It's nice to see that all restrictions are basically gone here as the country tries to encourage more and more people to visit here. When you walk around town you can still see a lot of people wearing masks but more often than not, most people are not. It seems we have moved on from Covid here and this is a good thing.
It wasn't that long ago that there was no way that a festival would be allowed but now it seems that there are large events going on all the time. I normally don't attend these things but my friends insisted.
When they told me about it, I had no idea it was going to be this huge. I have no idea how many people were there but there was a lot. One of the main things that was awesome was that there was a bunch of food stalls where you could try things that you might not normally have access to including one of my favorite things on the planet.... crispy pork belly.
A reasonable sized serving of this stuff with sauce cost around $3 and unfortunately it wasn't very filling. That's why I ended up having 3 of them. There were plenty of other things to have out there such as tacos, burgers, and what not but I eat that stuff all the time so it didn't really appeal to me. Beers were cheap too and wine was only $2 a glass. I kind of expected them to put us over the coals because they could charge whatever they wanted at this thing and we would have no choice but to pay but instead they were reasonable. This is around the same price you would pay for the same product in a nearby bar.
There was a stage at the end of the beach where bands were playing and dance routines were going on and for I think the first time since I have been in Vietnam, the sound man didn't try to make all our ears bleed with the choice of volume. They LOVE excessive amplification in this country so this was a very welcome surprise.
By the time we left there were still loads of people just arriving and it was a bit of a nightmare getting the taxi out of this normally quite sleepy part of town. All in it cost me about $20 for the day and considering the amount of fun I had it was really worth it to me.
This is something they do on a regular basis in Hoi An and I will return to do it again in the future. The only problem was that it is hot season right now and I could feel the sweat building up on me almost immediately after our arrival. I guess there isn't anything they can do about that but to pray for a ocean breeze next time.