🇻🇳 Hoi An - Knife Making and Sightseeing
The most charming town in Vietnam
Hoi An is a small port town in Vietnam, characterised by its lantern-lit streets and old town. It’s also full of tailors, and a popular destination to get custom-made suits made for a good price. It’s a popular day trip destination, which is exactly what I did from the larger city of Da Nang.
Knife making
I met some Kiwis in a cooking class in Hanoi who recommended a knife-making class in Hoi An to me. What made it special is that the metal used is from American bombshells - a cool story to have for your kitchen knife. I’ve also wanted to try blacksmithing for a long time, so this was right up my street.
It was just me and a Polish girl taking the class that afternoon (as a side effect, really pushing the limits of my rusty Polish), which was set in a quiet village outside Hoi An. There were two blacksmiths at the workshop who helped us and didn’t speak English, and a girl who ran the workshop and acted as a translator.
The knives, indeed, were made from old bombshells:
I asked whether bombshells are used because they’re made of a good material or for the story. The organiser said that it’s for both reasons. The material is good for knives, but they’re fairly high-maintenance, requiring drying right after use.
We chose the shape of our knife blades, which were pre-cut with a machine, and made the knife in a few stages:
Flattening the blade by heating it up and bashing it with a hammer.
Shaping the wooden handle with a sander.
Sanding the blade manually.
Polishing the blade with a machine.
Polishing the blade manually with a scraper.
Sharpening the blade with a whetstone.
It was a fun process that reminded me a lot of silver jewellery making, except now at a larger scale. It was tough work, too, and I ended up with a few blisters. It’d be wrong to say that I fully made the knife, though - it was only a 3-hour workshop, and after most stages, the blacksmiths needed to make a lot of corrections to our knives. The amount they could teach us was also limited because of the language barrier, so we often had to communicate through gestures. Still, it was a fun process and taught me a lot about blacksmithing.
The final result ended up looking great:
After the workshop, I wanted to ship the knife home because I didn’t want to have it in my luggage for the next few months, and I didn’t want to be tied to always checking my luggage in. This proved to be a serious mission, and I wasn’t successful. I tried 3 different couriers and spent a lot of time researching, but the couriers either didn’t want to accept the knife outright or wanted proper paperwork.
Maybe I could’ve been successful with more effort, but I wasn’t too motivated, as the experience of the class was already really fun, and I didn’t fancy having such a high-maintenance knife. There was a “discarded items” box in my hostel, so I left it there. Hopefully, they’ll make some use of it in the kitchen.
Hoi An old town
Hoi An was a really charming city, and I’m glad I got to visit it at night. It was quite busy and touristy, but also I’ve not been anywhere in Vietnam with so much preserved ancient heritage.
I tried cao lầu a few times here (meat and vegan versions), which is a noodle dish from this region. It’s characterised by containing rice noodles soaked in lye water, giving them a coarse, yet soft texture. I ordered seconds every time; it’s a great dish.
The town came alive at night, with the river getting rammed with boats, and live music playing from every corner. It’s an amazing place to just relax by the canal with a drink.
Hoi An Memories
Hoi An is home to a popular cultural show called Hoi An Memories. It’s a huge theatre production that’s set outside, which I’ve never seen before. The scale of it is so large that there’s a whole island pretty much dedicated to a theme park around the production.
The show was split into a few acts telling the story of Hoi An, featuring dancing and various light effects. It was very well done and impressive at such a large scale, but with the music not being live, had a slightly weird feeling to it.
I got back to Da Nang after. Hoi An is a great place, but would probably be best enjoyed in a group for a few days. At the same time, it’s worth getting things tailored here - I’ve spoken to a few travellers who got custom-made suits for around £200, which is a great price. Multiple fittings and measurements require you to be around Hoi An for a few days, though. This is another place for my list of places in Vietnam to come back to.