Life This Week in Hoi An, Vietnam: September 28-October 3, 2026

Monday, September 28

Today was a little hard to get up early. So I didn’t, ha ha! I Am The Maker of the Schedule…and I can do whatever I want!

When I did eventually drag myself out of bed, I headed over to Tailor Swift (get it?) to order some custom clothing. I was armed with my many notes and explanations with pictures of each detail. But she went Way Fast and it was a little challenging to really make sure she understood about some things. She spoke English, but heavily accented…and we didn’t both understand all of the what the other was saying. And there was a little uncertainty about the fabric. So…it’s going to be a little bit of a surprise, what I get. But…I’m sort of desperate for clothes and I certainly can’t fit into any Vietnamese or Korean brands, so…beggars can’t be choosers. I go back tomorrow after 5:00 for a fitting.

Fingers crossed.

I had breakfast at another hot place, ha ha. It was indoors, but very open. Fortunately this time I had my little handheld fan with me and that helped a bit.

A little nap back at the hotel in the very cold ac (yum), and then out in the later afternoon to the river.

I got to the river that runs along the Ancient Village as the sky was just turning to sunset tones. All of humanity was there, pretty much. And it was humid.

It’s so interesting, I follow many Vietnam IG and TikTok accounts, and there’s a couple that do daily posts, sort of weathery, like, “it’s a beautiful day in Hoi An, cool and crisp, perfect for a bike ride along the river.” And I’m always like COOL & CRISP?!? It’s 89 degrees with 75% humidity. In what universe is that “cool and crisp”? I find it very misleading when they post things like that.

Anyway, I was dripping (as usual), hair plastered to my forehead, scalp, and neck. I really just want to cut it all off. I don’t want hair hanging on my neck at all. So hard to pull the trigger on that big a change, though.

I walked along the streets lined with shops, restaurants, people calling out “Madam! Madam! Massage/shampoo/pedicure/hat/wish lantern/boat ride/crepe?” It’s sort of a lot. I would have liked a nutella crepe but I was just Too Sweaty.

I did stop for a small cup of ice cream. I haven’t had ice cream in ages and it was delightful.

I did buy a pretty lantern for my great niece…and there were a couple photo spots with photographers and beautiful hanging lantern backdrops…I would have liked to have gotten a picture but I was just such a mess! The girls having their pictures taken (or “made,” as my grandmother would have said) were lovely and cool looking in traditional ao dais (those Vietnamese dresses with the slits on the side up to the hip and flowy pants underneath). How do they stay so unsweaty? I just don’t understand.

I walked til I was on the verge of melting then got a grab home…and noticed a Chinese restaurant almost directly across the street from the hotel, so went in for some crispy pork belly and dumplings. And a tall glass of Pepsi with ice! Once again, upon seeing my “about to have a heart attack” red face, a young woman brought a stand fan right over to me. There was no ac. I wouldn’t have gone in if I’d known there was no ac. I needed ac more than food.

Anyway, home for a cold shower and bed.

Tuesday, September 28

I’m a little cranky so I’m gonna keep this day brief and just do pictures…basically today was a coffee-making class in the morning, and clothing fitting in the afternoon.

This day really proved to me just how unaffected by coffee caffeine I am. I had four coffees in the span of two hours…and Vietnamese coffee is Very Strong. And nuthin. No shakes no heart palpitations no burst of energy. Nuthin. I came home and took a nap.

I had my first clothing fitting at 5pm. I have thoughts and feelings, but I’ll hold off til they’re all done. Maybe it’s like when you go to the hair salon and they never do your hair right and so you hate your new do, til you get home and stick your head under the faucet and then dry your hair your way.

Wednesday, September 30

Got up…well, almost bright and early…to go to the Fujian Assembly hall before the tours started so I could visit the site in peace and quiet. This site was originally built in 1690 to accomodate the large Chinese population that migrated to Hoi An after the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.

Thursday, October 1

OCTOBER!

So today I did A THING. A wonderful fun thing. I went to a duck farm and they give you buckets of duck pellets goodies and the ducks follow you around everywhere and eat out of your hands and off your feet and off your body and it was just so much fun!

I did something very uncharacteristic of me. When I registered for duck heaven you had to be at least two people but I was like you are not keeping me from the ducks so I put two people down even though I’m only one. I figured when I got there I’d just say the other person was unable to make it and I’d pay for them anyway. It was $3.85 US and for an additional $4 I was not going to be kept away from the ducks.

