The ancient City of Lanterns …and of rain…

I should have known this but Vietnamese is a very long and mostly thin country. So the top to the bottom of it covers a few latitudes. Hoi An is in the middle, close to Da Nang.This area is known for clouds. However I have had the added pleasure of the ancient City of the Lanterns in the torrential rain. You know when your trousers are so wet they are translucent. When your shoes are so full of water that you squelch with every step. There were some hours without rain. And then you could see how beautiful it still is. The buildings are small. Predominantly yellow. The roofs are tiled . All dark. The streets are narrow. There is a river crossed by a quaint painted Japanese Bridge. There are river boats and tour taxis made to look like automobiles of the 30’s. There are alleyways and trees and street vendors by the hundred selling pancakes, roasted okra, whole squid and bamboo sticks with an assortment of unrecognizable seafood. There are coffee shops selling salted cream coffee. I am not a coffee drinker, but it was riches in a glass. A tea called Rose and Lychee. Is actually hot and pink, made from lychee with roses floating in it. There are lanterns hanging everywhere. Across the streets, along the river. Silk and bright. There are also many mopeds and scooters. it is still Vietnam after all. There are plastic ponchos and umbrellas leading me to believe that I am not the first person to squelch through the charming streets of Hoi An. What is remarkable is that although every doorway opens onto a shop or a cafe of some sort, the external facades of the buildings remain as they always were. The concrete steps, the shutters, the big wooden doors, the windows; they are all still there. The main trade is making clothes. Turning rounds suits, dresses, shirts, trousers in a couple of days. It seems that Jeremy Clarkson did an episode of “ Top Gear” in Hoi An and his measurements still are held at the shop called YALA where, when he is need of another fine suit, he just calls and hey presto! I’m not sure everyone has such success. I passed by a women being fitted into a green dress with ruffles in odd places that she will surely look at with horror when she gets home. For the locals or visitors from the country they have this iconic dress that women wear. Loose trousers and a very fitted dress that splits at the waist and two flat panels hang front and back. In pinks, yellows, cream, patterned and textured silk. Perhaps it was so common to see because it was New Year. It looks a little less formal with a plastic poncho or a puffer jacket over the top of it, but I blame the rain. Apparently Anthony Bourdain’s favourite Banh Mi came from a lady in the market in Hoi An. I am not surprised. I had brilliant Hoi An spring rolls made with a clever shredded wheat exterior. Pho and Morning Glory. I may have to give more respect to this plant Morning Glory. It has a really pretty flower, often blue and in my garden it weaves up like a baddy in a fairytale and chokes all the other climbers on my fence. I’m not going to try cooking it. I’ll leave that to the Vietnamese. Met lovely people yet again. Traveling in different kinds of ways. All with information, some with insight. And a few make your day with their laughter. Oh, how that brightens the world. As you feel the threads that connect people from all different sorts of places and periods and you realize homecoming is not about “home” but comfort in company. I went for a bicycle ride with my last afternoon in Hoi An. Two hours in and I got hopelessly lost. I knew I should head for the sea, but there were so many bodies of water: rivers, ponds, rice fields…that I lost my sense of direction. There was a moment where my blue watch that had been telling me I had lots of time, turned on me and I was getting flustered. Two older men on bicycles passed me. ‘ where was I going?’ They said. I pointed to the basket on the front of my bike which had the name of my hotel on it. ‘Ah’ they said. ‘Difficult’ they said. ‘Follow’ they said. And I did. Until we stopped and the younger one said, ‘sorry, wrong way.’So we turned around and they said ‘follow’ again and they bicycled , me in the middle, one in front and one behind, all the way till they deposited me at the gate to my hotel. Then they bicycled off smiling and waving. Were they on a bike ride for pleasure those two local men? Were they expected at a family meal? Did they really give up an hour of their Sunday afternoon to help an incompetent foreigner find her way back to her packed suitcases? “Si Camun” I said many times. I don’t think I ever pronounced it well enough to make it stick. That is the closest I can get to thank you.