A day in Hoi An

The lanterns after the day-trippers leave. By six the day-trippers are gone and the lanterns come on over the river, and you are already at a table by the water. Everything before that is a beach morning and a workshop where the lanterns you take home get made.

Morning

An Bang beach at eight, before the heat. A coast morning without turning the trip into a separate island stay. Ben sleeps until nine, which he will tell you is the best part of the whole trip, and joins by taxi.

Late morning, a lantern workshop in town. Elena and Nora make one each. Mark drinks coffee across the street and watches. This is a shared anchor, not a kids' activity, and it is the souvenir that goes home.

Lunch is cao lau, the noodle dish you only get here. Elena's bowl comes chay. Ben's comes with the herbs on a separate plate so he can ignore them.

Afternoon

The tailor, first. Hoi An is where you get clothes made to measure, and with four nights there is time for the measuring and a fitting or two. Mark gets linen shirts. Elena and Nora get whatever they have been sketching since Hanoi. Yaly Couture is where we go. Jason's linen shirts from there are the most comfortable shirts he owns.

Then the hotel pool. April in central Vietnam is hot by two, and Hoi An rewards families who stop for the middle of the day. Nora and Ben bike the paddies outside town late in the afternoon if they want to. Mark does not, and the pool is fine.

Evening

Dinner is booked for four at a table by the river, timed for the lanterns. Then a slow walk back. There is nothing to schedule here. We end trips in Hoi An on purpose. After a week of mountain roads, a town you can cross on foot is the reward.

Where you sleep

Little Riverside Hoi An, on the Thu Bon River a few hundred meters from the Ancient Town, on the town side of the busy road rather than across it. Close enough that the evening walk is a walk. Connecting family suites with two bathrooms, which matters with two teenagers, an elevator, laundry service so the family flies home with clean clothes, and a pool that earns its place every afternoon. Four nights.