Then I remembered an app I’d downloaded in Thailand called Nomad Table, which is basically like connecting people who want to do things with someone…but they don’t have a someone. I never used it, but it was fun to watch all the things other people were doing.

So I created a duck event, did anyone want to go with me and boom, I had people.

Look at me, spreading my friendship wings.

I ended up meeting a young woman from the UK and a man from CA and we all ducked together and it was a blast.

Til it wasn’t. Ha ha. As we were leaving the duck farm to head to lunch/coffee, I saw a little pen with a water buffalo. I said to UK, “making friends with a water buffalo is on my bucket list,” so she called out to the guy who was laying down at the other end of the pen, asking if I could pet it. He sort of waved his hand like “do whatever you want,” so in I went. Walked up to WB’s shoulder to give him a pat…and the next thing I know, he’s got me pinned up against the fence with his big head and horns. He sort of gored me in the stomach, and really jabbed my hand and shin. Of course I’m laughing hysterically like NOW WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO but I managed to escape…minus one shoe. But UK snuck in and quickly grabbed it for me. I was a little shaken up – I was picturing those scenes at bullfights where the bull just tosses the matador into the air with his horns, thinking that was imminent for me.

Gah.

THEN. We got to the restaurant (was just down the road) and I realized I didn’t have my phone…which is one of my biggest fears while traveling (bigger fear than being gored by a water buffalo). So CA, who had an electric scooter, volunteered to scoot back to the duck farm to see if he could find my phone. I said I thought maybe I’d left it on the bench by where you change your shoes…and luckily, there it was, so my lifeline and I were soon reunited.

Phew.

It was a helluva day at sea, sir!

I don’t think I mentioned yesterday’s wrist injury – which is an old intermittent injury – but it didn’t “snap back into place” overnight as it sometimes does, and this morning it was very achey and I still couldn’t use that hand without sharp pain. Before leaving for duck land, I went to the pharmacy right across the street and got a box of  “non-American Tylenol,” which is called paracemetol or something like that. And a wrist brace/wrap. She tried to also sell me some glucosamine and what looked like Ben Gay, that you’d rub on aching muscles, but I was like it’s not really like that.

They’re very big on the upsell here.

So I have become The Walking Wounded here in Hoi An.

I have to figure something out for dinner…I don’t have any other plans tonight so I’m not sure where to go. Kinda want to make an early night of it after my traumatic (but fun) day.

Friday, October 2

Well, I’m black and blue and swollen – hand, leg, stomach is sore, but no bruise. Okay. Moving on.

This morning I headed to a “scenic little alleyway” (ChatGPT’s words, not mine). Which was…definitely little. But not so scenic. It was literally just a narrow passageway between two larger streets. Which, I realize, is what an alley IS, but Vietnam (and Korea) are full of alleys that are full of businesses and people and interest. This was just two walls guiding me from one end to the other. I walked around a bit more in the area, took some nice pictures, til I hit my sweat limit…then I sat in an air conditioned coffee shop til I dried off and cooled down a bit…and there were more people than tables, and that was my cue to continue on the rest of the way home.

And since I left so early (to beat the heat? oh no no no there is no beating the heat. You are the heat’s bitch, just accept it – no I just wanted to beat the PEOPLE. The shops start opening very early and then the people come) I was back home at like 9:30am, ha ha. I showered (blissfully. I think I’ve taken more showers this week than any other week in my life) and then just lay on the bed in the ac for hours and hours, reading napping scrolling. Until I got a text from Duck Friend asking if I wanted to meet up for dinner (sure!), so then I had to start rousing myself.

We went to a little-bit-fancy Thai restaurant and I had my favorite Thai dish, Khao Soi…and a Thai tea creme brulee for dessert and it was very nice. She’s a sweet girl with such a good personality and energy. Sad to have to say goodbye.

Maybe I could be better going forward about reaching out to other people from time to time.

And this was my last night in Hoi An.

Saturday, October 3

Got up and out a little early this morning to head over to a lantern shop in the market area where I bought a pretty lantern the other night for my great niece. I want to get a couple more for my niece, Katie, and myself. I walked over there and they weren’t open yet! I found a shady spot to stand in to look at my phone and figure out my next steps (another lantern shop? breakfast? an ATM? coffee?) when a woman came up to me and asked if she could help me. I asked if she knew what time the lantern shop on the corner opened and she said not til the evening…which was no use to me as I was leaving at noon 🙂 BUT…she knew a shop deeper in the market – just cross the bridge then go down the long road then through the alley then make a left and go down another long road and my eyes must have been glazing over cuz she goes wait here i can help you. 

