Hoi An ancient town tourism – world cultural heritage

Located on the north bank of the lower Thu Bon River, Hoi An is an ancient town in Quang Nam, more than 30 km from Da Nang city, 122 km from Hue. Referring to Hoi An, mentioning the rows of ancient saffron-colored houses, the sparkling river with lanterns at night, or delicious dishes at affordable prices is necessary.

What season is beautiful in Hoi An?

Hoi An’s climate is mixed between the South and the North, with distinct rainy and dry seasons. Each season of the old town has its own beauty.

The first three months of the year are the most ideal time to hang out in Hoi An when the sun is not too hot, it is cool, sometimes there is light rain.

From April to June is the harsh period of the dry season, but Hoi An’s weather is quite pleasant, because it is located in the south of the Truong Son range. This is also the peak tourist season.

July is still the dry season. August and September is the time of season change. It’s still sunny, it’s starting to rain sporadically and it’s chilly at night.

The last three months of the year is the rainy season in Hoi An, it is rarely sunny, it rains heavily and sometimes floods. Visitors from the South to Hoi An in the cold season should prepare appropriate clothes to avoid health effects.

Move

Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Bamboo Airlines… all operate routes to Da Nang. The round-trip ticket price for a person from Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang is about 1.5 million VND on average. You should buy tickets early for good prices and convenient departure times.

To Da Nang airport, you can choose to take a shuttle bus from the airport, or take a bus, taxi, or private car to the center of Hoi An. Those who like to travel freely can rent a motorbike from Da Nang city to have fun in Hoi An, for about 150,000 VND a day.

If you take the bus, you take route number 01 Da Nang – Hoi An running from 5:30 to 17:50 daily with a ticket price of 20,000 VND per person. If you are traveling with three or more people and want to move quickly from the airport directly to Hoi An, you should call a taxi or transfer bus with the price from 250,000 VND per trip.

To move around in Hoi An, you can use bicycles, motorbikes rented from the hotels and homestays you stay in. Bicycle rental is about 30,000 VND a day, motorbike is 120,000 VND.

Hotels, homestays

Hoi An each season has its own beauty, but the most crowded tourist attraction is still the summer. Therefore, if you go this season, you should find out where to stay to book as soon as possible for a good price, especially on weekends.

The price of a 4- or 5-star hotel, resort here is about 2,500,000 VND or more for a night room for two people. Hoi An has more and more new resorts with beautiful locations such as in Cam Chau ward, An Bang beach, Cua Dai …

Homestay in Hoi An has also grown rapidly in recent years, able to serve everyone from solo guests, groups or families. Not only a clean place to sleep, but the homestay is also well cared for with unique architecture, furniture, lovely gardens, large and airy rooms. The price of Hoi An homestays is very cheap, does not fluctuate much even in the high season, from 200,000 VND a night for one person.

Some beautiful homestays passed on by young people are Maison de Tau, Under The Coconut Tree, An Bang Beach Hideaway, Heron House, Le Bleu…

Play

Cafe

For drinks besides herbal drinks, tea and coffee in Hoi An are equally delicious. Moreover, each tea and coffee shop in the Old Quarter has its own charm.

Many shops are located deep in houses with a lifespan of hundreds of years, the shop is located on the rooftop so customers can watch the street while sipping drinks, or the bar has staff who are deaf…

Those who like to see Hoi An from above can go to Faifo Café located on the 3rd floor of a house on Tran Phu street. If you want a quiet space, you can go to the Reaching Out tea shop, or enjoy delicious ice cream and coffee at Hoi An Roastery…

In addition, if you search hard in the alleys of the old town, you will also discover many tea and coffee shops that are both authentic and modern because they attract many foreign tourists.

Leaving the center of Hoi An town 4-7 km, visitors can explore coffee shops in the middle of rice fields such as Roving Chillhouse, Xom Chieu Coffee, Old Lo Gach Coffee… to enjoy the fresh air.

Old Quarter

Hoi An old town alone is also a place where the legs are tired and there are no check-in points for young people. Every street, ancient street corner, row of houses swept with saffron is an interesting stop to take pictures, learn about local culture…

With an entrance ticket of 80,000 VND per person, valid for 24 hours, you have the opportunity to visit three of the most prominent monuments in the old town. These are the Covered Bridge, the assembly halls of Fujian, Quang Trieu, Hainan, Trieu Chau, the ancient houses of Quan Thang, Duc An, Phung Hung, Tan Ky… In addition, the entrance ticket also includes art activities. Streets, folk games, night markets… take place after 7 pm.

Activities on Hoai River are usually the busiest from 6pm to 10pm. To ride a boat, you rent 200,000 VND a boat and buy flowers for 10,000 VND each.

At night in the old town, you can walk the bridges watching the street lights up, listen to live music in bars, coffee, watch famous plays such as Morning Mist, A O Show, Teh Dar or Hoi An Memories.

Beach

An Bang beach is located in Cam An ward, 3 km from Hoi An city center. The sea is clear, clean, not too crowded, the space is just enough for you to feel the relaxation. In 2011, An Bang beach was voted by CNN as one of the 50 most beautiful beaches in the world.

Ha My Beach in 2017 was selected by the British Telegraph as one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in Asia. Located 3.5 km from An Bang, 6 km from the Marble Mountains, and nearly 7 km from the center of Hoi An, Ha My beach is not too prominent but still has a peaceful look and its own charm. Although quite far from the center, Ha My has no shortage of homestays or hotels and resorts for visitors to choose from.

