We leave Hue on the 8am bus to Hoi An. At least it is advertised at the 8am bus but actually leaves at 8.30am. We have a puncture on the way which involve and unscheduled stop to change the wheel. The journey also involves stopping at hotel in Hoi An whilst the staff board the bus and try to persuade the passengers to take rooms. This delays the bus for 10 or 15 minutes whilst people get off to view the rooms. Meanwhile the rest of us have to grin and bear the delay. This is apparently common practice and is one of the ways the bus companies keep the ticket prices low. We are an hour late arriving and there is no sign of our pick up, only lots of xe-om (motorbike taxi) drivers touting for business. As the crowd disperses we debate what to do – we have no idea how far we are from the hotel and whether it is walkable, but the xe-om drivers are telling us it’s 2km. As we are about the phone the hotel, our pick up arrives – on two mopeds! There is no way that even the most inventive Vietamese is going to manage to carry our luggage and us on a motorbike, so taxi is arranged. The hotel is supposedly in the heart of the old town but is in a street that appears to be made up of new, if tasteful, hotels. We are a short 5-minute walk from the river front and the heart of the Unesco World Heritage site. It’s here we have a delicious lunch in an old Vietnamese house with a seriously distressed interior and a direct view of the river. Our lunch is continually interrupted by the stream of street sellers offering everything from English language newspapers, to pottery whistles, jewellery and Tiger balm. Lunch is followed by a mosey down the river in a small sampan paddled by an elderly man who has a good grasp of British geography and who lost one of his legs during the American War. A stroll along the old streets and around the central market finish off the day.
This is definitely a tourist town – in parts the western tourists seem to out-number the Vietnamese and bars, cafes, restaurants, tailors, souvenir or clothes shop are everywhere in the old town. Nonetheless it has a certain charm. It escaped the American War largely unscathed so there are many historic buildings dating back to the 18th century with several well-preserved streets which make for a different perspective on Vietnamese architecture.