The motors on the boats that cruise past our hotel here in Hoi An sound a bit disturbingly like the helicopter rotors at the start of Apocalypse Now. No sign of Jim Morrison though and "This is the end, beautiful friend...." I am pleased to report.
Hoi An is a bit of a Disneyland for tourists. And by saying that I am not meaning to be derogatory. Far from it. Rocamadour, is as Disney in its picture perfectness as is Hoi An.
Hoi An's old town, has miraculously been largely preserved from its heyday as "the international trading centre in Southern Vietnam". Despite regularly flooding (and the occasional typhoon), it is now one of "the" places to visit in Vietnam and rightly so. In fact we are spending longer here (5 nights) then anywhere else in the country.
The old houses have largely been transformed into boutiques and restaurants. Tourists come here to have shirts and suits and dresses made to measure. Tess liked the design of a silk dress but not the colour. No problem. Having decided on the colour and pattern she did like, a seamstress was able to make her one to order before the end of the day. We overheard a young(er) Australian couple at breakfast this AM talking about the suits that they are having made here for their wedding.
Food is also a big thing on the agenda. Vietnamese/French/Pacific Rim fusion is to the fore and we have eaten too well every night here. And it is so reasonably priced too.
Yesterday we took a cycling tour on some neighbouring islands with a local company. Our guide was diminutive and as always, very informative. "T" as she wanted us to call her, comes from a farming family 150kms south of Hoi An. Her siblings like her, have all left the family farm for better paid jobs in the cities. Her English is very good (when I asked she told me that only very old Vietnamese can speak French) and she makes her living taking tourists on bicycle trips to the countryside. It was fascinating watching (and then helping) local boat builders push a new completed wooden boat to the edge of the riverbank. They did not use plans to design or build the boat. Rather, they are using skills passed down the generations. Likewise, the artisans who used abalone-type shell to make decorative boxes and bed heads and pictures. Also the coracle boat builders and the incense makers. We even got to have a go on a coracle, using figure 8 movements with the oar to propel and steer.
When we stopped for lunch, at a traditional family home, an 87 year old lady was helping her daughter to weave a straw mat, something T told us she had been doing for 77 years. They make two straw mats a day (the locals use them in preference to mattresses that soft Westerners like me need) and this earns them a grand total of 150,000 dong or about £4.34 at today's exchange rate. About £2 each per day for up to 8 hours work! On this island too, the flood last year reached about 5ft 10 above the ground level and all houses either have a second floor to retreat to, or at the very least, a roof space as it floods every year.
Back in Hoi An, where virtually every hour is happy hour somewhere and where the going rate for 2 cocktails is a bit under £3, I wondered what the old lady thought of us tourists as we cycled around en masse every day to gawk and photograph her. Our tour company no doubt gave her and her family some money (and they provided us with a nice chicken and rice lunch, though the spinach like substance was interesting) and they also must have made some money on selling us cold drinks (a bottle of beer was 30p). She was old enough to remember the French occupation, then the Japanese one in WW2 and then the revolution and the American War (as it is called here). My Lai, scene of one of the worst ever atrocities of that war, is less than 100km to the south of here. From a feudal ownership, occupation through collectivisation and now a limited capitalism as well. The Government still owns the rice paddies but families can own and sell on their own houses.
One thing I am almost sure of is that she was not dwelling on the past, over interpreting other's comments or actions or generally needy, as we can often be. Surviving day to day is far too time consuming to be interrupted by such introspection.
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