Continuing along the streets of Hoi An, I notice that the houses along this stretch are more old. In fact, practically all of the houses here are old. The design is more Chinese infused with French design. This was Hoi An as it was more than a hundred years ago.
In fact, it feels a lot like wandering down the streets of Singapore, with its old shop houses, though the houses in Hoi An feel far more authentic. Melaka in Malaysia is also another of these old towns with its Dutch influence. Similarly, the people in Hoi An try to keep to their way of life as they did long time ago. Only the presence of modern technology like mobile phone and television will give it away.
We came across not a few Chinese temples, in fact some of them even have Chinese characters written on them. One of these was a structure for people who originated from Fujian, China. It probably means that there are people who speak Chinese here in Vietnam, since all this time, I haven’t heard anything that I can understand yet. However, to enter the association grounds visitors will have to pay a small fee. We didn’t feel it was worth it so we just went on our way.
A lot of the old shop houses have been turned into souvenir shops to my dismay. However, there are still a lot who are as traditional as they can be. It would have been interesting to explore more of the Old Quarter but we need to hurry along since our guides are waiting for us.
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