{"id":696,"date":"2010-08-05T01:54:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T08:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interspacedesign.wordpress.com\/?p=696"},"modified":"2021-06-25T12:37:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T19:37:28","slug":"vietnam-a-land-of-contrasts-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/vietnam-a-land-of-contrasts-part-2","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam – a Land of Contrasts (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Bridge Cooking School<\/a>‘s very entertaining staff gave us a tour of Hoi An’s\u00a0main market and bought some supplies for our\u00a0class. She also gave a demonstration of some of the traditional Vietnamese kitchen prep tools which are available for purchase\u00a0at the market.<\/p>\n

\"Artfully<\/a>
Artfully arranged husked coconuts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Brilliantly<\/a>
Brilliantly colored sweet temptations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the end of the cooking class, the motor launch took us back, past water buffalos and fishermen along the river, eventually dropping us off at the Hoi An\u00a0Ancient Town<\/a> waterfront.<\/p>\n

\"Women<\/a>
Women casting fishing nets on the river on the way back to Old Town.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of the buildings in the Ancient Town have been turned into handicraft or tailor shops, some of which even offer custom made shoes! The waterfront is lined with eateries or shops, buzzing with the loading and unloading of people & merchandise.<\/p>\n

Trendy eateries like Mango Rooms and Morning Glory have coveted upstairs dining rooms facing the water, where diners can catch some breeze.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of great bakeries in the Ancient Town \u2013 Cargo Club Cafe<\/a> has particularly excellent pastries and lemon grass ice cream…<\/p>\n

\"Cafes<\/a>
Cafes and restaurants line the waterfront, sharing space with tourist, commuter and cargo boats.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of Hoi An\u2019s 800 historic buildings date from the 18th<\/sup> century, with architectural features rarely seen today.<\/p>\n

Several prominent ones were Assembly Halls built by local Chinese communities, such as Canton, Fujian, Chaozhou, and Hainan. They were part community center and part commemorative hall, built by early traders who settled in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\"Fujian<\/a>
Fujian Assembly Hall with the inscription \u201cGold Mountain Temple\u201d on the 2nd story arch above the door.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Elaborately<\/a>
Elaborately painted and carved door in one of the Assembly Halls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A popular attraction is the Japanese Covered Bridge<\/a>. The original 1590\u2019s structure was flattened by the French for automobile traffic, but restored in 1986. Entrance to the bridge was guarded by a pair of stone monkeys on one end and dogs on the other.<\/p>\n

\"Japanese<\/a>
The Japanese Covered Bridge is flanked by colonnaded houses painted in mustard yellow, typical of French colonial buildings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We tried birding at Bach Ma National Park<\/a> nearby,\u00a0but the wet weather put a damper on everything. The low contrast made bird sighting challenging, and unlike the hapless tourists, the purported 358 bird species there knew better than hanging out in the rain… Cold and miserable, we actually quit early despite hiring a bird guide and overnighting at the park for this exercise.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for us, the chilly drizzle followed us north on our 3-night cruise in Halong Bay<\/a>, another UNESCO World Heritage site not far from\u00a0Hanoi.<\/p>\n

\"Donkey<\/a>
Can\u2019t resist this shot. Yes it’s a donkey on a cyclo, taken through the bus window en route to Halong Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo journal on trip to Vietnam. Part 2 covers the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hoi An and it’s surrounding area in Central Vietnam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,415,15],"tags":[128,134,216,268,277],"class_list":["post-696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-food","category-interior-design","category-travel","tag-halong-bay","tag-hoi-an","tag-red-bridge-cooking-school","tag-vietnam","tag-world-heritage-site"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/hoianwaterfrontimg_7878.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8749,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions\/8749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interspace-design.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}