Things to do in Hoi An

Shopping

While many are attracted to Hoi An by the graceful pastel-coloured buildings, others are lured by an abundance of shopping. First and foremost, this is the place to come for tailored clothes at dirt-cheap prices (at least by Western standards).

There is an absolutely ridiculous number of shops scattered throughout town, with most of them concentrated on the stretch of Hai Ba Trung south of Tran Hung Dao, and along Hoang Dieu as you approach the Can Nam Bridge. Competition keeps the prices down, but also means that tourists are subjected to the constant badgering of touts and salespeople -- after a few days of this, you may be ready to flee. A ban on any new shops opening was enacted a few years back, but they closed the barn door after the cows had already gotten out.

You'll want to know which of the myriad cobblers and cutters is the best, but the truth is, excellent quality is provided by many, many places. We find a good rule of thumb is to visit a lot of shops before buying, and go with your gut. If they are trying to rush you and give you the hard sell, smile and move on. In among the mercenary merchants are plenty of decent folks who take pride in their work -- it isn't so hard to sort them out. The biggest mistake is to get overwhelmed by the limitless choices and go hog-wild at one shop on the first day. Try getting a shirt made at one shop, a skirt at another, some pants at a third. Most will have the piece ready for trying on by the end of the day, which will give you a chance to assess the quality of work and integrity of the staff before you commit to being fitted for a whole new wardrobe.

In addition to the clothes, Hoi An is truly a goldmine for unique handmade pottery, jewellery, statuary, furniture, quilts, embroidered sheets -- the list goes on and on. Most places will arrange international shipping for you so you don't have to lug all that stuff around until the end of your trip. As with the tailors, there are so many shops it's hard to recommend the best.

We'd suggest holding off spending all your money until you've seen at least two places: Hoa Nhap Handicrafts, which employs a staff of disabled craftspeople who do some truly excellent and unique work, and the Handicrafts Shop which can only be visited by buying a ticket for Hoi An's cultural attractions. There, too, we found an incredible variety and countless one-of-a-kind items at prices that seemed pretty darn reasonable to us, even before bargaining.

Reaching Out (Hoa Nhap) Handicrafts: 103 Nguyen Thai Hoc (next to Tan Ky House), Hoi An. T: (0510) 910 168, 862 460
Handicrafts Workshop: 9 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Hoi An.

Cooking classes

Cooking classes are available at a number of Hoi An's restaurants and cafes. We've got the best feedback about classes at Cafe 96 and the ones at the Hai Scout Cafe. The expat owner of the latter, Nick, has a second place up the river called The Redbridge, where daytime classes are taught. There are both half-day and full-day classes, both of which include a guided trip to the market to buy supplies, a boatride to Redbridge and a lavish meal. The half-day class is great value, but the class size is enormous, and there's very little hands-on cooking involved. A better option may be to find a restaurant you enjoy that offers classes, as they're likely to be more intimate and engaging. Note that wherever you take your class, you're likely to be taught how to make general Vietnamese dishes, as most of the local specialities require ingredients found almost exclusively in Hoi An.

Cua Dai and An Bang Beaches

Though Hoi An doesn't really market itself as a beach getaway, there are some beautiful stretches of sand located just a hop away. The mean beach is Cua Dai, located at the end of predictably named Cua Dai Road. Some of the beach is given over to high-end resorts, but the public section is the first part you see where the road meets the beach. There are plenty of seafood places so you can eat and drink yourself silly in between swimming and basking in the sun. Avoid the places off the beach, which offer lower prices but lacklustre food, and try the places on the sand -- Mama Ly's comes highly recommended.

Also seek out Hoi An Beach Club, a bit to the north of the public beach -- you can swim in their pool for free if you drink there. They hold two-for-one happy hours daily from 16:00 to 17:00 and 21:00 to 23:00. Free drinks for women from 21:00 to 22:00. Mama Ly's is just north of the Hoi An Beach Club.

