The ULTIMATE 3 days in Hoi An, Vietnam | Ancient Town, basket boats, lantern making, & MORE!

After taking an eventful 17-hour overnight train from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang, we arrived at our second stop in Vietnam, the charming port city of Hoi An. Hoi An is known for its mix of historic architecture, unique activities, proximity to the beach, local street foods, and for its silk and tailors, as it was a main port of the Silk Route. And over the next few days, we're going to be exploring all around this city. And first, we're heading to the Ancient Town, which is a well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port Hoi An was one of the most prosperous trading ports in Southeast Asia from the 15th to 19th centuries. And since it was a major trading port, it became home to many different groups of people. The Ancient Town has a unique blend of Vietnamese, Japanese, and Chinese culture and architectural styles. You'll notice it everywhere from the houses, bridges, the foods, and so much more. And many of the structures here today are original from the 17th and 18th centuries and haven't been torn down and replaced for tourism. It is very much in the same shape as it has been for centuries, and I am just loving it here so far. It is so charming. It feels like we have stumbled into a Vietnamese fairy tale. Everywhere you look, you see something old and beautiful and interesting. We keep stopping every five feet to just take pictures of everything. One of the most iconic sights to see in this area is the Japanese-covered bridge, which is actually featured on the 20,000 Vietnamese Dong banknote. And it gets its name because it was mostly built by the Japanese back in the 1500s to connect them with the Chinese area on the other side of the canal. There's also a legend attached to this bridge about a Japanese catfish-looking creature called Namazu who causes earthquakes when it wriggles. It's said that its head is in India, its body in Vietnam, and its tail in Japan. And the bridge symbolizes a knife through its back, preventing it from wriggling and causing earthquakes and keeping the people of these countries safe. This bridge is so old. It is so cool to be walking around things that are literally hundreds of years old. If you know us, you know that we love coffee. But this morning, we're going to switch things up a bit and get some tea instead. We came to a spot called Mot or Mat. Not totally sure how to say it, but they're known for their herbal tea made from chamomile, monk fruit, green tea leaves, cinnamon, licorice, and lemongrass. And it's topped with a pink lotus petal and a tea leaf. Wow, that is so good. I can't pick out all those flavors, but I can tell that they're all working together to create its own flavor. It is so refreshing. You just want to chug this. I really taste the cinnamon. It almost tasted like lemonade at first, but then you get this burst of cinnamon. Yeah, there's so much going on in there. That's the best tea I've ever had, hands down. It's only $16,000, which is about $0.67, and so we're going for round two. You can experience much of ancient town by just walking around and seeing buildings, but there is one spot we do want to go inside, the Old House of Tan Ky. This was built in the 1700s by a Vietnamese Chinese merchant and has been in the family for seven generations and was used for trading goods. Well, apparently you need a Hoi An Old Town ticket to go into the house, so we were researching this ticket and we found out that you also apparently need the ticket to even be walking around the Old Town. It's supposedly not really enforced, which is why we haven't had any issues walking around today without one, but they do expect everyone to be carrying one, so we're going to go try to find a ticket booth so we can legally be here. Whoops. The tickets are $120,000 each, which is around $5 USD, and the money goes towards keeping the ancient town preserved, and you get access to five different historical sites of your choosing from this map. So now it's time to go visit the Old House of Tan Ky. This house is so beautiful, and when we entered, we had an unexpected surprise. We got a tour guide to show us around. This woman walked us through the house, which isn't very big, and explained its history and some of the architecture in the mix of Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese style, and it was just amazing. We learned so much from her. She said the house floods almost every year, and as you can see, it's still well intact, but here's some of the markings from some of the more recent ones. There's some really notable dates on here. My birthday, my mom's birthday, our wedding anniversary. I guess we bring bad luck to this house. And the highest one they have marked is 1964, almost all the way to the ceiling. There's this pulley system up here, so when they know it's about to flood, they can lift all the furniture off the first floor. As we mentioned earlier, Hoi An was an important trading port for centuries, and one of the most important trade items was silk. In fact, at one point, it was such a big deal that it was used as currency, and today, you can still find tons of silk all around Hoi An. While walking around, you'll notice many shops where you can buy fabric or clothes and have them tailored for you, and it seems like every few stores is a clothing store. We don't have anything we need tailored, and we definitely don't have any room for any more clothes, but if you do, this is definitely the place to do it. We hear they have quick turnaround times. This dog looks like a giant Kona. Where is Kona? One of our goals here in Vietnam is to try as many Vietnamese dishes as