Located 30 km south of Danang, the port town of Hoi An was called Faifo at the time of the first Westerners arrived and was one of the most important ports of Southeast Asia from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. At its peak time, Hoi An was the destination for merchant vessels from the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, China and Japan...More than any other city in Vietnam, Hoi An retains the atmosphere of the old days when it used to be one of the most prosperous port towns in Asia

Hoi An is an exceptionally well preserved example of a city that was a trading port in Southeast Asia.. Its buildings and narrow streets reflect indigenous traditions as well as the foreign influences that gave birth to this unique heritage.

The city of Hoi An is one of the six World Heritage of Unesco in Vietnam. Hoi An was known to European navigators as Faifo, deformation of Pho Hai which mean merchants seaside resorts throughout Asia ships anchored in the harbor of the city from the fifteenth century. Dealers and foreign residents came and built beautiful wooden houses. Unfortunately, during the insurrection of Son Tay rebellion, the town was almost completely razed, only the Chinese rebuilt their neighborhood. The Japanese preferred to leave the country. The gradual silting up of the port of Hoi An favored the rise of the new port of Da Nang, so that trade gradually ceased in Hoi An

Hoi An was miraculously spared by the recent wars in Vietnam. The city boasts of its old quarters typically Asian and well preserved, unlike most Asian cities are racing to modernity.

It identifies Hoi An more than 800 historic buildings including bridges, pagodas, temples, houses, communal house, graves, wells and so on.

In addition, when you go to Hoi An, you have a good opportunity to visit My Son, another World Heritage Site just 50 km from Hoi An. This site includes 70 architectural works of brick and stone, built between the VII and XIII century.
Their architectural diversity demonstrates the genius and skill of the artisan Cham people. The ruins of My Son are referred to another great civilizations of Southeast Asia, the temples of Angkor Wat. Built by King Bhadresvaraman at the end of the fourth century, My Son became a place of worship of the Champa Kingdom. The Chams were Hindus and it is for this reason that there are many sculptures of gods Shiva, Ganesh, Vishnu in My Son.

With the rise of Buddhism between 758 and 915, the site of My Son continues for some time to be the center of religion and the "genius master of the Creator", but the beginning of the tenth century, perhaps because recovery of Shaivism in the administration of Chams, My Son again to be a place of influence. Through worship, restoration and construction as the Cham people have made My Son more architectural and sculptural remains than any other place in the kingdom of Champa.

After the fifteenth century, the site fell into oblivion and no archive of the old Vietnamese dynasties mentioned it. Thus, when the French discovered in the late nineteenth century, My Son was fully engulfed in the jungle, in the image of Angkor Wat.

Unfortunately, despite having survived the Khmer invaders, Chinese or French, My Son has been extensively damaged by American bombers during the Vietnam War.