Don't neglect Hoi An's 'other' beach, An Bang, which is to the north at the end of Hai Ba Trung Street, about 6km from Tran Hung Dao. It's a more Vietnamese scene, a bit more laid back, and just as good as Cua Dai. The two beaches are only 3km apart via the new beach road.

Japanese Tombs

There are several tombs scattered in odd places through the area north of Nguyen Tat Thanh, but the easiest to visit is the Mo Ong Tani Yajirobei, a Japanese merchant buried in 1647. There isn't much there but an overgrown tomb with an inscription, but it's a fine spot to visit in conjunction with a walking or cycling tour. The tomb is located in the middle of a rice field along Hai Ba Trung Street, 1.5km north of the intersection with Nguyen Tat Thanh (the name of the road changes to Ly Thuong Kiet on the east side of Hai Ba Trung). There's a blue sign marking the turn-off into the field to the right, and it's conspicuously located 200m along the path.

Tra Que Vegetable Farm

Just half a kilometre up the road from the Tomb of Tani Yajirobei is the Tra Que Vegetable Farm, a community of people who grow a wide variety of veggies and herbs in the rich soil at the top of the rice field. If you're looking for an informative tour, book one in town, but it's a beautiful spot to visit on your own. There's a ticket booth just after the rice fields end as you go out of town on Hai Ba Trung, on the right hand side. It was empty on our visit and we just went in. The concrete road goes through the village and circles back about 1.5km.

Chuc Thanh Pagoda

This is the oldest Buddhist temple in Hoi An, originally built in 1454. An extensive renovation was begun in 2005, along with the erection of a new building, and construction is expected to continue until at least 2009. The first thing you see upon approach is a very ancient-looking gateway -- to the left are three much newer and very spiffy-looking pagodas. Beyond that, the rest of the place is in excuse-our-appearance mode. But that's sometimes the best time to visit a temple.

We caught the craftsmen at work carving the inlay for the cross beams in the new building -- the new big Buddha was lying around in pieces and hadn't had its face carved yet. A young boy took us on a relaxed tour of the old building -- a longhouse series of rooms, with some nuns scuttling about. Most of their treasures were in storage for the renovation, but we did see some 300-year-old wooden statues of mandarins. Tarps were pulled off and bicycles were moved out of the way so we could see the rest of what will eventually be back on display. There's also an extensive cemetery plot to the right that you can wander through.

To get here, take Hai Ba Trung north and turn right (west) on Nhguyen Tat Thanh. About 100m down, take a right to the north on Tran Van Du. The pagoda is at the end of the road, half a kilometre further on.

Chuc Thanh is half a kilometre from Phuoc Lam pagoda. There's a sand road you can walk along if you take a left as you're facing the front gate. On a bike or motorbike, pick your way along the concrete roads just to the south until you reach Le Hong Phong, and Phuoc Lam will be on the right.

Phuoc Lam Pagoda

Phuoc Lam is home to a large group of monks and a regular stop for tour buses. It's a beautiful and elaborate temple with many different renderings of the Buddha, including a gold-covered 'Buddha as a boy'. There's plenty to wander around and look at, but if you really want to understand it all, we recommend going with a good guide.

If you're going on your own, we found it's best to visit just before 11:00 when the monks are finishing up their lunch (they've been up since 4:00 and this is their last meal of the day) after which they line up and circle through the temple, chanting midday prayers.

To get here, go north on Hai Ba Trung and take a left at Nguyen Tat Than. Half a kilometre down on the right is the bus station, just before which is Le Hong Phong. Take a right there and the temple is half a kilometre further down on the left.

Phuoc Lam is just half a kilometre from Chuc Thanh Pagoda. As you leave along the dirt path and cross Le Hong Phong, just keep going. The path hooks a right and then continues east.