Cua Dai Beach is a familiar destination of Hoi An, in 2013 was voted by Tripadvisor in the top 25 most beautiful beaches in Asia. Cua Dai is located 5 km from the center of Hoi An, is a beach of several tens of hectares with fine white sand, clear blue water, small waves. Visitors can lie for hours on the sand to sunbathe, listen to the waves lapping, or go fishing near the shore, rent a boat to go floating with fishermen, or participate in water sports…

Cu Lao Cham

If you depart from Hoi An, there are two ways to get to Cu Lao Cham: canoes and wooden boats. Cano usually departs at Cua Dai and only about 20 minutes later you are at Cu Lao Cham, the fare is 150,000 – 200,000 VND per person. As for the wooden train from Bach Dang wharf, it takes nearly 2 hours but the price is cheaper, about 50,000 – 80,000 VND per person, if you bring a motorbike, it will add 30,000 VND each.

In Cu Lao Cham, accommodation services are mainly homestays, motels or tent rentals with an average of 100,000 – 150,000 VND per room for 1-2 people to stay. Tent rental price is about 100,000 VND a night.

Not only providing food, sleeping and accommodation services, the motels and homestays here also provide Cu Lao Cham beach tourism services such as: dining, car rental, boats to visit the island, scuba diving to see the coral reefs. fishing, walking on the seabed…

The attractions are Cu Lao Cham Marine Museum, Hai Tang Pagoda, Cham Ancient Well, Tan Hiep Market, Yen Island, Yen’s ancestral temple, Da Chong beach…

Craft village

Tra Que Vegetable Village is famous for fresh vegetables grown on fertile land. The village is located in Cam Ha commune, 3 km from the center of Hoi An. Here, visitors will have the opportunity to learn about dozens of different types of leafy vegetables and spices.

Visitors can also experience the real farmer’s life when manually plowing the land, growing and harvesting vegetables. After that, enjoy Hoi An specialties prepared with fresh and freshly harvested varieties such as cauldron cake, mixed mussels, organic shrimp, Quang noodles, Cao Lau…

Thanh Ha pottery village dates back to the late 15th century, located about 3 km west of Hoi An ancient town, right next to the Thu Bon River. The products of the village are not only pots and pans, tiles, dishes, but also many unique souvenirs. Visitors to the village can both learn about the craft and mold their own ceramic products.

Kim Bong Carpentry Village is a village with an age of more than 600 years. This place is famous for creating sophisticated and unique carpentry works, from houses to boats and today are artistic, decorative and souvenir products.

Phuoc Kieu bronze casting village has an age of up to 400 years. Coming to Phuoc Kieu, visitors will see a lot of bronze products served in festivals, summer festivals as well as daily living utensils. In addition to admiring unique and sophisticated products, visitors can watch people cast bronze and buy bronze as souvenirs.

Cam Phu community tourism village in Dien Phong commune, Dien Ban town, about 15 km from Hoi An, is a land possessing many unique cultural values ​​and traditional crafts such as wood carving, flower growing, silk nursery. Weaving silk, raising silkworms… Visitors to the village will experience the countryside, visit carpentry and weaving workshops, watch people perform on the Thu Bon River, catch fish and shrimp…

Bay Mau coconut forest

From the center of Hoi An ancient town, along the banks of Hoai River more than 3 km is the Bay Mau water coconut forest over ten hectares wide, in Cam Thanh commune. The service of rowing a basket boat to visit the coconut forest appeared in Cam Thanh a few years ago and has gradually become an indispensable “specialty” of Hoi An tourism. Each boat is only allowed to carry a maximum of two people. To visit the coconut forest, each guest pays 200,000 VND to sit in a basket boat, weaving through the creeks, flanked by green coconut forests for about an hour.

In addition to the basket boat ride, visitors can also watch boat dance performances, instructions to make beautiful small toys with water coconut leaves such as flowers, locusts, bracelets, glasses, rings, or hats… as gifts. Souvenir. If you come to Bay Mau in the 8th lunar month, you will enjoy ripe water coconut with crispy and sweet pulp.

Specialties

Coming to Hoi An, visitors are never afraid of hunger and lack of food options. From early morning until late at night, Hoi An is always full of shops and restaurants to welcome customers to eat and drink. The price is also very “comfortable” with street food selling at only 5,000 – 10,000 VND a cup, bread costing 15,000 – 25,000 VND a loaf or bowl of Cao Lau, Quang noodles only 25,000 VND.

Famous places to eat and drink that Vietnamese or foreign tourists cannot ignore are: Ba Buoi chicken rice, Phuong bread, Madam Khanh bread, Gieng Ba Le pancake, Hoi An market vegetarian rice, Mot herb juice Hoi An, Thanh high floor…

The street food of Hoi An, especially the sweet dishes, cannot be counted. Diners with a sweet tooth should try tube ice cream, various kinds of massage, lotus seed tea, bean curd tea, tofu, mango cake, pork skin cake…

What to buy as a gift?

Lanterns are a gift associated with Hoi An. You should look to buy at large stores that both work and sell, to have a wide selection of styles, sizes and materials.

Bronze statues are sold everywhere in the old town, priced from 130,000 to 350,000 VND depending on the size. These are all products of the famous Phuoc Kieu bronze casting village in Hoi An.

The typical image of Hoi An is the lanterns.

To he dat is a product from Thanh Ha pottery village, Hoi An. There is no variety of designs, but this is still a popular souvenir because of its cheap price, about 5,000 VND.

Hoi An craft village is also famous for wood carvings. The artisans are all from Kim Bong carpentry village, some have opened their own workshops directly in the old town. The price of an item ranges from 120,000 to 300,000 VND.

Hoi An silk has the characteristics of airy, light and soft. In addition to the clothes, bags and towels available, you can order a tailor-made tailor shop of your own design and receive it back in just one day. The average price of a silk scarf is 150,000 VND.

If you want to buy Hoi An food as a gift, the suggestion for you is that green bean cake, shield cake, Phu Thi cake, chili sauce are also good choices.