We spent some time in a place called Hoi An

After two somewhat quick days in NHA Trang, we set our sights on Hoi An, the up-and-coming must-see destination in Vietnam. Indeed, this destination had been recommended to us by practically everyone who has gone to Vietnam during the past few years and is usually at the top of most guidebooks' top ten places to visit.

Hoi An is located 30km/18 miles south of Da Nang. A coastal town sitting on the South China Sea, it's easily accessible from the mainland by road.  It built it's reputation as being a small town with an authentic Vietnamese town (whatever that is) with strong French colonial influence and as an ancient trading port as well as long stretches of beach and a handful of small islands accessible by boat tour.

After a short flight in from NHA Trang, we took a taxi from Da Nang airport to Hoi An. During the 40-minute ride, Nathalie and I started looking for a place to stay using our portable Wi-Fi hotspot (we've since named this the “bat phone” for reasons that are unclear to neither of us). We're getting really good at this last minute game and between booking.com and agoda.com, we're slowly mastering the art of scooping up great last minute hotel deals. We'll probably write an article on this in a month or so once we've fully tested our techniques, but for now, it's working out really well for us.

We wound up taking a place a bit outside of the main town and not too far from the beach. The island boasts a wide spectrum of accommodation ranging from backpacker hostels to 5-star all-inclusive resorts. However, the majority of the hotels on the island are 'homestays.' 

Hoi An's old harbor in the evening

Homestays have their roots with families renting out a room in their house to a solo traveler, inviting them to their table for meals. In a way, it could be viewed as a cousin of the Bed and Breakfast and perhaps a niche making a comeback with AirBnB.

These days thought, the homestay has morphed into a distinctly more commercial enterprise.   Instead of lodging in someone's home, guests are treated to the relative luxuries more common to a boutique hotel complete with private bathroom, hotel amenities and staying in a building dedicated to the guests rather than being the home of a family looking to make some spare change.   

That being said, our homestay was quite comfortable, having everything described above along with a flat screen TV and air conditioning as well as free access to city bikes to explore the town with.    The staff was welcoming and friendly, if not for making not so subtle sales pitches about the services they could provide (more on that below).  

As we arrived in the evening, we spent our first night chilling out, grabbing an excellent dinner at a nearby Vietnamese place and then enjoying the moonrise from our room-side terrace.  We agreed that the next day we would explore the island a little bit and maybe look into doing some diving.

We woke up early the next morning, although not by design.   It turned out that the curtains in the room were very thin and we had the pleasure of getting up with the sun.   We've learned that the Vietnamese are culturally early-risers and usually get their days started before seven.  I am not a morning person.   

In my job, I had the luck of working mostly with the US market (given the umm, 'uniqueness' of this market, my coworkers probably wouldn't use the word luck to describe this working arrangement).   As Brussels is six hours ahead of New York, I would often start my day around eleven in the morning and work until eight in the evening.   I don't like seven in the morning.   However, as I'm currently 12 hours ahead of Nashville, I took advantage of the early rise to catch a hockey game (streaming it live off of my tablet) and lazily get ready for breakfast.  

After a post-breakfast dip in the hotel's homestay's swimming pool,  we went back to the room where I finished off a previous blog post.  By the time I had finished, we were ready to hit the town and try to find a dive center.   Not making it more than 15 minutes on the road, we stopped for lunch (it was already after one in the afternoon; again, we're taking our time here).     Hoi An has a reputation for having some of the best food in the country, and in all honesty, they've earned it.   So far, I haven't been too impressed with Vietnamese food.   The cuisine in Hoi An has been a different story.  I'm not quite sure, but I have a hunch it's the way the prepare the pork (I'll try to look into it).  

Following the meal, we finally set out for the old town and to see what makes Hoi An a compulsory stop on any tour of Vietnam.  From everything we've heard, the city was supposed to be charming and representative of a typical Vietnamese way of life, accessible to foreigners looking to get a glimpse into this side of the country that they apparently miss otherwise (I've noticed that some people tend  to leave the curtains closed while on the bus.  That might explain it).