Thanh Ha Pottery Village

Thanh Ha is definitely worth a visit, especially on your way to My Son. As you head out of town on Hung Vuong, the road forks after 3km -- for Da Nang (and My Son) take the right fork, for the pottery village, take the left fork along the water. There are several pottery outfits operating in the area, but we found the easiest to reach on your own was right at the end of that road, about a kilometre from the fork. There's an abandoned ticket booth and at the back of it, a large traditional kiln.

The potters here have a reputation for being welcoming and friendly, which, we discovered on our visit, is well-deserved. They were very happy to offer us a seat so we could watch as an old woman pounded up some clay into a long slug and then coiled it into a pot shape atop a stone kick wheel mounted on the ground. Then her daughter started kicking the wheel, the old woman threw some water on it, stuck her hands in, and like magic, a perfectly-formed pot emerged, identical to the stack of unfired pots that sat drying in the sun. The huge, old kiln in the back was half-filled with unfired goods -- they only light it up once a month so count yourself lucky if you get there on a firing day.

There are also a number of fired goods for sale that they keep on site rather than unloading them on retailers in town. Of course they want you to buy something, but they aren't pushy about it. There's no admission, so we just bought one of the clay whistles and paid too much for it, as a thank you for the visit.

Cam Kim Island

Cam Kim Island can be visited by taking a ferry from the pier just to the east of the market along Bach Dang. Departures are frequent -- a lot of people live on the island and this is their only way to and from Hoi An town. Locals pay 2,000 VND, but foreigners get charged more -- usually 10,000 VND, 5,000 if you're very aggressive. You can take a bicycle or motorbike with you -- this ups the price a bit, but it's highly recommended if you plan to do anything more on the island than visit the wood-carving shops.

Once you get off the pier on Cam Kim Island, a few hundred metres along the pier road, you'll start to see wood-carving shops, with artisans at work and merchandise on display. It's a part of many guided tours, and a fun place to visit on your own. Each shop has its own unique style so you'll benefit from seeking out more than one, especially if you're planning to buy. There is some virtuoso wood carving on display here, which is not to be missed, especially if you're an aficionado.

If you bring along a bike or a motorbike, you're in for a treat. Cam Kim is a beautiful, rural island that is almost completely free of tourists. There's one main road leading along its centre to the eastern tip, where ferries are available back to town. There are plenty of picturesque pathways to explore as well, along with some amazing bamboo bridges (nicknamed monkey bridges) -- they look rickety, but they are strong as can be, and yes you can ride a motorbike across them. Some of the larger ones charge a toll -- again, should be about 2,000 VND, expect to pay a little more.

We wish we could give you a detailed itinerary, but the best of Cam Kim Island is incredibly difficult to experience without a guide. If you're interested in a very unique and enjoyable daytrip, we highly recommend you ask at the Sleepy Gecko about hiring a guide. After spending months exploring the best routes on the island (and the best places to stop for a beer) the guys at Sleepy Gecko are just about ready to start offering tours, with prices starting at about US$6 per person if you're in a group. They're just starting to get the operation off the ground, but we went out on a tour with them and had a great time, and others who have tried it rate it among their best experiences in country. You can rent transport from them or bring your own.

Sleepy Gecko Chillout Lounge: Cam Nam Island, Hoi An. T: (0908) 426 349. E-mail: sleepygecko at gmail.com

Cham Island

If you're pressed for time and need to choose between My Son and Cham Island -- no contest, go to Cham Island.

Every agency in town offers some kind of Cham Island tour -- Song Hoi Tourist seems to cater mostly to Vietnamese, but they have a wide variety of river tours on offer if you're in a group and book in advance.

Generally, the tours of Cham Island are over-hyped -- they talk about visiting pagodas and this and that, but here's the real deal. Most of the island is controlled by the army and is still off limits. There's one part of the beach with a pier and a restaurant where all the tours dock to feed their customers, and then there is the village a short boat ride down the coast. You can't go into the hills or venture any further along the beach without incurring the wrath of the military.

