Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [184]
The central provinces | Hoi An and around |
Some history
For centuries Hoi An played an important role in the maritime trade of Southeast Asia, going back to perhaps the second century BC, when people of the so-called Sa Huynh culture exchanged goods with China and India. But things really took off in the mid-sixteenth century when Chinese, Japanese and European vessels ran with the trade winds to congregate at a port then called Fai Fo. Its annual spring fair grew into an exotic showcase of world produce: from Southeast Asia came silks and brocades, ivory, fragrant oils, fine porcelain and a cornucopia of medicinal ingredients, while the Europeans brought their textiles, weaponry, sulphur, lead – and the first Christian missionaries in 1614. During the four-month fair, merchants would rent lodgings and warehouses; many went on to establish a more permanent presence through marriage to Vietnamese women, renowned for their business acumen. Tax collectors arrived to fill the imperial coffers, and the town swelled with artisans, moneylenders and bureaucrats as trade reached a peak in the seventeenth century.
Commercial activity was dominated by Japanese and Chinese merchants, many of whom settled in Fai Fo, where each community maintained its own governor, legal code and strong cultural identity. But in 1639 the Japanese shogun prohibited foreign travel and the “Japanese street” dwindled to a handful of families, then to a scattering of monuments and a distinctive architectural style. Unchallenged, the Chinese community prospered, and its numbers grew as every new political upheaval in China prompted another wave of immigrants to join one of the town’s self-governing “congregations”, organized around a meeting hall and place of worship.
In the late eighteenth century, silt began to clog the Thu Bon River just as markets were forced open in China, and from then on the port’s days were numbered. Although the French established an administrative centre in Fai Fo, and even built a rail link from Tourane (Da Nang), they failed to resuscitate the economy, and when a storm washed away the tracks in 1916 no one repaired them. The town, renamed Hoi An in 1954, somehow escaped damage during both the French and American wars and retains a distinctly antiquated air, its narrow streets comprising wooden-fronted shophouses topped with moss-covered tiles.
The central provinces | Hoi An and around |
Arrival, information and town transport
People generally arrive in Hoi An by taxi or xe om from Da Nang (30km), which serves as Hoi An’s nearest airport and train station, or on an open-tour bus, which usually drops you at the relevant booking office or their affiliated hotel. Local buses terminate at the bus station 500m north of the town centre. For local information, ask in your hotel or try one of the dozens of private tour agencies: most offer similar services – tours, transport, rail and air tickets – but prices and itineraries vary so it’s worth shopping around. There’s a tourist office of sorts on Le Loi, though the staff are more interested in selling tours than giving practical information.
Almost every hotel and many shops and tour agents have bicycles for rent (20,000đ), or can arrange motorbikes at around 70,000đ per day – a popular way to visit My Son (see "My Son"). While bikes are recommended for touring the outlying districts, Hoi An’s central sights are all best approached on foot, especially since traffic restrictions apply in the town centre. The regulations are part of a much-needed effort to save the old town from the worst effects of fame: cars are prohibited from the core streets south of Phan Chu Trinh