possible, and here in Hoi An, they're known for a few dishes, so we ventured to a spot called Nostalife to try some. The first dish we're trying is Cao Lau, and apparently, this is the only city in Vietnam you can get this dish, so it's become Hoi An's signature dish. It includes fresh thick rice noodles, thinly shaved barbecue pork, bean sprouts, lettuce, crispy fried Cao Lau noodles, and sometimes crispy pork skin. But the noodles are the star of this dish, and the reason you can only get it here, we read that these noodles are traditionally made with water from an ancient well in town, along with lye, which is made from the ashes of trees from the nearby Cham Islands. Then the noodles are steamed instead of boiled like normal noodles. And one of the people working here came by and showed us how to mix it all up, and she made it look real tasty. The pork is nice and juicy, and these noodles, man, they are really good. They are kind of bouncy. I got a bite of one of those crunchy little, crispy little bits too. I heard it. Yeah, yeah, it was crunchy. So yeah, you got all the textures in here. Yeah, those noodles are the bomb. And the flavor of this, I didn't really know what to expect. It's kind of a delicate, light flavor, but also packs a good punch. It's kind of hard to explain. There's a little bit of spiciness, but the flavor is not overpowering. It's just kind of like a subtle, maybe like soy sauce, like sesame type flavor. We also got mee kwaeng, which is steamed noodles with shrimp and pork, white rice crackers, and quail eggs. This one is a lot different. I mean, taste the lime I put in there, but then as you can see, there's lots of peanuts in here, so it's kind of nutty. I have no idea how to describe this. It has a different flavor than the cao lau, but equally as delicious. I just can't figure out what words to say. While here in Hoi An, we're staying at the Paddy Boutique House, which is a super cute boutique hotel with very sweet owners. That's about a 20 minute walk from Ancient Town or five minutes by bike. The hotel has a delicious coffee shop and restaurant on the first floor, and then gorgeous rooms upstairs. And I am very obsessed with this hotel. I just love the design and color scheme of this place. There are lots of neutrals, wood, concrete, and green, which is my favorite color. And in the main room, we have this nice, big, comfy king bed, plus a desk area, a TV, a mini fridge, which even comes with a couple of free sodas and beers, a safe, and filtered water, which you can also find fill-up stations for on every floor. We also have a bathroom, and the first thing you'll likely notice is this beautiful bathtub. There's also a detachable showerhead, and the tub is really nice to soak in. I would know from experience. There's also obviously a toilet and a fun little surprise, a bidet! These are basically all over Vietnam. I don't think we've been into any bathroom, either public or private, that doesn't have one of these. But for us Americans, these are not very common, so they're always fun to find. And just like the rest of the room, there are so many cool details in here, like the tile floor, fun lights, plants, and a really nice sink area. And then finally, for our favorite part, the small patio with amazing views of the rice fields. We booked this room on Airbnb, and the best part is that it was only 41 USD per night. That is with a slight discount for staying five nights, though. But we have loved this hotel, and we'll put a link to it below so you can check it out. They actually have other room configurations as well and all of them are super cool. Also, here's a little behind the scenes of what it looks like to travel out of a backpack for six weeks. We just have stuff. All right, it's now dark, so it's time to head out to the night market. This market is one of the most popular things to experience here in Hoi An, and it happens every night near ancient town. Hoi An is beautiful during the day, but I think it might be even more stunning at night with all the lanterns lit up. It is absolutely magical. And also way busier at night. It is popping out here. The energy and vibe is so much fun. Our goal while here at the market is one, to just experience it, and two, we haven't had dinner yet, so we're getting hungry, and we have a list of foods that we're on the hunt for. That puppy wins for the cutest dog in Hoi An so far. Bulls in chairs again. This is how you know you're eating well in Hoi An. Yeah, comfy. The first dish that we're trying tonight is kam gà, which is chicken and yellow rice with mint, papaya salad, and onion. We couldn't find any stalls that had this, but then we found one, and it's that iconic street food spot with the tiny little red tables, the tiny chairs, and just tons of locals around eating. So we feel like it's gonna be a good one. I got a lot of chilies in that bite. Holy cow, it's spicy. The kam gà itself though is very, very simple. It's basically chicken and rice, which is a nice balance to the very spiciness of that chili. And then you get this little papaya salad, which adds some nice crunchiness and freshness. My mouth is on fire right now. I'm gonna try to get a little less of that chili. Learn from the mistakes of others. Okay, I still got a lot of chili in there. Oh man, the stall owner came by with this little soup, and she said to add some of the liquid to the rice here. The rice has really good flavor, and overall, it's just a really comforting dish. And I really like the papaya in there. It just adds a little sweetness to it. Next up, we got ourselves a plate of meat. Right here, we have a pork skewer, which looks to have some sort of marinade on it. And then these little guys here are bò lá