! You may hear that My Son is the ‘Ankor Wat’ of Vietnam, however, anyone who describes it that way obviously hasn’t been to Ankor Wat. My Son is beautiful for what it is – a few temples that remain after the carpet bombings of the US/Vietnam war, but there really are only two small areas where the temples remain in decent condition.

Hoi An was arguably my favourite place in Vietnam – if you ever get the chance to visit, you definitely should, and assign at least three days (although we stayed for well over a week).

Love, The Backpack Duo X