And she comes back on what? A MOTORBIKE. I think motorbikes are my destiny. Get on she said, I’ll take you.

At this point I realize resistance is futile, she’s not giving up til I get on the motorbike…and off we go…over the river and through the woods….and eventually reach a lantern shop with a young man sitting on the floor making lanterns. I suspect it’s her daughter’s teacher’s neighbor’s son, cuz everyone has a guy and they’re all connected and refer business to one another.

I’d told her I wanted six lanterns (that’s when she trotted off to get her trusty steed) so she probably figured I was a good mark customer and he/they were gonna make a bunch of money off me. It’s all good. However, this shop is considerably more expensive than the one back on the corner, and turns out I cannot get six lanterns, so I drop it down to four…and I still don’t have enough (and they don’t take credit cards, they all say the same thing when you ask, go ATM! like that is the magical never-ending font of cash), but I hold out all my bills to her and she takes it and is like yep that’s enough, ha ha.

So now I have four (well five, including the one I bought the other night) lanterns but I’m not that happy with my selection cuz I felt a little put on the spot, like I had to buy them from this place since she’d brought me here, and I didn’t get to overthink about my options…but there ya go.

Just as a frame of reference, the one I bought the first night, about 12″ tall, like a satin brocade floral – 85,000vnd/$3.27USD. The first one I picked out this morning is maybe 14″ tall, a Thai silk, 450,000vnd/$17.32USD. To the untrained eye, extremely similar. I couldn’t tell you which was more expensive just by looking at it.

I went in thinking I was buying 6x$3.27…so 6x$17.32 is a big difference. Even just the four came to $70USD – though I paid a little less cuz it was all I had.

Sigh.

Anyway, afterwards, she drove me all the home on her motorbike, wheee…

I dropped off my very valuable lanterns and headed back out to the ATM. Passed the tailor shop on the way and I saw my tailor (I can’t remember her name) and I waved and she waved and was like come in,  but I had to get cash first and my time was getting shorter before I had to check out. Got my cash and on my way back I stopped in….she and her husband were just about to eat their breakfast banh mis….but the husband insisted I take his and join the wife for breakfast.

Then she saw the wrist brace and my bruised hand (it’s so very colorful) and couldn’t believe I’d had an altercation with a water buffalo ha ha. Anyway, she got some concoction her husband had brewed up just that morning, alcohol and ginger, and rubbed it on my hand and leg where the bruising and swelling were. She put a bit in a bottle for me to take with me and told me to do this several times a day to help with the bruising and healing.

Seriously, how nice are these people??

After I left the doctor’s office ha ha I stopped in at the little local coffee shop on the corner where you literally go into the guy’s kitchen to order your coffee and got my favorite Hoi An coffee. Just an iced coffee, but it has the same deep, almost chocolate flavor, that the coffee at the sketchy boatyard had when I was heading to Ha Long Bay on my birthday. It’s large and delicious and $1.92.

The next thing I knew I was being whisked away from Hoi An and driven to Da Nang for my stay for the next seven days. There was a little taxi confusion and he first took me to the totally wrong area, but I realized before getting out because I had memorized the streetscape (better than when I moved to Hanoi Apt #2 and figured I was at the right place cuz there was an alley and a tree – well, guess what, Hanoi has a TON of alleys and trees)…but we eventually made it.

The airbnb host was here to greet me and check me in, and fortunately she brought some muscle, cuz while she’d told me the room was on the second floor, it’s actually on the third floor. She gave me some mathy count-y “this is how we do it here” explanation and what was I gonna do. I live on the third floor this week. So The Boy brought all my luggage upstairs and she showed me all the different switches (lights, hot water, ac, etc), and now here I am.

So. I should be unpacking but I don’t feel like it.

And thus ends the Hoi An part of our journey. Stay tuned next week for Adventures from Da Nang!

Wasn’t this all Too Long?? I feel like it’s wayyyy too long. The text is long, there’s a million pictures. I’m starting to think when I have a “productive” (“travel” productive, not work/life errands productive), I should do a post about That Day. Like Duck Day could have been its own post…Coffee Class could have been its own post, etc. Whaddaya think? Would you rather see multiple shorter posts each week, or one looooonnnnggg post each week. And what do you think about the new format experiment of  “all the text from the day, then all the pictures from the day,” vs text photo text photo text photo?

Inquiring minds want to know.