lọt, which is basically kind of just ground beef wrapped in a lá lọt leaf. We really wanted to try these while we were in Saigon, but we ran out of time, so we were very excited to find them here. Oh, it's hot. That is so juicy. I've read on many blogs, this is many people's favorite street food here in Vietnam, and I can 100% see why. This is probably my favorite meat item we have had since being in the country. Dang, I'm excited. You are gonna love it. On the inside, the meat is seasoned so well. It's kind of sweet and savory and spicy a little bit. I feel like it tastes like lemongrass in there or something, or maybe it's the lá lọt leaf. I don't know how you say that, lá lọt. But the leaf just kind of melts away, but it mixes in so perfectly. These are super good. Did I overhype it? Not at all, those are awesome. I perfectly hyped it. That is also delicious, has a super nice grilled flavor, has kind of a sweet glaze on it. The other one wins, but this one's still really good too. Probably the most popular stand we saw in the whole market were these banana pancakes. It seemed like every five steps you saw a stand for these. So I got banana, Nutella, and these kind of reminded us of the marquesitas in Mérida, kind of the way they make them. And it's kind of similar ingredients, just cooked in a little different way. I'll feed you since you're holding mine too. That's good. So I actually got the mango pancake. So instead of having banana inside, it has mango and it has Nutella on top, just like Adam's. It tastes exactly what it sounds like, a pancake with mango and Nutella. I've never thought to have Nutella with mangoes before, and it works. Solid food night. This morning, we're going to experience something pretty unique here in Hoi An, basket boats. Basket boats are a circular boat traditionally made from bamboo, which were created during French colonial times to avoid a tax imposed by the French on boats. Since many Vietnamese couldn't afford to pay this tax, they created these baskets, which weren't considered a boat to avoid paying the fee. And since then they've become really popular due to how useful they are. Unlike many boats, which cut through the water, these boats stay above the water, which allows fishermen to fish closer to the shore and banks. But not only are they popular with fishermen, they're also very popular with tourists. And to experience one for ourselves, we're heading to the Cam Thanh Coconut Village. So you're supposed to pay a fee to enter the Coconut Village, but we're here really early. And I guess the ticket counter is not open. I'm not totally sure how much it costs, but I believe it's under $1 USD per person. And then once you get in here, there are tons of different vendors that can take you out on a basket boat. And we have booked a tour with Long Phu Eco Tours. This boat ride takes you through a coconut forest, and we're just in this narrow passageway surrounded by palms. I don't know what's happening. He baited up a little fishing line on a little stick. And you would think he would fish in the water, but he's on the shore. He's catching a crab. Cool. Oh my gosh. Yay. Now it's my turn. Come on, crab. You just had it. Come back. You're hungry. Oh, you got a big one. Bring it over the thing. Oh my gosh. Go down in there. Wow. I caught a crab. Let's see what Adam can get. The bait fell off. And then, of course, the crab saw that. He got a big, big, big mealtime. I feel like that kind of sums up Adam's experience fishing so far. Yeah, that's my whole fishing career in a nutshell right there. Losing the fish. Crab, whatever. All right, I get to go on one of these and spin around. Bye. I feel so dizzy. The whole world is spinning right now. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Thank you. She had too much fun on that thing. How do you feel? It might look slow, but when you're on it, you are spinning. Hi, thank you. We had to give a little bit of extra money to do that. And it was so worth it. Our boat driver, he's amazing. He's the funnest guy. That was so much fun. When we first got here, I was a little nervous because no one was around. And I was kind of scared it wasn't going to be as exciting as it looked in all the photos and videos. But I can confirm it was just as exciting, if not more. And I'm actually really glad that we got here so early. Because the first part of the ride was really relaxing. And then it got exhilarating with all of the spinning. So much spinning. It's a thousand percent touristy, but we a thousand percent loved it. And next up, we're going to be doing another unique activity here in Hoi An. Making our own lantern. One thing you'll instantly notice in Hoi An are lanterns. You'll see them hanging everywhere. And we read that they were brought here by the Chinese and Japanese in the 16th century. And they are believed to bring happiness, luck and wealth. And we are heading to Hoi An Handicraft Tours to learn how to make one. We learned that there are different lantern shapes. And today we're making the garlic shape. And I love garlic. This is how you bend to get the shape in the lantern. It's bamboo, so it's super flexible. Wow. I can't even remember the last time I did an arts and crafts activity. It's so fun to just like work with your hands. Well, besides the van. Yeah, well, I'm not counting the van bill. Because that's not a fun arts and crafts activity. That's a stressful arts and crafts activity. Cool. Keep going. Okay. I was so scared it was going to break. Now for the hard part, picking which color we want. There are way too many choices. It's so hard to choose. We can choose up to four. But I think we're going to do the same pattern for the whole lantern. But there's still at