A morning in a bamboo basket boat among the water palms of Cam Thanh, then an afternoon in Hoi An's old town that lasts until the lanterns come on.
Photo: Z E / Unsplash
Day 1
We pick you up from your hotel in Da Nang at 8:00 am and drive about 40 minutes to Cam Thanh commune. At the landing you board a round bamboo basket boat — two passengers per boat — and are paddled into the Bay Mau water palm forest, a brackish wetland where families still fish for crab and shrimp and which served as cover during the war. Your boatman will weave you a ring and a grasshopper from palm fronds, and there is usually a basket-spinning display on the open water. Lunch is local food at a riverside restaurant. In the afternoon we move into Hoi An's old town on foot: the Japanese Covered Bridge, built by Japanese merchants in the seventeenth century, the Tan Ky house that has been lived in by the same family for over 200 years, and the Fujian Assembly Hall. You are then free until the lanterns come on; float a paper lantern on the Hoai River before we drive back to Da Nang around 7:30–8:00 pm.
Most Hoi An day trips stop at the old town. We add the Cam Thanh water palm forest in the morning because it is the part of Hoi An that visitors rarely hear about: a tidal wetland less than ten minutes from the old quarter where people still make a living from the water.
The afternoon belongs to the old town, and we deliberately do not bring the group back early. Hoi An is at its best after sunset, when the street lighting goes off and silk lanterns come on along both banks of the Hoai River. You get a few unhurried hours there rather than being chivvied back to the coach.
The trip runs out and back from Da Nang in one day, with no hotel change. If your group includes small children or older travellers who would rather not be paddled far, the guide will arrange a shorter, gentler route.
Vietnam ToursThree UNESCO World Heritage sites within 150 km of each other, unhurried over four days — Da Nang's coast, Hoi An's lantern-lit old town and the imperial capital of Hue.
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