A 'tour' would be disappointing, but a good 'visit' is an excellent idea. The primary reason to go is for the coral reefs along the coast -- two companies in Hoi An offer scuba and snorkelling trips -- Rainbow Divers and Cham Island Diving Center. Both are expat run outfits, but Cham Island gets the most consistent positive feedback. It's run by a garrulous Italian named Ludivico, along with a staff of qualified divemasters from around the world. As you're heading out to the island, which is part of a cluster of seven islets, Ludivico delivers a very informative and entertaining rap about the history of the region -- he clearly loves the place and that comes through in his tours.

The coral is superb in the area, and though it may cut into their business to say this, it's all easily accessible by snorkelling, so don't spring for the diving if all you want to do is peek at the sea creatures. However, if you're a certified diver looking for action, Cham Island has a wide variety of dives on offer -- including drift dives and night dives. Cham Island has a set-up at the Golden Sands and Rainbow at the Hoi An Beach Resort.

PADI certification courses are available at both Rainbow and Cham, but they will also put you into the water on your first day if you like. Things are a lot more loosey-goosey here than in Thailand and elsewhere -- we don't know of any disasters, but we did get some complaints from inexperienced or out-of-practice divers who didn't get the support they needed and wound up having trouble in the water. If you're a confident diver, no worries, but if you're looking for your first 'one day' experience, this might not be the best place to try it. Since the snorkelling is just as good, go for that.

Ludivico has a home on the island and a guesthouse. From early November to mid-January the island is inaccessible due to high seas -- the weather starts getting dodgy in October so plan accordingly. During fair months, however, you have two overnight options: camping out in tents with a big bonfire at night (sounds fantastic to us) or holing up at Viet Y, Ludovico's guesthouse, a great option especially for small groups and families.

A daytrip to the island includes morning and afternoon snorkelling, but you can opt for a tour of the island village in the afternoon if you've had enough. It's a small, pretty, isolated spot with no electricity other than what's provided by generators (typically from 17:00 to 22:00, longer during festivals and important football matches). It was so tranquil here we didn't want to leave.

Cham Island Diving Centre throws a party once a year on August 18, which includes an overnight on the island. Up to a hundred people attend, and it's popular with local expats. It costs US$65, or US$100 if you want to dive -- two dives included. It's likely to be a pretty wild party.

Accommodation on Cham Island
Viet Y
Cu Lao Cham Island
T: (051) 910 782, (0905) 662 025
laochamsailing@gmail.com
This place is the brainchild of Ludivico, an Italian expat who runs Cham Island Diving Center. He's built a solid, Vietnamese-style guesthouse in town next to his own residence -- it's an attractive little powder-blue building with a kitchen on the first floor and rooms on the second and third. The place can sleep up to eight people -- right now the rooms don't really have doors, just curtains, and there isn't a lot of privacy. But it's an excellent place for groups and families, and Ludivico is planning to close rooms off in the future. There are plenty of home-style, Vietnamese places to eat in town, but for a small fee, you can have your meals cooked for you, and you're free to go to market and buy your own supplies and cook for yourself if you like. We found a French family in the middle of what looked like an idyllic vacation when we visited. Electricity cuts out at 22:00 you have to get by on candlelight until dawn. You'll find yourself falling into the 'early-to-bed, early-to-rise' schedule of the village. Highly recommended. Rates are US$8 per person or $20 to rent an entire floor.

Cham Island Diving Centre: 88 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Hoi An. T: (0510) 910 782. http://www.chamislanddiving.com
Rainbow Divers: Hoi An. T: (0917) 239 433, (0914) 224 102 http://www.divevietnam.com
Song Hoi Tourist: 12 Hoang Van Thu, Hoi An. T: (0510) 861 332, (0913) 779 189.

Eco-Tours

Karma Waters is a vegetarian restaurant just after the bridge on the right as you approach Cua Dai Beach from Hoi An. It's owned by a Vietnamese woman and her expat husband -- and in addition to serving up delicious veggie fare, they are starting up an eco-tourism operation that well deserves some increased patronage.

