Sights of Hoi An

Today Me and Izzy did some sight seeing in Hoi An, checking out the culture and arcitechture. It's a surprisingly small town, but has plenty of hitsory that hasn't been destroyed by the tourist industry. For 90,000 Dong, you can buy five tickets to see some of the 18 sights around the town, all of which are within walking distance from each other. There are a few markets dotted around selling typical tourist tat and fabrics for the tailors, but a couple of them are focused on local trade and sell every type of fruit, veg and fish under the sun. Some interesting smells to say the least!

There is a big Chinese and Japanese influence in Vietnam, especially Hoi An. One of the places we visited using our tickets was called Tran Family's Chapel, it still looks the same way it did when it was built 200 years ago. We were given a personal tour of the Chapel and told about the history of the building and the shrine inside which is used to pray to the deceased members of the Tran family. On the shrine there were wooden boxes which represent the deceased members on the family.

She explained to us that parts of the building refer to different countries beliefs, the struts of the roof were built to replicate the three main creases on the palm of your hand. Coming off of these struts were five veritcal supports, like the five fingers on each hand. These represented the Japanese belief of the elements, water, fire, earth, metal and wood. Another part of the roof represented the Chinese beliefs in crabs and turtles, and the luck that this brings. The shrine to the family was of a traditional Vietnamese style.

Here are a few photos from one of my favourite spots today, although I can't remember them name of it!