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They are only two covered bridges in Vietnam. The Japanese pagoda bridge in Hoi An, built in 1593 and restored in 1917, and Thanh Toan bridge near Hue, built in 1776.

The Japanese pagoda bridge in Hoi An.

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Our friend Nguyet invited me to her village to celebrate Vietnamese New Year: ”Tet”. During Tet, all the Vietnamese go home to stay with their family for three days. In short, Tet is a family holidays when you don’t do much besides visiting relatives and neighbors, eating Tet sweets and candies, drinking rice wine (or is it vodka?!) and giving lucky money to the youth.

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In Hoi An I paid a visit to Tiên Hâu, the Goddess of the Sea who lives in Phuc Kiên Temple. She is guarded by two genies constantly peering at the horizon to inform her about impending dangers. Phuc Kiên was built by Chinese migrants from Fujian province in 1757. I thought it was one of the most interesting sites in Hoi An.

Phuc Kiên temple

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When I visit a town, I love going to the market- or farmers’ market as you might call it. It is always a frantic area to explore with new sights and strong odors.
In Hoi An, I unfortunately missed the early tidal wave of conical hats getting off to the fish market at five o’clock in the morning. But I smelled freshly picked aromatic herbs, looked at yellow rice noodles used for traditionnal dish ”Cao lau,” and ate delicious shrimp dumplings poetically named ”white rose”.

Freshly picked aromatic herbs.

Vietnamese brooms and baskets.

The fish market of Hoi An.

Making sugar cane juice: ''nuoc mia.'' Yummy!

Drinking nuoc mia.

Hoi An.

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LE MARCHE AUX POISSONS DE HOI AN

En terre inconnue, j’aime toujours me balader du côté du marché. Il y a une frénésie indescriptible de couleurs, d’odeurs, de visions nouvelles.
A Hoi An, j’ai malheureusement manqué de peu la marée de chapeau conique arrivant au marché aux poissons à cinq heures du matin. Mais j’ai humé les herbes aromatiques fraîchement cueillies, regardé les nouilles de riz jaune utilisées pour le plat traditionnel ”cao lau”, et dégusté des raviolis à la crevette portant le poétique nom de ”rose blanche”.

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During my Têt holidays, I decided to visit the center region of Vietnam. I had an amazing time.

I left Saigon on a sleeping bus.During the 22 hour long journey to Hoi An I met Yuliya, from Belarus and Sam, from Australia. We got along very well and decided to visit Hoi An together.

The streets of Hoi An.

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“Don’t eat at the food stalls! You’ll get sick!”

A common refrain heard from well-meaning folks back home. The reality is that you can get ill from eating anywhere here. Sure, you don’t help your chances when the meat they slice for your bánh mì has been sitting in the sun all afternoon. But quite often you will find delicious Vietnamese specialities at the food stalls at an absolute screaming deal. As part of Jet Set Zero, this is an important factor when making dining choices. And there’s something to be said for passing by the Western restaurants and sitting down at a local food stall to watch your food being made and sampling some amazing local fare. It hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

A typical food stall in Hội An selling cao lầu, a regional speciality which includes doughy noodles, bean sprouts, fresh herbs, fried croutons and grilled pork.

Just outside of Hoi An lie the beautiful Marble Mountains. Each of these mountains contain several caves and pagodas. We came across what is known as Hells Cave and it was extremely bizarre. When you walk into this massive cave, there are several Buddha statues and other religious figures. It’s dark and it’s creepy and you can hear bats. Gross. You can descend deeper into the cave into Hell. Down in this giant creepy hole, there are all sorts of statues of people getting tortured, eaten and beaten…. Be good! You don’t want to end up here….

The Cave Entrance

That is a rat having a feast of genitals....yup.

Throughout Southern and Central Vietnam, you can find many Cham towers still standing. The kingdom of Champa thrived between the 2nd and the 15th centuries, and the ancient site of Mỹ Sơn was once the most important centre of this kingdom. Set in a jungle valley near Hoi An, it was built in the 4th century. The French rediscovered it in the late 19th century and took on the task of restoration. At its peak, there stood 68 structures but heavy American bombing resulted in only 20 remaining today. While it is older than Ankor Wat in Cambodia (to which it is sometimes compared), it’s a much smaller site and not quite as awe-inspiring. But Mỹ Sơn is charming, quaint and interesting all the same.

I apologize for being MIA lately, but patience is a virtue I do not possess and brutally slow internet connections are not my friend.

Hoi An; city of tailors, or as I like to refer to it, city of dreams! I’m not gonna lie, I love to shop and I love clothes and shoes. I have a hoodie collection to rival all hoodie collections, I own Converse shoes in every colour of the rainbow, I own a bazillion pairs of Vans (including all 4 limited edition Iron Maiden Vans). My jaw hit the ground when I got to Hoi An. Tailor shop after tailor shop after tailor shop filled with jackets, suits, dresses, pants and shoes OH MY! You can walk into any of these shops and have anything your little heart desires made within 24 hours. There are hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of sandals, heels, boot etc in each shoe store. You pick the style, pick the fabric, pick the heel etc and they will churn those suckers out within a day. Naturally I got a pile of stuff done…. unfortunately, because everything is churned out within 24 hours and you have to pay in advance, sometimes things don’t turn out quite the way you had hoped.

Example: Here is a pair of custom made Nike “Dunks” that I had made. I asked for a black sole, she gave me a white sole and if you notice on the side, it says Kappa. Oh well, they’re still awesome anyways…..

Shoe Heaven