Their Cham Island tours visit a more remote village on the big island, include veggie meals prepared by locals, and optional homestays. You can snorkel, hike, windsurf, kayak and sail around in a dinghy while you're there. A traditional sailing boat is under construction to offer truly low-impact tours. They also offer excursions on the De Vong River at 60,000 VND per person per hour.

Karma Waters: 47 Cua Dai, Hoi An. T: (0510) 927 632, (0905) 141 771, F: (0510) 927 632. http://www.karmawaters.com

Cycling or motorbiking tour

You can see many of Hoi An's outlying sights in one fell swoop -- just be sure to time it so that you're not spending too long out in the rice fields during the noonday sun. Much of this route may be flooded out in the rainy season, but should be fine for most of the year.

Start by finding 99 Cua Dai -- it's just west of the Hoi An Indochine Hotel, 800m from Cua Dai Beach, and 3.5km east Hoang Dieu Road in town xx. The dirt path that goes east across the rice fields is the place to start cycling or motorbiking.

The dirt path through the rice fields continues for 2.5km until you reach a right turn that leads to the Tra Que Vegetable Farm. After checking out the farms, double back to the turn off and take the left fork, southwest, through the field. This lets off on Hai Ba Trung, and the Japanese tomb is just 100m to the south.

If you're walking, start at the tomb. It's about 2km from the town centre, so you might want to get a xe om to drop you off. After visiting the tomb, cross Hai Ba Trung and head along the path that bisects the rice fields to the west. It takes a very obvious left turn where you can't get any further unless you're a cow. After a kilometre, the path lets out onto Le Hong Phong, which is a concrete road. A few hundred metres down on the right you'll find Phuoc Lam Pagoda. From there you can take the dirt path to the east half a kilometre to Chuc Thanh Pagoda, or try the roads if you're on a motorbike. When you're done, head south half a kilometre down Tran Van Du to where it meets up with Nguyen Tat Thanh. Take a left to return to Hai Ba Trung Street. From there, you can head north 6km to An Bang beach. If you do the tour in reverse, you wind up 800m from Cua Dai Beach to the east.

My Son

Quang Nam's efforts to market My Son as the 'Angkor of Vietnam' are a little misguided. Those who make the trip expecting to see a well preserved city on par with the one across the border will likely be disappointed to see only a few crumbling towers of stone. It is, however, an interesting site worth a daytrip out to see it. It's unique due both to its size and for its historic importance as a holy city for the Cham. Visitors should be warned that most of the My Son complex is either inaccessible, or so destroyed that there's little to look at. What remains are three areas of ruins -- crumbling piles of bricks that are often propped up with supports to keep them from falling over completely. There are a few headless statues in state, and one of temple houses some of the decorative stonework pieces that used to adorn the exteriors -- those that haven't been carted away to museums.

The fact is, there are Cham towers scattered all over southern Vietnam that are much more beautiful, much less touristy, and in much better shape. The best of the Cham stonework can be viewed in museums, and might as well be. However, this doesn't mean that a daytrip to the Holy City doesn't make sense. The setting is spectacular -- especially when combined with a boat ride, or on a sunrise visit. But you'll have to muster up the enthusiasm of an amateur archaeologist to get more than that out of your visit.

More details

How to get there: To get here, you can book a tour anywhere in town that costs US$10, departs at 08:00 and returns at 13:00. A bus-boat combo is also available, and a sunrise tour that starts at 05:00, each about US$15. To get here on your own, head out of town on Hung Vuong and fork left towards Da Nang where the road splits. It's a total of 10km to the town of Vinh Dien where you'll find Highway 1A -- take a left. After 6 or 7 km, there's a sign at the junction in the town of Duy Xuyen pointing to My Son, 30km away along Route 610 -- take a right where the sign indicates. As you approach My Son the signage is really clear. You can get up to 2km from the entrance then you'll have to park your bike -- unless you're with a Vietnamese tour guide/driver, who is allowed to take you the remaining distance on his motorbike. The price of the ticket also includes passage in a Vietnam War-era American jeep, which will rumble you from the ticketbooth to the towers. Get here early unless you want to wait for half an hour in line for the jeep. If for any crazy reason you get stuck for the night in My Son, there is a small guesthouse about 5km from the entrance.

