Beautiful beaches, amazing restaurants, historic buildings, boutique shops all wrapped up into a UNESCO world heritage sight makes Hoi An, Vietnam a place you may not want to leave.  We spent five days here and could have stayed longer.  We stayed on the beach, but ended up spending most of our time in the historical town center of Hoi An.  The town center is about as picturesque as it gets.  The french colonial architecture with Chinese influences line the river which opens up into the China Sea.  There are dozens of restaurants with impeccable interiors many of which with balcony views over the water.

For Meggan's birthday we had dinner at a great place called the Mango Room.  The Vietnamese owner, chef Duc has lived all over the world including USA, Latin America, Australia few places in Europe and around Asia.  This is reflected in his menu which combines food that has inspired him from abroad with traditional Vietnamese cuisine.  Mango salsa won-tons, seared tuna, duck with lemon grass, tempura shrimp  are just a few of the highlights.  We went big, it was an amazing meal.  Our main past time was eating and/or looking for the next place to eat.  A few other places we really liked were Cargo, Tam-Tam, Ly Ly's and her other location Miss Ly's Cafeteria.  We are sure there are many many more that are great, I guess that's another reason to go back for another visit.

From walking to restaurant A to restaurant B there is much shopping to be had.  There is a ton of beautiful art and handcrafts in Hoi An, even better there is a handful of places to go that support fair-trade and the community.  Reaching Out  is a fair-trade shop that supports disabled artisans, that create stunning works of art including rugs, ceramics metal work and more.  Life Start Foundation focuses on creating unique handmade arts/crafts to help support those living in challenging situations in and around Hoi An. Each item is individually made by members of the workshop and the entire proceeds from the sale of the products go directly to the workshop members to provide a sustainable income and sense of independence.  The last shopping opportunity and one that Hoi An is famous for is custom tailoring.  There are literally hundreds of places to get custom made clothing for impossible low prices.  The most famous company with several locations in town is Yaly.  Meggan and I both had some clothes made to send home.  Basically they'll make anything, if you don't have anything in mind they have magazines you can look through and point.  The turn around time is 24 hours.  I don't know how they do it, it's amazing.  The last night we were in town, Yaly's had a full-on runway show, with free drinks which was a good time.

Stay tuned for the next post with some town and lifestyle photos of Hoi An, a great place for photographers!