A rice paddy field outside of the main town

Once we hit the main drag, we immediately began to see what the appeal.   The small pedestrian streets were  lined with yellow-painted low buildings appearing to have been built well before the French surrendered their rule here.   Strewn from building to building were Chinese-style lamps.    On the surface,  the charm seemed to have lived up to the hype.  However, the closer I looked, the thinner the authenticity became.

For starters, almost every single shop inside the old town was geared towards the tourists.  The city of Hoi An claims to have over 500 fabric merchants within the city limits.   Almost everyone of them we passed advertised, all in English, the custom clothes it could make for patrons.  Between this, there were gift shops selling post cards, cone hats and even the dreaded elephant pants.    Sure, there was a local market adjacent to the pedestrian core, but outside of this, I didn't see anything that reminded of the Vietnam I had seen so far since we arrived here a few weeks ago.   

We settled in for a coffee a recommended 'cafe' and began to observe what was really going on around us.   The streets were suspiciously clean with all the shops being relatively modern.  Credit card was happily accepted in most places.   The few Vietnamese people out on the street seemed to have some sort of direct role in the old town's affairs either working in one of the shops/restaurants or selling goods on the street. And then it hit me that we had entered some Disneyland version of Vietnam. 

A look down one of the many pedestrian streets
in the old town of Hoi An

This charming little town has been laid out to be a representation of an idyllic past where traders past met to do business with merchants.  The town's once famous port is now just a small fishing harbor with a healthy dose of tour boats to go around the various canals.   Thinking further, it's hard to believe that any town. let alone a sleepy little coastal, can organically sustain 500+ clothing shops.   The Vietnamese had done a great job of capturing this charm and an even better job of marketing it towards foreigners.

I on the other had found this to be a farce.  I'm not in this trip to be deceived.  I have no doubt in my mind that I've already experienced this while on my trip but I don't actively seek out deception nor to I particularly appreciate it once I stumble upon it.   Something about this old town didn't sit well with Nathalie either and after spending a few more minutes biking through the streets, we agreed to head out towards our hotel and once again enjoy the terrace at sunset.

Nathalie, as some of you might know, has a masters in tourism science and has worked in the industry for the better part of eight years.  We spent the rest of the evening discussing our thoughts on the local tourism sector.  We came to the conclusion that the whole town jumped in on this tourism boom, heavily investing in lodging and shops catering almost exclusively to visitors.  

We went out to dinner at a small cafe just down the street from our homestay.   As it would turn out, the cafe, simply called Circle, was run by an American expat and his partner Anh.   We got to talking and he began to confirm some of our thoughts on the town.  Hoi An had gone almost all-in on tourism and unfortunately, their visitor forecasts didn't keep pace with their growth and development of the sector.

Jeff explained to us that the city had gone so far as to put a freeze on issuing licenses for homestays as the market had become saturated.  Hoi An hasn't invested in an easy, standardized mode of transportation of getting there.  We wound up taking a taxi from the airport instead of the bus as we would've had to walk 2 Km/1.25 miles to the stop only to hope that there was still space on it when it arrived.   The taxi cost us around 20 USD/EUR but was by far the easiest option for the 40-minute journey.

If Hoi An genuinely wants to bring up its numbers, it's going to have to find an easy way to get people there and creating some sort of affordable shuttle service between the airport, the train station and the town could do .   Of course increasing the number of tourists could significantly harm the small-town feel that they're going for, but if it's what's needed to prevent a large scale flop of the lodging sector, then the necessity is even more apparent.

And that brings me to the homestay concept and experience.  From practically the moment we walked in the door, we were met with extraordinary kindness from the staff.   They were overtly polite and welcoming but at the same time held little back in the way of sales pitch.   During the check in process, we were taken to the pool-side shaded patio and offered a fresh fruit juice.   After going through the normal formalities of check-in, they kindly started to explain what we could do in the city along with all of the activities we could participate in while in Hoi An.

