Hoi An: The best city on earth

Mr Quang and I were doing some spying, deep inside central Vietnam. Our mission? To discover the top-secret ingredient of cao lau from a family of fourth-generation noodle-makers, who’ve been making it for 150 years. Possessing a moreish smoky taste and a chewy texture, the exact recipe of Hoi An’s unique dish is shared among only four families who jealously guard the recipe.

Amid the lime-green paddy fields surrounding Hoi An, Mr Quang guided me to the Ta family’s courtyard, where raffia platters of these earthworm-like noodles were drying in the sun. Mrs Ta saw us arrive and had sharp words for Quang. “She’s suspicious of you, she thinks you’ve come to steal their secrets,” he translated.

But he was less forthcoming when it came to the secret ingredient that gives the noodles their unique texture; angling for a scoop, I asked what this might be… “No, no, no,” admonished a smiling Mr Ta, “I cannot tell you that.”

There are no such secrets, however, about the exotic recipe that makes Hoi An a firm travellers’ favourite in South-East Asia – indeed, you, the readers of Wanderlust, have just voted it your ‘Top City’.

A visit to this beguiling river port quickly reveals why it’s heading many a traveller’s to-do list: it has the most complete ancient centre in Vietnam, great shopping and cuisine, and golden sandy beaches close to hand.

If anything, on first impressions Hoi An may seem a little too touristy – almost every ancient building is given over to a hotel, restaurant, bar, tour operator or souvenir shop. Yet this new trade doesn’t in the least contradict its legacy of enticing outsiders.

In return they imprinted a distinct architectural and cultural overlay, witnessed today in eclectic reminders of cosmopolitanism: Japanese arched bridges, French wooden shutters and Chinese pagodas, juxtaposed against sagging circular-tiled roofs and mustard-yellow adobe walls that smoulder at sunset.

Ironically the architectural intactness of Hoi An’s densely packed merchant townhouses survives because of the town’s rapid demise. When the Thu Bon River silted up in the 19th century, the trade ships stopped arriving and economic stagnation preserved it as if in aspic. Now, the modern-day trade is tourism, which has revived the fortunes of this UNESCO World Heritage-listed town.

My hotel, Vinh Hung 1, was a historic treasure itself. At 200 years old, it’s one of Hoi An’s most graceful Chinese merchant’s houses, furnished head-to-toe in polished mahogany, from its lofty ceilings to its creaky floorboards. The six spacious rooms are arranged around an atrium courtyard to the rear, while huge shuttered windows allow morning rays to illuminate a breakfast buffet of fried noodles, dim sum dumplings and speckled dragonfruit.

After breakfast, Nguyen Tuyet Linh breezed by to begin our guided tour of Hoi An’s historic landmarks. Petite and dressed entirely in pink, she shivered as she told me, without irony, “we can’t bear the cold when temperatures fall to around 18-19°C.”

Yet for all this photogenic theatricality I quickly appreciated such monuments are not empty husks recalling abandoned traditions; they retain genuine resonance within 21st-century Hoianese beliefs.

I witnessed childless couples seeking spiritual fertilisation by placing betel nut offerings at the shrine of the 12 sacred ba mu (midwives) while fishermen lit incense sticks at the assembly hall’s ex-voto model ship, beseeching Thien Hau, the protective deity of sailors, for safe passage at sea.

This sense of lived-in authenticity was especially noticeable at night: the Hoianese somewhat reclaim the town centre when the hubbub of visitors dies down. Instead, the atmospherically shadowy lanes echo to sounds of whirring sewing machines, family arguments and laughter, and tile-slapping games of Chinese checkers.

I just went with this nightly flow. “Hello, motorboat… one hour” was the repeated refrain of the boatman moored along the riverfront, offering couples romantic nighttime cruises. A little boy in a shiny silver suit danced ‘Gangnam Style’ for tourist dollars. I lost 10,000 dong (OK, 30p) at an open-air game of musical bingo, whose caller belted out traditional Vietnamese folk songs.

I ended up wandering into a handicrafts emporium that keeps silkworms to demonstrate the A to Z of silk-thread spinning. “One cocoon provides 1km of silk,” explained saleswoman Phuong.

But it’s Hoi An’s much-vaunted cuisine that proves most tantalising. Some restaurants fuse Western presentation with local recipes but I was seeking more traditional fare so headed inside a cho (market) that was sizzling with aromas. It was here I discovered – and became a bit obsessive about – cao lau. I watched as the vendor rapidly mixed the special noodles with pork slices, fish sauce, beansprouts and fresh herbs, and topped them with wonton croutons. It was love at first bite.

“The highest paid worker in my restaurant is the person finding the freshest ingredients from the market,” said leading Hoi An restaurateur, Madam Vy – possibly the closest Vietnam has to a celebrity chef. “Vietnamese cooking is all about fresh produce, the yin and yang of ingredients, and love,” was her mantra during a three-hour cookery class at her Morning Glory school. Under her expert tuition I rustled up a passable spicy mango salad but must confess to a few lumps in my crispy pancakes.

Did she know the secret of cao lau, I wondered? “The dish itself is very cosmopolitan, like Hoi An,” said Madam Vy. “Noodles influenced by the Chinese or Japanese, fresh Vietnamese herbs, French croutons. Special well-water may change the texture, and the smoky taste is from the fire, but there’s an ingredient I don’t understand. I’ve tried making them but they’ve never quite tasted right.”

But other than obstreperous water buffaloes, I had few causes for alarm as I pedalled along nebulous causeways between paddies. From the saddle, I watched rice-planters sewing as the winter’s floodwaters receded; all work is done by hand with scarcely a shred of mechanisation. Among these fields are elaborate, richly painted family tombs. “Some tombs are very expensive; they can cost 30 million dong [about £900, a year’s salary for some] but it’s very important to build a big tomb to honour the family,” Quang later told me.

The fishing villages sheltering within myriad lagoons and tributaries are similarly wedded to the past. In a tidal creek near Cam Thanh village, fishermen squelched through muddy shallows jamming handheld wicker pots upon what looked like carp in the most primitive style of fishing I’ve ever witnessed.

My last big excursion from Hoi An would’ve been somewhat bigger if, in the late 1960s, American bomber pilots hadn’t decided Viet Cong guerrillas were hiding among the Cham ruins of My Son. If you’ve never been to Angkor Wat, this is its hors d’oeuvre: exquisitely decorative Hindu temples set among verdant jungle, built between the fourth and 13th centuries.

Among these temples I discovered another tantalising local mystery. After a fire levelled the wooden My Son around the sixth century, and after the Americans blew large parts of the brick version to smithereens, the next stroke of bad luck came with successive archaeologists, who bodged their restorations because they were unable to replicate a transparent mortar (thought to be a tree resin) used by the Cham.

The Cham builders have taken this secret to the grave. It seems the, much like the Ta family and their cao lau noodles, they were unwilling to share their knowledge. And so it is with Hoi An: though the streets might bustle with visitors, there are still many secrets to be discovered within.

The author travelled with Bamboo Travel. As well as tailormade itineraries, Hoi An features on many of its group trips.

Hoi An was voted Top City in the Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards 2016 – and Bamboo Travel scooped the Silver prize for the Tour Operator category. See more results here…