A 2nd chance at New Year
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Hoi An,
Vietnam
Friday, February 8, 2008
I've been lucky enough to be in Vietnam for Tet, their equivalent of the Chinese New Year, and the evening of 6th February is spent wandering the old town before catching the midnight fireworks. For such a small town, the 20 minute fireworks standing amongst people sitting on their parked scooters would rival London's annual effort - but the highlight was walking through the streets where the Vietnamese place their offerings to their ancestors for the few hours before midnight until just after, and the scores of people burning paper money in tins sitting in the gutter.
Hoi An's as famous for tailors as it is for it's history these days, and anyone who's leisurely wandering down the coast of Vietnam would do well to stop here for either or both of these reasons. It was a seaside trading town for several centuries, and the town centre is now protected in its entirety as a world heritage site. You're supposed to pay for the privilege of just being there though unless you want to go into some of the historic buildings you can avoid the 75,000 dong (US$5) fee. The ancient temple ruins nearby at My Son, dating from the 4th to the 15th century used to comprise more than 70 buildings, but the Viet Cong's keenness to hide there during the war saw America drop several bomb loads on the area and only 28 remain. Nonetheless it's a very worthwhile half-day trip with a boat ride back; you could do the 5am start to avoid the crowds completely, though the 8am one I was on wasn't too bad for people pollution.
