On Sunday February 5th we spent the night in Hoi An to witness the celebration of the first full moon of the lunar year. This is a public celebration with huge crowds in a very small area. One of the things people do is to pay for a boat ride and place a simple candle lantern on the water in the river that runs through the town. Hoi An is a tourist destination with many Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and westerners. Victor and I began to refer to the westerners as Vikings because they all look so tall next to the Viet people. In fact many of the westerners are from Sweden, Germany, England, and Australia. I have an interesting prospective after being here nearly six weeks. I have begun to look at westerners as I have seen the Vietnamese people look at me.....with the open mouth stare. It is rather comical because in Viet Nam it is not considered impolite to stare and I find myself doing it openly. If you like to watch people Hoi An is the place to be!
We had dinner at a riverside vender location who specialized in the Hoi An dish called cau lao which is noodles pork and veges. Add the right amount of hot sauce and this is an awesome treat. We did some shopping, I had a shirt made using one of my hiking shirts as a pattern. I paid $25 for my shirt which was made in one day.....wow.
When the crowd started really getting crazy we ducked into a nice restaurant for some brandy and ice cream. Some people may consider that an odd combination and yet it was delicious. By about 10:30 the streets began to calm down and we headed for the hotel.
This place goes a bit crazy for this celebration as you can maybe see in the video. You have to experience it soooooo next vacation visit beautiful Viet Nam!
Happy Full Moon
Jim
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