The Hoi An culture tour

An oddity of Hoi An is the bizarre cultural tour ticket system where, in order to see all the museums, old houses, assembly halls and so on you have to buy several tickets. One ticket costs 75,000 VND, and allows access to:

a) All the old streets of the Heritage Town;
b) One of the four museums;
c) One of the four old houses;
d) One of the three assembly halls;
e) The handicraft workshop and traditional music concert; and
f) Either the Japanese Bridge or the Quan Cong Temple.

If you wanted to see everything, you'd have to buy four tickets and it would take about three days. We know -- that's what we did. We found, for the culturally inclined, that there's an embarrassment of riches on offer in Hoi An. Some of which are, sadly, not so much riches but just plain embarrassing.

So, here's the lowdown on the hits and misses on the Hoi An culture tour.

Museums

None of Hoi An's museums are real stand outs. It's hard to say which is the top pick -- a lot depends on your taste.

The Museum of History and Culture of Hoi An is a low point. There's an old cannon, some cannon balls and a piece of rotten wood that used to be the stern of a trading vessel. There are several 2,000 year old pots from the Sa Huynh period, but if that tickles your fancy, the Sa Huynh Culture Museum is a better bet. There's also a case full of 9th century bricks and tiles from the Champa period that reminded us of a display at a hardware store. Some black and white photos of Hoi An taken in the early 20th century are fun to compare with the streets as they are today. It's actually attached to the Quan Cong Temple, another lowlight, but you can sneak in and visit without getting the 'museum' portion of your ticket punched.

The purpose of the dusty, poorly-lit Museum of Trade Ceramics is twofold. First, to show that Vietnamese ceramics made their way everywhere from Egypt to Japan, as proven by archaeological digs on several continents. Second, it's to show that ceramics from China and Japan have also turned up in archaeological digs in Vietnam. It's of historical interest since it provides a chronicle of the trade routes that have developed in the region since the 1300s. What one finds on display are, however, for the most part shards. Helpful legends in English, French and Vietnamese reveal where the shards were found and what period they date from. A few more recent pieces are largely intact -- they look very much like the blue-and-white china patterns you see duplicated everywhere, but these are the originals. So this is a great stop for archaeologists, historians, and people who go nuts over anything people used to eat off 500 years ago.

The Museum of Sa Huynh Culture and the Museum of the Revolution packs a one-two punch -- an odd juxtaposition of the oldest and newest points on the Vietnamese timeline. The Sa Huynh culture displays focus mostly on pottery that dates back to 1st and 2nd centuries -- impressively old, and many pieces have been reassembled and tastefully displayed. There are also some burial urns that are small enough to fuel speculation that the Sa Huynh were very teeny, tiny people. It's a well-lit, well-maintained, and popular stop, just a stone's throw from the Japanese Bridge. And if the old pots don't do it for you, the Museum of the Revolution is upstairs. The first room is pretty boring and inconsequential -- some old war currency, a lot of pictures of war heroes, with few legends in English. But to the back some armaments from 'the war with America' are on display -- grenade launchers, machine guns, AK 47s, a Colt 45 used by a Vietnamese officer, and even one of the notorious Claymore mines with the words This Side Forward written on it.

The Museum of Folk Culture is notable for its eerie-looking plaster statues of Vietnamese peasants in various kinds of traditional garb, engaging in various peasantly undertakings. The point here is to document the physical culture of the people -- wooden threshers, shovels, ploughs and so on. Of course, it all comes off a bit kitschy. But there is a good deal here to see, and if you're more interested in folk history than war history (or the history of broken pots), it's the best choice. If nothing else, the statues are sort of a hoot, though some of them may return to haunt you in the dark of night.