least 50, 60 to choose from. We have a winner. We like this one because it feels very classic. And it's that iconic red lantern color. And it's not too busy. I think it's super, super pretty. You put color on the bamboo here, on the top and all the way down like this. He's fixing my work right now. If you just don't look at the seams too closely, I'd say it's pretty good. Check it out. And it folds up so we can take it with us. That was such a fun and relaxing activity. And now we'll have a little piece of Vietnam in our future home someday. One very nice thing about the hotel we're staying at is that they have free bikes to rent. So today we're going to go explore by bike. Our ultimate goal is to ride to the beach, which is only about five kilometers away. But we'll be going through rice paddies and vegetable gardens. So it'll be just as much about the journey as it is the destination. They didn't have any helmets. So I apologize to my mom for not wearing one. But we are very, very pro helmet. Protect your noggins, kids. Helmets are cool. Wahoo! We're not totally sure where we're biking right now. We do know we're going in the right direction. But we're just riding around and figure it out later, I guess. We hit a dead end. So maybe we should look at the map. When I pictured biking in Vietnam, this is exactly what I envisioned. Just going through rice fields and going through little villages with beautiful homes. This is incredible. We made it to An Bang Beach. And one thing that we read is some people will try to make you pay to park your bike to go to the beach. But one way around this is to visit one of the mini restaurants that line the beach and get some food and a drink. So we came to a coffee shop called Sound of Silence to hopefully park our bikes for free, get a drink, and enjoy some amazing views. It's a win-win-win. Check out this spot. Holy cow. I feel like I've just walked into a magical tropical beach paradise. This place is hands down going on the list of favorite coffee shops we've ever been to. And we haven't even tried the coffee yet. We just have the gorgeous beach right in front of us. They have an amazing outdoor seating area with just tons of trees, tons of cool little places to sit. And the inside is gorgeous as well. It just has this Asian garden vibe. This is unreal. I feel like I'm on a tropical vacation right now. Oh, it feels so good. Oh yeah. We had read that this beach had been hit by a typhoon recently and it had got really damaged. And a lot of Google reviews said that it was kind of trashed out and stuff. But from as far as we could tell, it looks really nice. We don't see any trash anywhere. That way, this way, the water's really clear. This is awesome. Oh, this water feels amazing. What a perfect day it is out here. Water is perfect temperature. It's not too hot outside. Perfect beach day. So much fun. On our way back to the hotel, we're making a stop at the Tra Que Vegetable Village, which is an area with 150 farmers who grow over 41 different types of produce. The soil is very rich. And what makes these gardens pretty unique is that they don't use chemicals or harsh fertilizers. They use algae from a nearby lagoon instead. Around the village are some restaurants that actually use some of the produce grown in the garden right there. And for lunch, we came to a spot called Baby Mustard. We're starting with their secret drink. And since it's a secret, I have no idea what it is. Oh, that's so good. It's like sweet, but then it got really tart, which is why my mouth, my face looks like this right now. I think it's passion fruit something. There's some good seeds, so it has a nice crunchiness to it. Yeah, that's good and tart. For food, we're starting out with Banh Xeo, which is a very iconic Vietnamese dish that we have yet to try. And it is a rice pancake made out of rice flour and water and turmeric powder and filled with veggies and meat. And I believe this one has shrimp and one other meat, but I cannot remember. And what's interesting is it kind of looks like it's an egg, but it's not. It has no egg in it. That's just the color of the turmeric, just making it look yellow. But it looks like an omelet. If the man didn't tell me how to eat this, I would have just cut it up with a fork and started eating it. But apparently, I'm supposed to take one of these rice papers, which dip it in the water so it moistens it up, take a piece or I guess maybe put one in here, roll it up with some of the veggies, and then dip it in this yummy looking sauce. The first taste I got was this sauce here. It's sweet and tangy, a little spicy. And then I got some of the savory meat in there. It's a little salty. Oh, the sauce has a nice tang to it. Oh, and then this is insanely fresh. You can tell that they just chopped up some lettuce from the garden. You can hear them and see them cooking in there. This place is incredible. For our main dish, I got mackerel on lemongrass and Catherine got chicken on lemongrass. I don't know what that season's with, but it is so flavorful and the fish is so fresh, moist, and so tender. I absolutely love it. It's just so juicy. We made it back! Cheers to an amazing few days in Hoi An! Hoi An was one of the places we were most excited to visit in Vietnam and it did not disappoint. It just offers so much in such a small area, from all the old historic buildings, the delicious food, the beautiful nature nearby, the beach, and all the unique activities. We loved it even more than we thought we would. We wish we could spend more time here, but tomorrow we are heading six hours northwest to experience what Vietnam has to offer below the surface. Baby mustard. Baby mustard, do-do-do-do-do. I just got splashed in the pants!