Mesmerizing Vietnam – Getting your ears done in Hoi An

When you travel in Vietnam, always keep your eyes and ears open! You don’t want to miss out on once-in-a-lifetime experiences like the one in this story.

We visited the city of Hoi An, situated in the middle of Vietnam. As we strolled its streets we noticed this ‘shop’ with a huge wooden chair in the middle of the room. We thought of a dentist at first! Suddenly a man with a plastic lamp on his head approached us. Of course he didn’t speak any English, but in the end we managed to understand about his ‘service’: He wanted to clean our ears!

It looks strange, but really, having your ears done is very comfortable and relaxing! Therefore, the travel tip for this week is: Keep your eyes and ears open! Don’t look down in your travel guide all the time, but look around you. Some of the most memorable places are easy to overlook (just look at his ‘shop’) and that would be a pity. If you cannot keep your ears open, just visit this guy. It helps, really.

Ancient city of Hoi An Vietnam

Traveling Vietnam from North to South makes you encounter both the busy and chaotic Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) as well as the impressive mountain scenery around Sapa. In between, there is a place of rest. Situated in the middle part of Vietnam (close to Danang and Hue), the small town of Hoi An owns an ancient city center that was placed on the UNESCO world heritage list back in 1999.

Not only tourists, even the Vietnamese themselves travel to Hoi An to mesmerize about life in a bustling trading port between 15th and 19th century. Being an international trading port it was strongly influenced by Japan, the Netherlands, China and India, exactly the reason why this town is so attractive. Just like with the Cao Dai religion (part 1 of this blog post series), Hoi An has gained its character from a fusion of cultures.

The beautiful Japanese bridge (with a pagoda on it) is proven evidence of that cultural influence. Hoi An’s narrow streets and lanes show great architecture of wooden houses, pagodas and temples.

At the end of the 18th century, the main trading activity moved to the close-by city of Danang, leaving Hoi An left alone. The architectural and cultural melting pot called Hoi An came to a stand-still but remained intact. It has now become a kind of open-air museum.

Moving around in Hoi An

Hoi An is a great place to rent bikes and so we did (you know by now we always rent bikes). We crossed the city and its outskirts. On the banks of the river we asked a boy if we could join his basket to go rowing on the river, in a female Buddhist monastery we were invited for lunch, but, most importantly, WE GOT OUR EARS DONE!

I mentioned that we hardly recognized this ‘ear-cleaning-service’ at first. Don’t worry, not all services are difficult to recognize:

Are you ready for part 3 of our Vietnam adventure? It’s called “You Dutch, me Hmong” and it’s a story of our encounter with the indigo blue coloured Hmong tribe in the mountains near Sapa. We will continue to mesmerize about Vietnam….

ALSO READ:

1. Vietnam – Cao Dai religion in South Vietnam

2. Vietnam – Sapa

3. Vietnam – Temple of Literature in Hanoi