Old Houses

These houses were built by wealthy merchants a few hundred years ago, and used to double as shopfronts. The merchants' descendents still live there, but they've opened the doors to tourists (and, of course, tourist dollars). Unlike the museums, there is a hands down winner in this category -- Tan Ky House. It's 200 years old, well-kept, and while, at the end of the day, it's just an old house, we received an excellent tour here. Our hostess spoke French and English, and she gave a very informative rap about the architectural styles incorporated into the design, the history of the family, and how they handle the frequent floods that inundate the first floor. Back in the kitchen are markers showing years when the water was particularly high -- at one point it almost reached the second floor. It was just what we were looking for in an old house visit.

This was especially evident after visiting Phung Hung House, where the emphasis is not on giving a tour, but keeping the merchant tradition alive. The first floor is a gift shop, and there's a group of women at work embroidering tablecloths and handkerchiefs for sale. It's still a good spot to see, and the embroidery is quite fetching, so it's not a bad choice for your second ticket if you buy one.

The Tran Family Chapel is well off the river, and on our visit only a Vietnamese-speaking guide was available. After visiting Tan Ky House, it was lacklustre.

Quan Thang House doesn't even seem to be trying. They punched our ticket, gave us some tea, pointed at some pictures, and that was that.

Assembly Halls

These places exist because merchants from various regions needed a place to hang out and do business. And because they were raking in the dough, they thought they'd spruce the place up nice."

They all have a similar structure -- an ornate gate at the entrance, colourful plaster bas reliefs on each side, a central courtyard with meeting rooms on the right and left, and a temple or shrine area at the back. Fountains featuring dragons made from mosaic tilework seem to be a standard feature. Our top choice would be the Phuc Kien (Fujian) Assembly Hall. It's the biggest and most impressive and it has the most dragons. The Quang Dong (Cantonese) Assembly Hall is smaller, but in many ways similar -- almost a toss up. It has bigger dragons out back. As for the Trieu Chau (Chaozhou) Assembly Hall -- hardly any dragons at all, and not well kept. It does have a large display case packed with gilded wooden statuettes, which was unique for the genre.

The Heritage Town, The Japanese Bridge, and Quan Cong Temple

You don't actually need a ticket to visit the Heritage Town. Everything down by the river, from the Japanese Bridge to the market, is the 'Heritage Town,' and you can just walk around freely. And you don't need a ticket to visit the Japanese Bridge. The ticket will get you into the small, unimpressive temple adjoining the bridge -- on our visit, they just checked it without punching it so we could still get into the Quang Cong Temple, though we wish we hadn't bothered. It looks much like the three assembly halls, only it's not as impressive.

The Handicrafts Workshop and Traditional Music Concert

This place is set in a 200 year old building, the interior of which is mostly a souvenir shop, but on any given day you're likely to see actual artisans at work, and the goods on offer are, in fact, made by them. The quality is generally quite high. You'll find pieces here that aren't available elsewhere in town, and we found the prices -- even before bargaining--were not outrageous by Western standards. There's a lot of intricate work in metal, porcelain, and soap stone, as well as some larger terracotta pots and sculptures. There's a silverware shop at the back, by which they mean jewellery, not cutlery -- some finely wrought pieces, with semi-precious stones and jade, along with some very silly looking dolls. A good stop if you've got a lot of shopping on your to-do list and you're looking for unique gifts. We also found the sales staff here to be an amiable lot with a light touch when it came to the hard sell.

There are traditional music performances here at 10:15 and 15:15 daily, which are pretty much what you'd expect, but very much worth a listen. Plan your trip here around one of the performance times, and allow plenty of time to hang out and haggle.

So, our itinerary pick for the ticket tour: Tan Ky House, Fujian Assembly Hall, pick a museum, take a look at the Japanese Bridge, and show up at the handicraft shop for one of the music performances, followed by a bit of browsing or buying.

Or, you could just sit in a restaurant along the Cua Dai and watch the boats float by. The culture tour isn't for everybody.