Travelogue :  Kyvan's Southeast Asia Adventure

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Nov 22, 2005
Hoi An: Lanterns, Larvae, Tranquil Relics
 

This is an ancient city that has existed for 500 years. Back then, Chinese and Japanese lived in adjacent districts and so you see the cultural influences of both countries. The streets around here are small and quaint with vendors selling such things as paintings, skirts and dresses, shoes, colorful hand-made lanterns of bamboo and silk. I like this place. The old ancient look makes you feel like its important. There are broken concrete walls that expose underlying brick. There is a real aging process going on in this city.

We went off to My Son, an ancient system of temples built by nguoi Tram (Tram people), or native Vietnamese similar to Native Americans back in the days. Old brick, moss covered temples situated in the middle of serenity. Here it is so quiet you feel deaf. We hiked along a muddy trail that had the consistency of diarrhea and the color of milk chocolate. But imagine this: we trekked along a muddy path through a shroud of mist, amidst tranquility, towards ancient moss covered temples. I was overwhelmed by the peace of it all.

Here's something cool! On the trek, we saw this plant called cay mac co (shy plant) named due to its sensory reaction to physical touch. If you touch the leaves, they close up on themselves as if closing a book. If the stems are touched, they collapse and fall as if shy. It's a curious plant and it's fun to pester.

And one last thing about Hoi An: we saw Thang Loi - a silkworm breeding, silk weaving, lantern making, embroidered art business. This place was awesome! We saw 3 day old silkworm larvae eating mulberry leaves juxtaposed with 13 day olds that were fatter and blue. Eventually these guys spin their cocoons and hibernate before emerging as flightless moths. The cocoon is what's key to business as it composed of silky thread. They are boiled to loosen the thread meanwhile killing the developing moth. This thread is collected into a loom, which combines the cocoon silk into a thicker thread. And this is what is used to make silk fabric.

Teenagers train to embroider art onto silk. And these works of art are stunning! They hand sew wonderful scenery thread by thread, poke by poke, until they realize landscapes like the sand dunes of Mui Ne or reflecting ripples of water. They sell for $50-$300 and the teenage children make approximately 700,000-1 million VND/mo (approximately $60/mo). It takes up to 2 months to sew an extravagant picture!

Hoi An seems to be a trekkers stop. It deserves 2 solid days of exploring.