A pulled pork sandwich at the Circle Cafe

The vast majority of the activities they they were pitching came accompanied with a brochure along with reassurances that they would be happy to arrange the booking for us.  Want to take a boat trip along the waterways? They know somebody.  Want to book a diving trip?  They can hook you up with the 'best' company in town.   Need a transfer?  They will gladly call their honest driver to ferry you to wherever it is you're going.  Want to visit a tailor?  Well, guess what?  They know one who isn't a rip off like the competition and if you mention the homestay's name, you get a small reduction.   

And the kicker to all of this?  If you book anything with them, even if it's with a third party, you can pay at checkout meaning that it will all get lumped together in one go and you won't have to worry about pulling out before going on your excursion.  

The whole catch here is that they're taking commission on all of this and seem to have no shame doing so in the process.  Personally, I don't have an issue with it.  They're actively trying to add a second revenue stream to their core business and given the highly competitive homestay market, it only makes sense that they look for as many ways as possible to grow their revenue streams.   

This business model reminded me of the disruptive effect Ryanair had on the European commercial aviation market.   Where Ryanair sells a ticket for practically nothing then charges for everything from checked luggage to checking in at the airport (seriously, if you don't check-in online before you arrive to the airport, you pay a fee to do so with an actual person).   In Hoi An, the lodging itself is exceptionally low given the location and the allure to the destination.   We paid very little for the room, but were constantly told of how they could do everything to make our stay as easy as possible, even if it meant booking through them.  

Even the minibar was competitively priced.  All the items in it were set at the same price as a convenience store.   This was probably one the few times in my life that I've used the minibar as it's almost universally understood that they're a giant rip off, especially when you can walk out of your hotel and find a mini-mart of some sorts just across the street.   And in the era of small profit margins, wouldn't it make sense for hotels to increase consumption by lowering their prices to the point where guests would be more inclined to use the minibar?   Perhaps the revenues generated by those who don't care about the cost of convenience offset the revenue gained from higher turnover at lower prices.   It would be neat to see the numbers on it, but for now, I'll leave the thought on the back burner. 

The swimming pool at Paddy's Irish Pub

Commercialism aside, Nathalie and I were a bit disenfranchised with the whole place.  Yes, the town was cute, but it was also artificial and kitsch.   The beach was pretty, but nothing to really write home about (thank you Thailand for that).  What we were missing was a truly authentic experience; something that we couldn't do or see anywhere else.   Oddly enough, we found it at an Irish bar.  

Down the main road towards the beaches and away from the town, a hotel building that was built on speculation and never sold had recently been converted into an Irish pub.  Complete with the standard fare found in Irish pubs all over the world (dark lighting, high wooden stools and tables, a bar stacked with draft beer and liquor, a full menu of pub food, etc), this place, Paddy's, had one thing I've never seen in an Irish bar before:  a swimming pool.   

Yes, that's right.  A bar themed on one of the world's dampest, coolest countries was sporting an outdoor swimming pool adjacent to the bar.   Delighted at the concept, we spent a late afternoon there on our last day enjoying a couple of whiskeys while swimming under the hot Vietnamese sun.   We left shortly after dark towards the hotel, returning to the Circle for one last dinner.   

The next day, we transferred up to Hue, the capital of central Vietnam.  On our way out, Nathalie and I both felt conflicted.  We had made the trek to this charming little town only to find out that, in spite of the great weather and unhurried atmosphere, we felt a bit deluded by Hoi An itself.  We were being sold a dream; an image of Vietnam that doesn't reflect the strong reality and beauty that makes this place so special otherwise.   In a way, it was fitting that the most unique experience we had came out of Ireland. 

Despite all of this, we did enjoy ourselves, but not for reasons we were expecting.  It certainly gave us a lot to think about along with a fabulous lesson in tourism and market development.  Reaching Hue, we felt wiser to the ways of the country, for better or for worse.