{"id":951,"date":"2014-04-19T16:19:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T16:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radcopter.com\/brianandmarisa\/worldtrip\/?p=951"},"modified":"2023-08-20T21:24:05","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T21:24:05","slug":"hoi-an-our-brief-jaunt-into-central-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/2014\/04\/19\/hoi-an-our-brief-jaunt-into-central-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoi An: Our Brief Jaunt into Central Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"Our hasty departure from Ha Long Bay meant that we made it to Hoi An just in time for their monthly Legendary Night. The Hoi An Legendary Night is a celebration timed with the full moon that \u00a0aims to transform Hoi An back in time. Electrical lights are turned off and colorful lanterns are used instead, motor vehicles are banned from the streets, and incense and other offerings are put out in front of all the stores. In addition, local people turn out to play games and participate in dance and musical performances. Older Vietnamese \u00a0men put on pajamas–I’m not entirely sure why–and play chess in the streets. Similar to what we experienced during the festival in Varanasi, people also light lanterns and float them in the river. It sounded like something not to miss.\n\n\n
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Pretty lanterns light the way.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Offerings for the full moon festival in front of an art gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Women like this sit along the river bank selling lanterns for people to put in the water.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Setting up for one of the street games. Later on the evening we saw them actually playing the game, and I’m not any more clear on how to play than I was when I only saw this board…<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Not certain how to play this one either, but it sure makes for a great picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cute kids were doing a martial arts performance.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\nWe also enjoyed walking around Hoi An during the day, as the city has a lot of character and looks almost equally beautiful as it does at night.\n\n\n
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The lanterns look pretty even during the day.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The edge of Hoi An town with a view of the Japanese Bridge, aptly named for being built by the Japanese and which at one time separated a Japanese settlement.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\nThe highlight of our trip to Hoi An was splurging on a fancy hotel for our 10 year anniversary! We found a resort right on the river and across the road from the beach. Our room itself was along the river, which was very peaceful and relaxing. There was also an infinity pool, which somehow neither Brian nor myself thought to take a picture of, but was exciting because I’ve never been in one of those before! The hotel was an elephant sized step up compared to where we have been staying on this trip, but was still amazingly only $86\/night.\n\n\n
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Our private chair swing and river view.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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The beach across the street from our schwanky hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\nBeing able to afford a fancy hotel in Vietnam at the same cost of a cheap motel in many parts of the U.S. highlights the ongoing conflict that has colored our experiences in this part of the world. Although we have really enjoyed and appreciated traveling in Southeast Asia because of the low cost of everything, it has been challenging for us to recognize what this low cost of living means for the people that live here. Most of the local people we meet will most likely never leave the country, and it will certainly be difficult for them to travel to a place like the United States. It’s hard not to feel extremely privileged and oftentimes guilty when we would pay someone for a service that was such a small amount to us, but a much more substantial sum for them. This also creates a strange power dynamic when you are traveling in someone else’s country: You\u00a0should be put\u00a0at a disadvantage not knowing\u00a0the language, culture, customs and area, but you end up still feeling like you have the advantage because you are the one with more money.\n\nOn the upside, the more we encountered this type of imbalance, the more it helped us be comfortable with paying a bit more. In India, as mentioned in our previous posts, we really agonized about being cheated into paying more for things even if the actual cost to us was very nominal. By the time we got to Vietnam 3 months later, we were still careful of scams and used caution in our financial transactions with people, but we felt ok if we ended up paying a bit more. We knew that it would help the people we were interacting with much more than it would harm us to lose those small amounts. We could feel a bit less guilty for having the resources to take 8 months off from work and travel the world when we focused on the fact that the money we were spending in these places was doing a small part to help their economies.\n\nIt’s difficult for us to share these types of sentiments on the blog, because it feels incredibly indulgent. It’s similar to the most beautiful girl in school complaining about how hard it is to be pretty. But it feels important to discuss because it is something that has not only been an important part of our trip, but is also something that is an important part of our identities and who we are. \u00a0Though we\u00a0recognize the privilege we have in the United States and have been motivated by this to pursue professions that address the inequity in our own country, we had\u00a0not been confronted with the even greater disparity that occurs across countries. In addition, the fact that we are only passing through these places\u00a0means that we haven’t had many outlets or opportunities for channeling our feelings towards this into something productive. Since we have exhausted the topic in conversation with each other,\u00a0it is helpful to more formally express it on the blog. I’ll end this by saying that while it is hard to not feel like it is unfair that we get the opportunity to see\u00a0the world when so many others will not be able to, it definitely makes us appreciate our position in the world and continues to motivate us to help make the world a better place.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our hasty departure from Ha Long Bay meant that we made it to Hoi An just in time for their monthly Legendary Night. The Hoi An Legendary Night is a celebration timed with the full moon that \u00a0aims to transform Hoi An back in time. Electrical lights are turned off and colorful lanterns are used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-places","category-seasia","category-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1866,"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texandtia.com\/worldtrip\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}