I’m trying very hard to like Hội An. It’s not making it that easy.
Of course, it’s new year holiday time. There are a lot of people here. The streets of the old quarter are packed with tourists, hawkers, food carts and roadside restaurants and coffee bars. The river at night is undeniably charming, with its continual parade of boats lit with paper lamps, and tiny paper boats with candles bobbing about.
It feels a bit like if you took Ibiza Town and transplanted it to SE Asia. Somewhere that has a history, architecture, and myriad winding streets, is overlaid with commerce at every level.
I get it. People have to make a living, and I imagine living costs here are inflated. There’s a noticeable difference in the price of things compared to Huế or Hà Nội. Obviously nothing that’s going to break the bank of a western tourist, but a can of beer costs twice what it does in Huế. The pleasures of a captive market.
Step away from the hustle of the town and a different landscape opens up. Between the town and the coast is an expanse of rice fields with meandering irrigation channels and – whisper it – wildlife.
Let’s talk about rice, baby
Being a rice farmer must be hard (well, duh). In some idle time on my train from Hà Nội I tried to find out how much rice you get from one rice plant. Estimates vary but in short: one plant might produce enough for one person for one day, maybe 150–300 grams.
You can do the maths. Planting and harvesting rice can be done mechanically, but mostly it’s a manual job. So of the roughly 92% of rice grown annually that is for domestic consumption, a lot of that is produced in the most basic fashion.
Anyhoo, that’s what I was thinking about as I passed cows and (maybe) buffalo in the fields: “that looks like a lot of rice but probably isn’t, and I couldn’t bend my back that much.”
Poetry time
I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; I left my shoes and socks there – I wonder if they’re dry?
Spike Milligan
I got to the beach. I watched the waves crash against the sand. It was peaceful. I enjoyed it.
I got an unnecessary sunburn.
But I enjoyed it.
Gallery
