Tet in Hoi An

We arrived in Hoi An, just in time for Tet, on the night of the 28th of January after a long bus ride from Nha Trang (a complete shit hole which gets good reviews for some reason). The town was chockers with people everywhere buying last minute gifts, flowers and of course food for Tet. It was a really vibrant atmosphere, which we couldn't participate in unfortunately as we were so tired... we figured there would be more of this kind of celebration over the next couple of days.
Sadly, this was not the case, and over the next four days Hoi An was basically a ghost town as most of the restaurants and shops closed. In some ways, it was a great time to visit Hoi An because we could wander around the UNESCO World Heritage listed town and take photos of all the old buildings and homes.

One of the many beautiful old lane ways.

Deserted streets on the Tet holiday.

These two kids were dancing and playing with a mini dragon costume in the streets,
they put on a real show for the camera!

We spent a couple of nights at Minh Ah Ancient guest house, right next to the bustling (but closed for Tet) markets. It's a beautiful old Chinese style place, run by a family, and we had a room with a little 'midgets revenge' balcony, replete with little 'midgets revenge' table and chairs, that looked over a lovely courtyard with a well. This is where we enjoyed our Tet celebration breakfast, which I detailed in the post titled, Chuc Mung Nam Moi.

The front of Minh Ah guest house, with the Tet tree for good luck.

It was always a struggle to get onto the balcony, but we enjoyed lots of coffees on it anyway.

Tet celebration breakfast - Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Hoi An is also famous for tailoring suits and you can even get shoes made to fit! I couldn't resist, and ended up getting some flat shoes with go faster stripes in a red chinese silk pattern made for me... I love them. We were both looking into getting some suits made up for our new jobs in London, but the tailors all had a week off due to Tet, so we couldn't in the end.

"... there's no place like home, there's no place like home..."

Quite appropriately in the new year of the dog, we stumbled across the cutest dog in existence called Lulu owned by a local family... I'm sure they didn't mind us playing with it every time we walked past their house, after all, foreigners are lucky aren't they?!? Here's a photo of me holding her, but it doesn't really do it justice - she was a little ball of soft, fluffy, wiggling fat. :)

Aawwww....

Just as we were leaving Hoi An, we came across a couple of awesome restaurants that served authentic Vietnamese food at seriously cheap prices. Of course, we couldn't go there before because of everything closing over bloody Tet, but we did get to experience a couple of their set 4 course lunches which were delicious. One of these places was Cafe 96, and it also ran some excellent cooking courses that we couldn't do (Tet!!) but looked like great fun, especially considering you could chose which taste sensations you wanted to learn to make from their menu.

The owner of Cafe 96 was very kind to us, and the food was excellent.

Apparently, every year, the river swells and floods all the homes and shops facing it
... including Cafe 96. It's nice and peaceful in this photo though.

A particular Hoi An specialty is Cau Lau - thick egg noodles in special stock, with pork and softened bean shoots, plus fresh mint and lettuce. You can only get the real thing in Hoi An as they get the water for the stock from a particular well that has a dead pig in it to flavour the water. Maybe not... but they do always use the water from that well.

We spent most of our time wandering around looking at the beautiful architecture... here are some more examples of it. Atmospheric Hoi An was one of my/our/everyone's favourite places in Vietnam and we heartily endorse it!